A Land of Monopolists: From Portable Toilets to Mixed Martial Arts | Hacker News Reader

A Land of Monopolists: From Portable Toilets to Mixed Martial Arts

mattstoller.substack.com

74 pointsjayliew48 comments

2 things I got out of this, first is how I see the same names showing up multiple times. KKR and Platinum Equity seem to have a niche for obscure monopolies. And also that is seems to be a viable strategy to start a port-a-john business to be acquired by Platinum Equity's United Site Services port-a-john empire.

Also Dana White hasn't been run out of town yet and everyday I wonder how that is still possible.

The cult of JRE fans helped give its popularity another boost, but in reality, what other league are you going to watch save a different fight sport like boxing? People like to huddle around the cooler and focus on one league (See: NFL, MLB, NBA). That's not to say WNBA or XFL don't exist, but think about the multiplier of games you'd have to keep track of with your friends for all of them.

Natural entertainment monopolies...interesting concept.

Well OneFC is a pretty viable competitor in Asian markets. I love their 4oz muay thai division. PFL seems like it has a lot of potential in the US but trying to overthrow a monopoly is hard of course.

I agree with your statement though, I've written about it before back when XFL was going on. I think there is some potential for multiple fighting orgs however. But first they need to take away some market share from UFC. Once they get on more even grounds we might see cross-promotion fights, something that is normal in boxing. As it stands though, UFC has nothing to gain from that, but Bellator/OneFC cross promotion has been floated in the past.

ONE (previously OneFC) is not a competitor in any sense of the word. They have extremely low ratings, were kicked off of ESPN for low ratings, and have to comp most tickets to every show. They are deeply unprofitable and simply burning investor (now VC) cash

Chatri said that 3 billion people watched a recent ONE event. How can you say they have low ratings?

Brock Lesnar is what broke UFC through. Then Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor gave us the current era we have today.

> Also Dana White hasn't been run out of town yet and everyday I wonder how that is still possible.

Because UFC makes fights happen. How long did it take for Manny and Floyd to finally go head to head?

Like so many articles in this space, there is a lot of assumption, claims without evidence and vague assertions. The author doesn't seem to know what Predatory Pricing is. He also dismisses economics of scale as an accounting fiddle.

I sympathetize with his general position (as life gets complex, barriers to entry rise and markets of many small companies are replaced by one's of a few big companies.

But then he gets lost in his own prejudices/conspiracy theories about harvard, financial engineering etc. Not really helpful to his wider point...

If you're not broadly familiar with Matt Stoller- he's an ideologue. He is a far, far leftist on economic issues.

>He also dismisses economics of scale as an accounting fiddle

He proposed on Twitter to make bulk discounting illegal for the entire US economy, on the theory that any kind of discounting is just predatory pricing. In other words, whether you buy 1 computer server or 10,000, 2 avocados or 2 million, the price per unit would be exactly the same. He thinks this would harm large companies and help smaller ones

So many people start with the result they want (more small companies) and then smash everything with a hammer pretending that is the sensible, justified way to get there with no side effects...

> He proposed on Twitter to make bulk discounting illegal for the entire US economy, on the theory that any kind of discounting is just predatory pricing.

Is this a real thing? I follow Stoller on Twitter, and have never heard him say anything like that. Just that predatory pricing is often snuck in under the guise of "discounting" (which is true).

He's definitely a centrist on economic policy, which turns a lot of people away (most Americans have never heard of a centrist view of any policy of any kind, and most Americans are far more conservative than they'd ever actually admit to). But nothing about him seems ideologue-ish, and he's certainly not anywhere near left-wing on economic policy.

Could you provide any example where discounting was actually proved to be predatory pricing?

How is discounting not a valid method of pricing?

Flooding a market with below-cost goods (or "discounts"), to drive out competitors so that you can generate a monopoly, is predatory pricing -- literally by textbook definition. It's also illegal, it is a direct violation of US federal anti-trust law.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

No one is against "discounting" (as in, coupons for Cheerios, or discounts for bulk orders). But illegal predatory pricing is often passed through the economy under the disguise of "a discount", and it's correct for people to challenge that.

It most certainly is illegal, but can you find a definitive example of such behavior?

It's theoretically a highly illegal and unethical thing to do, but in reality, monopoly control of a market is highly unlikely.

I mean, one textbook example of that behaviour is late-90's-Microsoft --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

Amazon's behaviour today is another example of it, but since we haven't really enforced any anti-trust laws in the past decade, it would be easy for someone to claim Amazon "doesn't count".

I found 3 examples just using Twitter advanced search and 'discounts'.

The second paragraph is just word games, I see this argument from the left a lot. The perspective of non-Americans on US internal economic policy is irrelevant as they can't vote here- he's a far leftist for the US, and that's all that matters. (Actually he would be on the Corbyn left even for Europe)

What it would really do it hurt all consumers to the benefit of a very small interest group, small businesses.

>"He observed that “68% of private equity buyouts are add-ons from previous acquisitions,” which is to say that most acquisitions by private equity firms are attempts to expand market power for companies they already own. A quarter of these acquisitions, in fact, are “tied to an investment with at least five add-ons.” Given that there are thousands of private equity firms making transactions every year, that’s a lot of attempts to increase market power."

[...]

"Doing a roll-up is designed to take advantage of how capital markets value bigger companies versus small ones, or what is called multiple expansion.

Buying a small family owned business for three to four times its cash flow

(or what is known in annoying accounting-speak as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, abbreviated as EBITDA), putting it into a conglomerate that financiers then call a ‘platform’ or ‘market leader’, means you can often

sell the much bigger company for eight to ten times that cash flow later on."

My comments:

Buy low, sell high...

Makes sense from a pure business perspective...

I worry about something like this happening with housing. PE firms are sitting on a bunch of cash currently and I can imagine a scenario in which the recent damage coronavirus + lockdowns have done to the economy leads to a bunch of foreclosures. If PE firms step in to buy these homes and to manage them at scale that will just lead to further concentration of housing wealth.

Greenhorn about private equity/microeconomics here, do PE firms ever have a noble goal in mind of creating a stronger company or do most of them just roll-up and mark-up companies to the next highest bidder, regardless of the health of the company or whether it is even worth that much? Housing already seems troublesome as a late millenial/old zoomer.

I have a few acquaintances in PE and my impression from them is that they are only interested in making a high ROI. It's a game for them. Sometimes on HN and elsewhere you get people saying how evil or malicious these people are. I don't think that's accurate at all. They just aren't focused on the second-order effects of their industry. In any case, the real problems are with the owners of these firms and with the politicians and regulators who are creating the incentives these firms respond to.

> "Sometimes on HN and elsewhere you get people saying how evil or malicious these people are."

you're making a fundamental attribution error. few people say that people in PE are evil. most criticisms are leveled at the industry, its ruthless practices, and the willful ignorance of widespread harms while chasing marginal dollars to stuff in already abundant bank accounts.

I'm not making an attribution error. Both things happen.

Blackrock is already raising for their next purchase... there will no middle class in 2-3 years as they become renters.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the world, it is my honour to be here tonight to present to you ...drum roll.. your new landlord:

Private Equity USA — Your friendly local parasite, serving you with a smile!™

Is this the last stage of US Imperialism? Will US foreign military bases be used to show up on behalf of our new landlord to say: 'pay your rent now, bitch' [1]?

[1] https://twitter.com/funnyordie/status/1167799200538484736

Individual homeownership still carries a bunch of tax incentives in most places; I'm not aware of anywhere mega-landlord companies have popped up (although there are a few mega-landlord individuals, usually heavily leveraged).

Does it? The major tax overhaul a couple years ago capped the property tax deduction at a low enough level (while increasing the standard exemption) that, at least in high-property tax jurisdictions, there is no benefit to being a homeowner.

I pay something in the range of $15k-$20k in property taxes and mortgage interest, but receive zero deduction/exemption on my federal taxes for it.

If in the US, property tax got lumped in with state income tax to create a cap where property tax benefit went away for a lot of people, but the mortgage interest deduction is still there, no (on the first $750,000)?

I forget the name, but there was one company that bought properties throughout the US after the 2008 market crash - we are talking about hundreds of thousands of properties here, massive scale.

I remember (2014 or so) looking for apartments in some places in NYC - I went to multiple buildings before it struck me that they were all owned by the same company. I've been a renter all my life and the situation is not good for renters.

I don't care if the super rich have mega mansions and million dollar cars. It is when they start monopolizing essential resources like water, housing etc that it becomes a serious issue.

Another thing I noticed on HN - HN doesn't seem to like landlords being criticized, I guess many people here are well off and are landlords themselves. I do not understand why a person should be allowed to own multiple houses, just because they can afford it.

There is a German town that bought apartment buildings from private companies to take charge of the out of control rent. Maybe it is time for such measures.

After healthcare, housing (mortgage or rent) is how you keep a large percentage of the population chained to their jobs and control them easily. It is also the reason tiny house movement is taking off in other countries. In the US, legislation is a bottleneck for tiny houses. Who wants to be a slave to banks for 30+ years just to have a roof over one's head (assuming one can get a loan in the first place)?

> In the US, legislation is a bottleneck for tiny houses.

It’s not just tiny houses. On average, large developers in San Jose pay > 20% of the price of new home construction for government overhead (unnecessary work, permitting fees, rubber-stamp yielding consultants, etc).

On top of that, they often add a year or so delay to projects because they intentionally understaff the permitting offices, and created a system designed to block new construction.

We’re building a house, and it took over a year to go from architectural plans to permit. Twelve offices had to approve the plans.

All in, it will cost >2x the price of the house to complete construction. Of course, now we’re up to our eyeballs in debt and have pushed retirement out about 10 years. (Backing out by the time we realized we had been trapped would have been even worse, financially.)

The reason house prices are so high is that local voters restrict new development, which enriches old homeowners at the expense of new buyers. Different regulatory regimes give different results, e.g in Japan.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-housing-crisis-in-japan-ho... (paywalled)

> I don't care if the super rich have mega mansions and million dollar cars. It is when they start monopolizing essential resources like water, housing etc that it becomes a serious issue.

If you're a billionaire, you quickly run out of mansions and cars to buy for yourself and your money has to go somewhere. This is why you hear statements like "billionaires shouldn't exist" - mass acquisitions are an obvious use of that kind of capital and allow for rent-seeking behaviour on owned assets.

Water monopoly is a problem. Shitty companies like Nestle are prime examples. There are private corporations thinking of all kinds of ways to control rivers and even ground water. With water shortages being predicted all over the world, this doesn't look good. It takes a special kind of evil to control something as basic as water.

Yes, this has been going on for a while.

From 2013:

Wall Street played a central role in the last housing boom by supplying easy — and, in retrospect, risky — mortgage financing. Now, investment companies like the Blackstone Group have swooped in, buying thousands of houses in the same areas where the financial crisis hit hardest.

https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/behind-the-rise-in-h...

It's already happened...kind of.

Warren Buffet has had a near monopoly on new mobile home construction, sales and leasing.

https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/w...

It's not really the UFC's fault that multiple MMA promotions have also been attempted, and failed as businesses. No non-UFC promotion (Bellator, ONE, Rizin, KSW, Cage Warriors, LFA, etc.) has turned even a dime in profits in the last decade. And Bellator has signed multiple famous UFC fighters (former champs like Benson Henderson), including some (Phil Davis, Ryan Bader) at the height of their career. I don't think their ratings even budge a bit when these ex-UFC fighters are on.

I don't think the UFC should have been allowed to buy Strikeforce, and I think many of their restrictive contract provision should be struck down in court. But it's not the government's fault that none of the UFC's competitors are unable to turn a profit, and I don't really see a role for government there overall. If some business models don't work in practice, they don't work

While monopolies are bad, I don't see what's listed in this article as monopolies. I see a series of small businesses that are more profitable when economies of scale are utilized. So, the small businesses are being bought up by a few larger players.

When saying this is bad, what is the author optimizing for?

This market consolidation should decrease consumer prices, as long as actual monopolies are not in place and price fixing doesn't occur. At the same time the individual owners are getting buy-outs they are happy with. Seems fine to me.

What am I missing?

> I see a series of small businesses that are more profitable when economies of scale are utilized

That is literally the definition of monopolizing...

> market consolidation

Again, that's just another word for monopolizing...

It reminds me of people who say "I, as a man, like having sex with other men — but no, I am not gay or bisexual"

It's like society has become 'definition phobic'? Or maybe some words have lost their old definitions and have taken on new ones? Or it's just Doublespeak and everyone is fragmented and we lack decent complex adaptive systems?

The rules for what consists of a monopoly are somewhat arbitrary anyway. I think we should have worker coops everywhere, instead of this American/English-style Neoliberal Corporatism, which often takes away people's autonomy and creates a whole array of bureacratic corporate hierarchies. A company in the Netherlands called Buurtzorg is having a lot of success organizing themselves very differently than the hyper-consolidation that we have seen the healthcare systems in the West become victim to. [1]

> What am I missing?

I don't even know where to start...

Have you been in therapy or sought professional help? Many therapists now have to work within one size fits all models. For example: in some countries patients get therapy sessions in blocks of 12. Regardless of wether they would benefit from just 2-3 sessions. Or maybe around 25, spread out over a year, is what would best support them. This cookie-cutter standardization approach completely destroys equitable and personalized healthcare options, and takes away the autonomy of therapists.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/20/radical-plan...

It's the paradox of capitalism. Just ask yourself. Why in the world would a business want to compete with another business? They don't, it's not profitable. And only X amount of businesses can exist within a given radius before profits margins decline to the point of nonexistence. It's all a zero sum game. That's why established monopolies are protected by the system.

It seems like the only solution to these types of rollouts happening in every industry may be based in law. The economics of rollouts make it impossible to compete in any other way.

WashPo: "The End of Small Business"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23815212

“private equity” is not a company, its an industry - so its not clear to me why only one private equity company at a tine would try to cash in on this opportunity? And if several such companies are trying to do the same thing, then its unlikely that any of them will become a monopoly.

Its like worrying about “real estate investors” getting a “monopoly” on the ownership of houses - it’s not going to happen. Real estate investors are part of the market, and having an additional source of demand tends to raise prices, which is bad for new buyers and good for existing homeowners. But there is no monopoly.

While we may never see a monopoly on owning the house itself, we are well on our way to seeing at least one monopoly in the home buying process. [0][1]

[0]https://www.alta.org/business-tools/title-insurance-mergers.... [1]https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/09/ftc-c...

Or we would if the FTC didn’t try and block it - isn’t this the way an antitrust regulator should work?

You are right that the system worked as intended, for now. Give it a little time and a few more lobbying dollars. This opportunity is too lucrative to pass up.

Matt Stoller's posts on monopoly remind of this aphorism:

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, it's tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail."

>But [a bunch of accusations against a hedge fund] show all the fancy nonsense about economic efficiency and capital market fluidity is just that

> "It would also help if it were much easier to bring and win private antitrust suits, so that we don’t have to rely on inept government enforcers."

the examples enumeration is good information, but to me, this quoted bit would have been a better jumping off point for an article.

what are the precedents and barriers to private antitrust suits?

monopolies are a scourge and a bane to free markets.

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