On: Leaked documents show strong business support for raising the minimum wage

[bsbechtel]

Why are most industries dominated by a few? It's not because they pay the lowest. It's because consumers chose to support those few businesses.

[tma-1 → bsbechtel]

Nope, they're dominated by a few because when a specific company becomes successful enough it can buy out the rest of the players.

[Tideflat → tma-1]

This only works when there are economies of scale. If there are significant dis-economies of scale smaller firms can out-compete the large firms.

The large firm can't just buy up all the small firms either because new firms are started all the time, and if every person who starts a small firm is rewarded with a buyout, the industry will attract more and more new firms until the large firm can no longer afford to buy out new firms. --------------- Examples of industries that not dominated by three or four large companies: mining, farming, house cleaning, and being a land lord.

[tma-1 → Tideflat]

It happens when large firms have a lot of extra liquidity and cheap debt. Look at FB and Google.