In October 2016 AT&T announced that it intended to buy Time Warner Cable for $84.5 billion. The merger would create one of the biggest media companies in the history of the U.S. The announcement sparked criticism from Congressional Democrats and Republicans who argued that huge corporate mergers create monopolies which prevent competition. Since President Obama took office his administration has prevented several mega-mergers from taking place including Sprint and T-Mobile, AT&T and T-Mobile and Allergan and Pfizer. In 2015 $3.8 trillion dollar’s worth of mergers and acquisitions occurred which made it the largest year for corporate consolidation in the history of the U.S. Proponents of mergers argue that the government should not interfere with corporations and the free market should be allowed to run its own course.
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Yes, and require companies to publicly display the nature of their ownership to increase consumer knowledge and corporate transparency.
Yes, and the government should nationalize existing mega corporations
The government should socialize the private sector and make it operate as one public utility
No, the government should nationalize corporations that have more than 50% if the market share
Yes, and enterprises should be worker owned or state owned for essential services
Yes, but preferably nationalize all industry.
Yes, and break up all corporations into worker co-ops
Yes; if the merger would consolidate market share above 15% or more than 10% above the remaining competition, would directly reduce innovation or competitiveness in the market without accountable public benefit, or be otherwise judged against the public good in terms of price, quality, or availability of existing products & services.
No, but if the merger will cause industry wide impacts then yes.
Yes, and the government should break up existing mega corporations, and existing anti-trust laws should be modernized and strengthened
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