Canada

7230 readers

801 users here now

What's going on Canada?

Related Communities

🍁 Meta

🗺️ Provinces / Territories

🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.

🏒 Sports

Hockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Toronto Blue Jays

Basketball

Toronto Raptors

Soccer

Main: /c/CanadaSoccer
Toronto FC

💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.

💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales

🗣️ Politics

General:
- Canada Politics
- FairVote Canada
Federal Parties (alphabetical):
- Animal Protection Party of Canada
- NDP
By Province (alphabetical):
- BC Greens

🍁 Social / Culture

Rules

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Consumers may grumble, but these oligopolies are great for investors (www.theglobeandmail.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Canada: three oligopolies in a trenchcoat.

Bank service charges and overdraft fees can infuriate consumers, and more choices could lower their temperature.

From the perspective of investors, though, Canada’s cozy network of oligopolies – in which a few players dominate one sector – can look very different. Slim competition can keep upstarts out and profits in, driving strong shareholder returns and attractive dividends over the long term.

“We have a handful of oligopolies that are able to fend off new entrants (whether regional or foreign) without needing to destroy profits for an extended period of time, or where we need a government financed solution,” Ian de Verteuil, head of portfolio strategy at CIBC Capital Markets, said in an e-mail.

https://archive.is/1BPVW

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What we need in response is an "oligopoly" of labour organization, by which I mean a class solidarity that will be able to hold the corporate oligopolies accountable. Why are workers expected to compete with each other but businesses aren't once they drive or buy their rivals out?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

hold the corporate oligopolies accountable

That's what elected officials are for, unfortunately every party in Canada is the Capitalist Party.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

No they're not. Elected officials will represent whoever puts money in their pockets along with whoever votes for them. And I don't mean illegal corruption. I mean direct political donations needed for those officials' campaigns to get them elected. Electoral democracy is not enough. The only way around it is to take the excess money from the oligopolies via labor organizing so that labor can put more money in the elected officials' pockets instead of the corporations' major shareholders. Then perhaps the elected politicians would truly lean towards labor's interests.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

It's the only way. The more I think about it, the more obvious it is. The only reliable way to take more of the excess profits out of the hands of major shareholders and stop them from funneling it into the politicians pockets is labor organization.