MERGERS AND INCREASING CORPORATISM

Last week's Woolwich Observer carried an Opinion piece by Steve Kannon, Editor of the newspaper. The title was "Ag. industry mergers underscore the dangers of increasing corporatism". Bayer recently announced that it will be buying Monsanto for $66 billion. Just prior to that Potash Corp. and Agrium announced a $30 billion merger and ChemChina is buying Syngenta for $43 billion. Lastly Dupont and Dow will complete a $68 billion merger. Steve believes that none of these are in anybody's benefit except the shareholders. Consumers of these products will pay higher prices and receive less overall.

Steve also refers to corporations who've long owned the politicians responsible for oversight into corporate behaviour. Basically consumers are the huge losers in these mergers both with higher, monopolistic prices and with lower quality due to lessened competition. All in all society and the 99% are fast losing ground to the 1% and it is due to increasing power, wealth and political influence of ever larger corporations.