Stop The Anti-Competitive Market Any Way You Can

We are living through perhaps the greatest market correction of all time. The anti-competitive market that we got stuck with is not what we must have. Though many people have resigned themselves to “the way things are,” that is not the way things have to be. In fact, if we do not end this anti-competitive market, it will devolve into a much more tragic scenario. We still have time to stop that, though.

Like a drug addiction, you have to admit it’s an anti-competitive market in order to stop it. But before you can do that, you have to be able to even recognize one when you see it. If there only appears to be choice but in reality there is no choice, that is an anti-competitive market condition. When you track money management for example, you see that of the (3) major providers who cover millions of clients, all of those clients are ultimately put into the same (3) indexes: NASDAQ, Dow, S&P. Then you look at the major weight in those indexes and it’s all the same several stocks. Smaller money management firms essentially suggest the same strategy, making asset management effectively anti-competitive.

Apple Is A Quintessential Anti-Competitive Company Now

Look at something like Apple in particular. Their most major competitor is Samsung. Yet Apple uses Samsung screens and other parts, and these two barely compete for the same customer base. They stay in their lanes and don’t stray too far. How hard would it be for Apple to make an Android device? Perhaps Google has suppressed this possibility, but Samsung could also make their own proprietary operating system if they so chose. It is not even that much of a technical feat to begin with.

You can find some other phone makers, but they are basically just hardware cases for Android operating systems. Some version of a Google phone. Microsoft may or may not even be in the game anymore, it’s hard to tell sometimes. Personally I use a now defunct brand of phone, and they are not really serviceable anywhere. The phone business is a completely anti-competitive market now.

Computers are virtually the same thing. You’ll find this kind of condition in most industries actually. But that’s just one level of the anti-competitive market. Underneath the surface when you combine these various anti-competitive markets together, you get a compound anti-competitive market impact. For example, if you look at the top shareholders of most major stocks today, you’ll see the same pattern.

Apple is again, a perfect example. The top owner of Apple is Vanguard, at 7.6% or $185,000,000,000 in value. However, that is Vanguard itself. If you are Vanguard customer you do not own that much. For Vanguard customers, Vanguard has various mutual funds such as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund which subsequently owns only 2.17% of Apple. No (1) Vanguard product owns more than Vanguard itself in any of their holdings. That means somehow, Vanguard is allowed to operate an anti-competitive business where they make fees managing money for people who will never be able to outvote their manager.

Forget about ESG, this is the real problem: anti-competitive markets.

There Is An Escape From Anti-Competitive Markets

These kinds of convoluted, protracted anti-competitive markets give consumers the false sense that they have a chance of have good financial stewards for their capital. No matter where you turn you run into the same companies, running the same scams, and no checks against it. When was the last time you remember some entrepreneur saying they were going to “disrupt” the mobile phone industry? A long time ago. That’s because in order to raise money from such a venture, you’d be opening up a legitimately novel equity – which cannot exist in an anti-competitive market. They need things to remain status quo.

The status quo has been maintained in the technology space for about 20 years. You think things have changed so much because of the speed of the internet or the ability to access it from a mobile phone but in reality, it doesn’t. Consider any breaking news story of the last 5 years, including things you thought were at one time monumental. The amount of change that actually registered on a daily basis is so minimal it would have actually been better that you were not given so many fictitious updates.

The News Won’t Report On Their Own Anti-Competitive Problem

Across all news channels you will see reporters covering the same stories, often at the same time, with the same sources, and yet often a slightly different “take” or angle depending on the political bent of the network you’re viewing. But CNN & FOX are the same. You won’t ever see one of them run a story that is counter to the main stream. Contrary to popular opinion, though, the main stream of media is not limited to only the largest networks. Channels on YouTube echo the same points the major stations do. They pretend to be independent but take their cues from the same exact places. Non-conformity is not allowed. Anti-competitive markets have ruined the news business by eliminating actual options.

If you’ve been succeeding in the anti-competitive markets for decades even, that has likely come to a crashing halt. You won’t see these stories on the news because the news business is invested in the same exact schema. That’s why it’s taking longer for word to spread, and changes to be made. But watching the main stream, you can see the waves that I’ve been making take shape, changing things. As you wake up, the pain of removing the numbing sensation previously provided by this anti-competitive market dynamic could be difficult to stomach. Rest assured, though, if you endure it, you will be thankful.