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Decartelisation
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 the authority to decide what structures are permissible. 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 divi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce a particular thing, 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 prices or exclude competitors. In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge Monopoly price, overly high prices, which is associated with unfair price raises. Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry (or market). A monopoly may als ... [...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 intention was for the OFT 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 by 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 of the consumer credit sector passed from the OFT to the new Financial ... [...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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sphere and the private sphere of society. In the field of political science, totalitarianism is the extreme form of authoritarianism, wherein all socio-political power is held by a dictator. This figure controls the national politics and peoples of the nation with continual propaganda campaigns that are broadcast by state-controlled and state-aligned private mass communications media. The totalitarian government uses ideology to control most aspects of human life, such as the political economy of the country, the system of education, the arts, sciences, and private morality of its citizens. In the exercise of socio-political power, the difference between a totalitarian regime of government and an authoritarian regime of government is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soziale Marktwirtschaft
The social market economy (SOME; ), also called Rhine capitalism, Rhine-Alpine capitalism, the Rhenish model, and social capitalism, is a socioeconomic model combining a free-market capitalist economic system with social policies and enough regulation to establish both fair competition within the market and generally 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 under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1949 and today it is used by ordoliberals, social liberals and social democrats alike. 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'' forms of capitalism and socialist economics. It was strongly inspired by ordoliberalism, which was influenced by the political ideology of Christian democracy. Social market refrains from attemp ... [...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. 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 correcting market failures and promoting social welfare. State-directed or dirigist economies are those where the state plays a directive role in guiding the overall development of the market through industrial policies or indicative planning—which guides yet does not substitute the market for economic planning—a form sometimes r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Financial Independence
Financial independence is a state where an individual or household has accumulated sufficient financial resources to cover its living expenses without having to depend on active employment or work to earn money in order to maintain its current lifestyle. These financial resources can be in the form of investment or personal use assets, passive income, income generated from side jobs, inheritance, pension and retirement income sources, and varied other sources. The concept of financial independence goes beyond just having enough money or wealth. Achieving financial independence gives freedom to make the best use of time to pursue life's goals and dreams, or help the citizens of the community to lead a life with purpose. It is a state where one has come to terms with the fact of having accumulated enough, has been freed from the shackles of debt and the tendency to make poor financial decisions, and has transformed their relationship with money to make healthy financial choices. ... [...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. Competition occurs in nature, between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. Animals compete over water supplies, food, mates, and other biological resources. Humans usually compete for food and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit of wealth, power, prestige, and fame when in a static, repetitive, or unchanging environment. Competition is a major tenet of market economies and business, often associated with business competition as companies are in competition with at least one other firm over the same group of customers. Competition inside a compan ... [...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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Beers
The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial and coastal mining. It operates in 35 countries, with mining taking place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Canada. It also has an artisanal mining business, Gemfair, which operates in Sierra Leone. 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. By 2000, the company's control of the world diamond supply decreased to 63%. 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 South Africa who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bell System Divestiture
The Bell System held a virtual monopoly over telephony infrastructure in the United States since the early 20th century until January 8, 1982. This divestiture of the Bell Operating Companies was initiated in 1974 when the United States Department of Justice filed '' United States v. AT&T'', an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T. At the time, AT&T had substantial control over the United States' communications infrastructure. Not only was it the sole telephone provider throughout most of the country, its subsidiary Western Electric produced much of its equipment. Relinquishing ownership of Western Electric was one of the Justice Department’s primary demands. AT&T Corporation proposed in a consent decree to relinquish control of the Bell Operating Companies, which had provided local telephone service in the United States. 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", w ... [...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 AT&T Corporation, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America for over 100 years from its creation in 1877 until United States v. AT&T (1982), 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. Beginning in 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. In 1974 the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Anti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
