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Decartelization
Decartelization is the transition of a national economy from monopoly control by groups of large businesses, known as cartels, to a free market economy. This change rarely arises naturally, and is generally the result of regulation by a governing body with monopoly of power to decide what structures it likes. A modern example of decartelization is the economic restructuring of Germany after the fall of the Third Reich in 1945. To truly understand the term "decartelization" requires familiarity with the term "cartel". A cartel is a formal (explicit) agreement among firms. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry (oligopoly), where there are a small number of sellers, and usually involve homogeneous products (see Homogeneity and heterogeneity). Cartel members may agree on such matters as price fixing, total industry output, market shares, allocation of customers, allocation of territories, bid rigging, establishment of common sales agencies ( sales agents), and the divisio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or company, enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing. This contrasts with a monopsony which relates to a single entity's control of a Market (economics), market to purchase a good or service, and with oligopoly and duopoly which consists of a few sellers dominating a market. Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce the good (economics), good or Service (economics), service, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit. The verb ''monopolise'' or ''monopolize'' refers to the ''process'' by which a company gains the ability to raise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Office Of Fair Trading
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) was a non-ministerial government department of the United Kingdom, established by the Fair Trading Act 1973, which enforced both consumer protection and competition law, acting as the United Kingdom's economic regulator. The OFT's goal was to make markets work well for consumers, ensuring vigorous competition between fair dealing businesses and prohibiting unfair practices such as rogue trading, scams, and cartels. Its role was modified and its powers changed with the Enterprise Act 2002. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) announced reforms to the consumer protection and competition regimes. Under the provisions of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was established on 1 April 2014, combining many of the functions of the OFT and the Competition Commission and superseding both. Regulation for the consumer credit industry passed from the OFT to the new Financial Conduc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Wallich
Henry Christopher Wallich (; June 10, 1914 – September 15, 1988) was a German American economist who served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1974 to 1986. He previously served as a member of the Council of the Economic Advisers under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Wallich also held a professorship of economics at Yale University. He was best known as an economic columnist for ''Newsweek'' magazine, from 1965 until he joined The Federal Reserve. For a period he wrote one week in three, with Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson, with their 1967 columns earning the magazine a Gerald Loeb Special Award in 1968. Early life Wallich was born in Berlin on June 10, 1914, to Paul and Hildegard Rehrmann Wallich. His father and paternal grandfather were both bankers. Wallich had a brother, Walter, and a sister, Christel. He began 10 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1941, becoming chief of its foreign research division. He earned a Ph.D. (Doctor of P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regulation over public and private life. It is regarded as the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism. In totalitarian states, political power is often held by autocrats, such as dictators (totalitarian dictatorship) and absolute monarchs, who employ all-encompassing campaigns in which propaganda is broadcast by state-controlled mass media in order to control the citizenry. By 1950, the term and concept of totalitarianism entered mainstream Western political discourse. Furthermore this era also saw anti-communist and McCarthyist political movements intensify and use the concept of totalitarianism as a tool to convert pre-World War II anti-fascism into Cold War anti-communism. As a political ideology in itself, totalitarianism is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soziale Marktwirtschaft
The social market economy (SOME; german: soziale Marktwirtschaft), also called Rhine capitalism, Rhine-Alpine capitalism, the Rhenish model, and social capitalism, is a socioeconomic model combining a free-market capitalist economic system alongside social policies and enough regulation to establish both fair competition within the market and a welfare state. It is sometimes classified as a regulated market economy. The social market economy was originally promoted and implemented in West Germany by the Christian Democratic Union of Germany under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1949, and today the term is used by ordoliberals, social liberals, and social democrats, who generally reject full state ownership of the means of production but support egalitarian distribution of all goods and services in a market segment. Its origins can be traced to the interwar Freiburg school of economic thought. The social market economy was designed to be a middle way between ''laissez-faire'' for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Market Economy
A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers are unimpeded by price controls or restrictions on contract freedom. The major characteristic of a market economy is the existence of factor markets that play a dominant role in the allocation of capital and the factors of production. Market economies range from minimally regulated free-market and ''laissez-faire'' systems where state activity is restricted to providing public goods and services and safeguarding private ownership, to interventionist forms where the government plays an active role in serving special interests and promoting social welfare. State intervention can happen at the production, distribution, trade and consumption areas in the economy. The distribution of basic need services and goods like health care may be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Independence
Financial independence is the status of having enough income or wealth sufficient to pay one's living expenses for the rest of one's life without having to be employed or dependent on others.Cummuta, John. The Myths & Realities of Achieving Financial Independence". Nightingale Conant. Retrieved on 14-Sep-2009 Income earned without having to work a job is commonly referred to as passive income. Others define financial independence differently according to their own goals. There are many strategies to achieve financial independence, each with their own benefits and drawbacks. Someone who wishes to achieve financial independence can find it helpful to have a financial plan and budget, so that they have a clear view of their current incomes and expenses, and can identify and choose appropriate strategies to move towards their financial goals. A financial plan addresses every aspect of a person's finances. Passive sources of income to achieve financial independence The following ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, individuals, economic and social groups, etc. The rivalry can be over attainment of any exclusive goal, including Recognition (sociology), recognition: Competition occurs in nature, between living organisms which co-exist in the same natural environment, environment. Animals compete over water supplies, food, mates, and other resource (biology), biological resources. Humans usually Survival of the fittest, compete for food and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit of wealth, power, prestige, and celebrity, fame when in a static, repetitive, or unchanging environment. Competition is a major tenet of market economy, market economies and business, often associated with business competition as companies a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Beers Antitrust Litigation
The De Beers diamonds antitrust class action sought to end an alleged 60-year conspiracy to fix the price of rough diamonds in the U.S. by the De Beers group of companies. The litigation includes several cases including ''Hopkins v. De Beers Centenary A.G., et al.'', No. CGC-04-432954, which commenced on July 24, 2004, and ''Sullivan v. DB Investments'', No. 04-cv-02819, and earlier related cases that commenced in 2001. Allegations The complaints charged that De Beers had created a global cartel in the markets of rough and polished diamonds – with a market share that reached nearly as high as 90% – through aggressive management of supply and prices, and collusive agreements with competitors, suppliers, and distributors. This was a quintessential antitrust violation of the Sherman Act. Settlement agreement In October 2005, the parties reached a preliminary agreement to settle the claims of all indirect purchasers nationwide, with Sullivan serving as the procedural vehicle f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Beers
De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and coastal mining. It operates in 35 countries and mining takes place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Canada and Australia. From its inception in 1888 until the start of the 21st century, De Beers controlled 80% to 85% of rough diamond distribution and was considered a monopoly. Competition has since dismantled the complete monopoly; the De Beers Group now sells approximately 29.5% of the world's rough diamond production by value through its global sightholder and auction sales businesses. The company was founded in 1888 by British businessman Cecil Rhodes, who was financed by the South African diamond magnate Alfred Beit and the London-based N M Rothschild & Sons bank. In 1926, Ernest Oppenheimer, a German immigrant to Britain and later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bell System Divestiture
The breakup of the Bell System was mandated on January 8, 1982, by an agreed consent decree providing that AT&T Corporation would, as had been initially proposed by AT&T, relinquish control of the Bell Operating Companies, which had provided local telephone service in the United States. This effectively took the monopoly that was the Bell System and split it into entirely separate companies that would continue to provide telephone service. AT&T would continue to be a provider of long-distance service, while the now-independent Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), nicknamed the "Baby Bells", would provide local service, and would no longer be directly supplied with equipment from AT&T subsidiary Western Electric. This divestiture was initiated by the filing in 1974 by the United States Department of Justice of an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T. AT&T was, at the time, the sole provider of telephone service throughout most of the United States. Furthermore, most telephonic eq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bell System
The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over one hundred years from its creation in 1877 until its antitrust breakup in 1983. The system of companies was often colloquially called Ma Bell (as in "Mother Bell"), as it held a vertical monopoly over telecommunication products and services in most areas of the United States and Canada. At the time of the breakup of the Bell System in the early 1980s, it had assets of $150 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ) and employed over one million people. Ever since the 1910s, American antitrust regulators had been observing and accusing the Bell System of abusing its monopoly power, and had brought legal action multiple times over the decades, until in 1974 the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice brought a lawsuit against Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
