What we got the last fifty years was “bigger”.
One thing is for certain, we didn’t get “better”.
It dawned on me on a long drive back to Florida recently that consolidation has happened across the board in American industry. The smaller businesses were consumed by larger conglomerates, and in turn those conglomerates got bigger, and bigger and bigger until there were a nationwide behemoth.
I was listening to absolute dreck on the radio, and making some attempt to change stations as we migrated South and signals disappeared from contact, when I realized it didn’t matter what new station I tuned to, I was getting the same dreck. You see, I Heart Radio has consumed stations across the country and is programming the same crap on a continuous loop. Just when you think you won’t have to hear the same repetitive awful over, and over in Taylor, and Beyonce, and Bieber, the static drowns out the station and you change over to a new station location on your route and are bombarded with Taylor, Beyonce, and Bieber. New station, same crap.
All of US radio is now in synchronicity. All stations owned by some major conglomerate that dictates play lists, and all things heard. If “Diversity is our strength” you wouldn’t know it from current terrestrial radio because everything is the same, there is no diversity.
Made me think back to the old, old, days. Driving to college and finding an Annapolis station that played “alternative rock”. And hearing Robert Palmer singing “Give me an inch, girl”, and “Pressure Drop” from his at-the-time newly released album “Pressure Drop”. This was all a revelation. A sound I’d not heard before. I purchased the cassette later that afternoon. I consider it overall one of the best albums in total I’ve ever heard. The back-up band was so tight, so perfectly melded in sound I even had to research them. Turns out it was Little Feat backing up Englishman Robert Palmer on the entire album. Out I went to buy their music.
Today that would never happen. The music is universal, pre-selected, dictated, controlled.
I know, I know, no one listens to terrestrial radio any longer, I sound like an aged idiot.
But even Spotify and other music services are all pre-programmed crap. I had Sirius XM, the monotony of their play lists wore me down, I had to get out. No need to pay to hear the same twelve songs on loop, even on my favorite “station” on the site.
We are not better for the consolidation.
I was car shopping last Friday. Saw two almost identical cars at two different dealerships. Attempted to play one, against another. Turns out they are both owned by the same damn company. Two different Mercedes dealerships, but same owner, some conglomerate known as “New Country”.
How can you win when the two salesman can collude to prevent negotiation, when as a buyer you are deluded into thinking you have created some competition for your business? You can’t. You’d don’t. You are in a rigged game where you cannot win.
All of this consolidation was recognizable first years and years ago in the car sales industry. Long ago there’d be individual dealers scattered across town. Over time and with consolidation we got “auto malls”, with five, six, seven brands all under one ownership and control. Braman took over brands all the way down I 95. Want a Cadillac, but don’t want to deal with Braman? Oh, that is just too bad. Do you think that benefits the dealer, or the consumer?
I read where at the time Clinton deregulated the media industry that there were some 56 different companies involved in mainstream media bringing us news and information. And that after his deregulation and consolidation we are down to 6. From 56 different small companies competing to 6 that have a monopoly on almost all information flow from our screens. Now how do you think that is working out for us?
Over the last sixty plus years you can really see the effects of consolidation in banking. Deregulation created behemoths that are called “too big to fail”, who make giant mistakes requiring bail outs from our government that stretch into the billions of dollars. We used to have regional banks. Now it is all national concerns. I don’t think consolidation in banking has helped the US consumer. It has certainly rewarded Wall Street, in 2008 Obama bailed out all the banks and the bonuses kept flowing. Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner, well, they weren’t helped quite so much.
Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Banking, Big Agra; all with the power now to have the tail wag the dog. The dog being our government. These conglomerates can pour so much money into the re-election campaigns of our current representatives they can control who we get to elect.
Heads big business wins, Tails big business wins. Consumers lose. Big.
Legalized pot is on the ballot this November in Florida. They are running an ad saying that the bill being introduced was written by “Big Pot”. The major players in the pot growing industry actually wrote the bill being voted upon. Gee, I wonder who benefits if that passes? Apparently it outlaws individuals growing for themselves. I wonder how much cash has changed hands on this one. I’d be against the bill anyway, nothing is as ridiculous as trying to lay on the beach smelling the fresh salt air and all you smell is pot. All day. All weekend. You can’t even sit at the backyard pool absent the constant smell of pot.
Americans are so freaking miserable they can’t get through a Tuesday absent baking their mind to numb. I’d like to see the study on pot users who are also taking SSRIs. My bet is there is a direct correlation. The same people waking and taking their Prozac, or Adderal, or Paxil, are the same ones baking their heads all day, every day. Excuse me, but if you have to swallow Adderal to face the day, then bake your mind numb with pot all day, could it be that you have some refusal to face reality, and in actuality are a miserable fuck? Could that be possible? Perhaps? Maybe?
Because to me, if you have to swallow Adderal and reach for a bong in the morning, you need serious intervention. You have a reality avoidance that is serious.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand.
Remember when Nancy said, regarding the health care bill, “we have to pass it to see what is in it”? That is because the health industry lobbyists wrote the bill. Funny how all our premiums have increased, and our deductibles have gone through the roof since they passed that bill. And they haven’t stopped yet. Now they want “Universal Health Care” passed, single-payer, the government.
One can only wonder just how high our premiums will go, and how high the deductibles per person in family can go if they get their way on that one. They keep preaching that there will be some “savings” by having everyone on the same plan. All I know is, where health care is concerned, if you have 100 people receiving care and paying for care, you have one cost. And if you add 40 people and have 140 people receiving care, but still only 100 people paying into the system, well, I fail to see how that can cost less. I don’t see where the synergies are for savings when you add 40 recipients, but no more cash, in a system with a finite number of hospital beds.
Costs have to go up.
Oh hey, and look, consolidation has been happening in the hospital industry as well. Otherwise how is it there is a “Cleveland Clinic” up the street from me in Florida, along with a “Mayo Clinic” in Jacksonville, when there used to be just one Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
Consolidation appears from this seat to have worked very well for big business, not so well for the consumer. All we have is the illusion of choice.
You can drive to a dealership in North Palm, you can drive to a dealership in West Palm; choice! Hold on a minute, wait just a minute right there. Both are under the “umbrella” of a bigger company. Sorry, the price on that 2020 used E Class is what it is. This isn’t 1974 Mr. Herman, no one bargains anymore. We aren’t rug merchants here.
What we need is a return to smaller, and simple. We need a return to real competition, not the illusion of competition. We need a splintering, a break down, of these giant institutions, back into regional sized organizations at worst, and individual companies at best.
Bigger is serving the current system, and the current system is pushing all the money to the big, the biggest, the rich and super rich. As the middle class disappears.
Consolidation serves the corporation. It doesn’t serve the individual consumer.
Just a suggestion, but when car shopping perhaps view the business card first, see if the dealership is owned and controlled by some mega-conglomerate. Before you say, “well, I’m heading to the other dealership where they have an almost identical car, and that one has two thousand less original miles, and hasn’t been in an accident”.
And you see the smug assured look on the face of the salesman, and wonder why he is so confident you’ll return, as you drive off his lot. The second suggestion is not to stop for fast food in between dealers. Arby’s should be outlawed in all 50 states.
It’s bad enough I didn’t get the new car I wanted and deserve, I spent the entire weekend brooding over it. In the bathroom.