Business Analysis : Wal Mart 's Monopoly

Wal-Mart is an American multinational retail corporation and one of the leading discount department retail stores (Wikipedia). It is the highest- grossing company in the United States (Fortune 2008a), and is by far one of the most successful companies worldwide. Wal-Mart offers a place to buy the majority of our goods under one roof like electronics, furniture, clothing, pharmacy, sports, food, books etc. Wal-Mart sells good at lower price than the others and this is even shown by its slogan “save money, live better”.  It drives out smaller and sometimes even the expensive stores out of business due to its lower prices. Wal-Mart provides jobs for thousands of

Finally is the allowance of these monopolies to rise in the first place. Since there were no regulatory agencies back in the second industrial revolution, big businessmen with the idea of trimming fat in their companies could conquer any competitor by using hardball tactics of purposely

Monopolies are quite dangerous economically, and are usually broken up by the federal government, with only two exceptions- electricity, and gas. These are modern examples. A monopoly is the economic term for when a company that makes a product has no competition, and can raise the prices as high as they want. For example, the most obvious and powerful monopoly of the industrial revolution was the railroad monopoly. They made money quite quickly as a shipping company, and destroyed any and all competition as the only transcontinental railroad at the time. It’s leader, Cornelius Vanderbilt came to be considered one of the most powerful people of all time, due to his control over who he shipped for.

Unknowingly, Antitrust began a cycle of Rule of Reason, which is the Lax Enforcement, and the Per Se Rule, which is the tight enforcement (Boyes 2013, p 249). Litigation of the Antirust law was not frequent, and that’s because between the years of passage 1890 and 1914, only seven cases were tried by the Supreme Court, in which they broke up monopolized companies like Northern Securities, and Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey; but also allowed the formation of major league baseball. This period of Lax Enforcement ended with the passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act, and ushered in Per Se Rule. The changes to Antitrust laws gave a more clear definition to the law by guide lining the prohibitions of price discrimination, the creations of barriers to enter a market, outlaws mergers deemed unfair, and imbalanced methods of business; the Federal Trade Commission was also allowed to investigate into these practices. Since 1941, the FTC and it parent division, the Justice Department, had filed over 2,800 cases related to Antitrust, but it is the private sector that had an exponential amount lawsuits filed. Between the passage of these two laws and the Supreme Court Justice William Douglas, who prized the laws, any inkling of proof that a business could be monopolizing or engaging in unfair business practices, almost always lead to a guilty verdict that mostly results in a heavy fine, and in extreme

Wal-Mart, the largest retail companies in the world (Farfan), plays a crucial role in American economics. No matter, I am at home or on campus, even when I was traveling in other states in America, there is always a Wal-Mart market nearby my location. Due to the super big market power Wal-Mart has, and people’s negative impression of large enterprises, there is always a debate about whether Wal-Mart is good for America or not. Some people believe Wal-Mart makes the small retailers fail, and its workers have low wages and benefits; while others argue that Wal-Mart creates more jobs to the local, provides lower prices to consumers, and encourage American economic growth. Inspired by an article about whether Wal-Mart is a monopoly I read in my economics class, I am curious about the economic impact of Wal-Mart.

Many companies and people have committed monopolies before they were illegal and even after it. A monopoly is when one person has complete control over a company and makes close to 100% of the profits but because of the The Sherman Antitrust Act passed on April 8, 1890, “combination in the form of trust and otherwise, conspiracy in restraint of trade.” In simple terms the act prohibited any forms of monopoly in business and marketing fields. Monopolies committed before the Act, making it legal in every way but unethical, by some of the famously known marketers like John D. Rockefeller making him filthy rich. While others committed after The Sherman Antitrust Act caused a company like Microsoft to be sued and have a bruised ego.

Another question posed by the case was whether or not Microsoft’s conduct benefitted consumers. The senior group vice president of Microsoft, Paul Maritz believes Microsoft operations did benefit consumers, stating that Window’s popularity was due to Microsoft’s “efforts to innovate, evangelize and license the software cheaply” (Baron, p. 317). Microsoft’s alleged monopoly did benefit consumers when price and compatibility are considered, as the operating software was cheap and accessible by most consumers, especially given the fact so many applications were written specifically to interact with

What is monopoly? A seller that has no competition in selling a unique product (The Economic Times 1). In Is It Time to Break Up Google? by Jonathan Taplin Argues that regulating natural monopolies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon will prevent economic inequality. (Taplin 2). Taplin mentions three ways to regulate these Monopolies. I totally disagree because even though most of these companies have a large percentage of market share they are not the only companies out there. These companies are not forcing us to use their software, we have choices, but they have what we are looking for.

The good Wal-Mart Seglin describes as thrifty, industrious and offer fair deals. They serve society and due to their exceptional distribution system, pass along gains to everyone. The

Monopolies are defined by having extremely limited or no competition, high barriers to entry, and a significant amount of control over the marketplace. One common example of a company that is viewed as potentially monopolistic is Microsoft. Microsoft is the provider of the most popular operating system on the planet. Because of Microsoft's market position and power, Microsoft can charge a premium price for their goods and services and consumers cannot negotiate or easily switch to another platform. In most cases consumers are "locked in" to the Microsoft system because for them to switch to a different platform the consumers would have to extend a significant amount of effort to switch to the other system as well as learn how to function within the system.

Does the government have the right to regulate large corporations, namely the Microsoft Corporation? If so, then to what extent can the government do so? Based on our research, it is the government’s responsibility to remedy Microsoft’s noncompetitive behavior in order to increase fair competition.

Wal-Mart is widely recognized as one of the leading discount variety store chains. It is the nations largest discount department store chain, and also one of the largest discounters in the nation in terms of sales dollars.

What is a monopoly? According to Webster's dictionary, a monopoly is "the exclusive control of a commodity or service in a given market.” Such power in the hands of a few is harmful to the public and individuals because it minimizes, if not eliminates normal competition in a given market and creates undesirable price controls. This, in turn, undermines individual enterprise and causes markets to crumble. In this paper, we will present several aspects of monopolies, including unfair competition, price control, and horizontal, vertical, and conglomerate mergers.

Microsoft and its supporter’s claims that they are not breaking any laws, and are just

     When you talk about Wal-Mart the first thing that you have to remember is that they are the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart employs more people in the United States than any other company and is second only to the federal government in the number of employees that they have on the payroll. These are important facts to consider in that due to their tremendous size, Wal-Mart has an enormous