End consolidation. Go back to pre-1980s antitrust policy. Encourage competition and bust the trusts.
Many countries already have a progressive tax on income, but that is irrelevant to business profits.
Alternatively, don't. I expect this proposal to be popular with executives regardless because it creates new spots for executives, just as it does with lower-flying labor.
Looking at the companies on the top image for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech ... it's outdated, but close enough.
Apple: Computers, Phones, maybe even break out Operating Systems
Microsoft: Hardware, Gaming, Operating Systems, Office/other software, Cloud Services, Consulting
Alphabet: Google Search, Ads, Android, Chrome, Cloud Services, Other consumer services, Waymo
Amazon: Retail, Warehouse, Shipping, Cloud Services
Tesla: Cars, Batteries, Charging Network, Solar, Scammy bullshit
Berkshire Hathaway: it's a holding company, spin out the big holdings
Nvidia (this one is tougher): Ethernet, Video Cards, AI cards; maybe chipsets vs cards?
Meta: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. Or ... split out the internal Cloud Services from the frontends.
TSMC: I dunno what to do here, but it's also not a US corp, so yeah. You could spin off fabs by node maybe.
United Health: not a tech company, but Insurance (possibly spin out regionally), Regional Healthcare Providers, Pharmacy Stuff
There's potential to break up some of the other companies along regional lines, like the Baby Bells ... but IMHO, that doesn't make that much sense for most of these.
Have some sort of phase-in, but if ownership between formerly related companies remains similar, contracts between them need to be a) public, b) terms must be available to others (FRAND). For cases where the spun-off companies are still market dominant (a lot of what I've suggested), constrain the company from entering other markets; this doesn't end the monopoly, but it prevents using one dominant position to establish another.
The "consumer harm" standard is idiotic.
The US economy generally did very well with those standards, maybe the best it ever did, especially considering distribution of benefits.
Spurious correlation. Few experts (economists) think old regulations caused economic growth.
If we really want to recreate post-war growth, we should destroy half our infastructure and fight a world war. Then, in the years following the end of that war, we can experience catch-up growth.
I didn't say they caused it, but they sure didn't stop it.
I specifically said it was about distribution, not aggregate growth.
There's still no argument for the GGP presented.
> the years following the end of that war
Until the 1980s? I think some evidence is needed.
Summary of the old regime: Mergers that lead to 5+% market share were blocked.
Then the "consumer harm in terms of prices" was adopted. Which swung the pendulum the other way. That is the fundamental economic policy now. Which has lead to abhorrent results.
I wrote a comment on previous post that was about how consumer harm standards have warped the discussion on tariffs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096236
Most of the R&D that laid the future of the world happened during that period. The middle class grew to its largest portion during that period.
I don’t think the economy was hamstrung in the least
The classic example is airline deregulation which happened under Carter. The real cost of flights is way, way down since then. But this doesn't stop people from complaining about how "flying is a worse experience now" and wishing for a return to inane regulations.
"Inane regulations", however misguided, generally exist to prevent the Torment Nexus. PE devolves companies into the Torment Nexus to create more profit.
But the downside is that flying would be for rich people, just like it was pre-reforms. The poors would have to take trains or drive. Is that a good trade-off?
And to top it off, if you want to pay for a premium flying experience today, you can! For similar prices (to pre-reform flights, in real terms) you can book a "luxury flight".
Like I said, rose colored glasses.
post WW2 the world basically outside of the US blew up and the US pumped a ton of money into europe+asia to bolster it.
it's easy to be #1 when everything else burnt down
Frankly this stuff is impossible to talk about in the abstract. The details of every individual case matters. If you're actually curious (instead of just playing a shell game), you can go look up the types of analysis that FTC does to evaluate market dominance and whether a given transaction will excessively consolidate a market.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Lots of success during the last admin for those paying attention.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/...
https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/lina-khans-tr...
https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/factsheet-the-ftc-...
Your cause and effect is wrong.
The US doesn't fail to attempt to enforce, the gov representatives often get paid to not enforce by said corporations who have been allowed to put money into their campaign for election/reelection.
Nobody likes this state of affairs so we are asking you to stop strawmanning and start steelmanning the posts you are responding to.
You are clearly not dumb, so stop responding to the dumbest possible and easiest to dismiss interpretation of other people’s comments and instead go deeper
2025 numbers: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/796343/0000796343250...
2026 Q1 numbers: https://mlq.ai/stocks/ADBE/q1-2026-earnings/
For the record: national economic policy shouldn't revolve around Y Combinator classes and similar startups.
I'm totally fine if it turns out a sensible antitrust policy completely destroys the acquisition exit pathway for tech startups. I'm not saying one will, but I'm saying that's a cost I'm willing to pay.
People always give these vague guidelines (and even the guidelines in the 80s were) and wonder why they are easily circumvented.
Antitrust enforcement can be done retroactively as well, if it appears that a large company abuses its financial firepower to undercut competitors or a marketshare gets too dominant.
That's pretty unfair. IIRC, Standard Oil was on of the companies that was the impetus for antitrust law (and broken up by it), and AT&T was broken up (famously) in the 80s.
Basically, your "argument" is a troll or a deep and basic misunderstanding. Especially in the case of Standard Oil. You're basically saying the law doesn't work because it didn't work before it existed (Standard Oil became dominant in the 1870s or 1880s and the Sherman Antitrust act wasn't passed until 1890).
The information is captured the same way as most policy - via statute and precedent, and guidelines for enforcement agencies.
None of this is confusing, or even hard, except insofar as it's hard to fight against well funded opponents.
I've read enough of the pre-Borkian (ie, pre-1980s) history of antitrust law to know this was very actionable.
They were not easily circumvented in that it required decades of funding and activism to nerf the Sherman Antitrust Act and its successors.
Montgomery Ward thought it was "too big to fail" and too powerful to regulate.
So, what happened?
If the US government wants to, and it has in the past, it just takes your business at gunpoint.
4 soldiers walked into the ultra-conservative owners office and made him leave. Two of them picked up his arms and legs, took him outside, and deposited him on the sidewalk.
> a major U.S. CEO being physically evicted from his own company by armed troops became one of the most famous news photos of the home-front war
No, because if we had proper anti-trust they already would have both been broken up years ago.
It sure is.
> and it inevitably will result in the same situation
Why?
And it should also prevent the acquihire.
But that's not what you're talking about, is it?
How about doing what America used to do? Provide seed funding for a new fire truck company in trade for condictions. Can we agree to do that? Fund 3 companies to make fire trucks, fast-track whatever certification and approvals they need. Create the companies we need, risking (and in fact expecting to lose) a bunch of the capital used for this.