New ICE Vehicles Banned in California by 2035

[Tomm]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

There is plenty of information out there on antitrust opinions and controversies surrounding large conglomerates and oligopolies abusing their power and using their position and wealth to eliminate competition. I think anyone looking at the examples below can see a problem.

Just to hone in on the problem, what exactly are you claiming is bad? Abusing power? How? Moving this conversation forward would be easier if we don't make assumptions or leave things up for interpretation.

Using their position and wealth to eliminate competition? Give me an example. Just to help nudge this conversation along, I believe it's important to recognize that "mergers and acquisitions" are not an abuse of power, they are agreements between two companies and happen for MANY reasons. Also your perception of M&As are subjective.

Let's look at one of the more recent mergers (that impacts a lot of people)- Amazon buying Whole Foods for $13.7B.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/16/inv...ods/index.html

The company was accused of overcharging customers by regulators in New York City in 2015 and that had a huge negative impact on Whole Foods. Sales plunged for several quarters.

And the company became the butt of jokes by late-night comedians. HBO's John Oliver did a savage skit about the company's high prices. (HBO, like CNNMoney, is owned by Time Warner.)

Oliver ran a mock commercial showing, among other things, a block of ice with an avocado balanced on top for $25.99, a pomegranate that listened to NPR for $64.99, and tilapia wearing yoga pants for $84.99.

Mackey eventually wound up apologizing to customers. But the damage was done.

Sales growth at Whole Foods has slowed and profits have yet to return to levels before the price scandal. That may be one reason why Whole Foods was willing to sell to Amazon.

It will be interesting to see if Amazon -- which has a reputation for keeping prices low -- will turn Whole Foods into more of a bargain retailer as well.

This is hardly abusing their power to eliminate competition. Was Amazon in the 'position' to make this merger happen? Sure, because not a lot of companies have $13.7B on deck and are willing to drop it on a declining company. On top of that, the FTC has to approve M&As of this magnitude.

https://sites.law.duq.edu/juris/2018...-foods-merger/

When trying to take down a potential monopoly, regulators look for market share. Whole Foods only held a 3.5 percent market share in the grocery market.[10] Additionally, companies who vertically integrate are looked upon more favorably than horizontal integrations.[11] With the economies of scale Amazon is developing, it can lower prices, creating “a net positive for consumers.”[12] Regulators are unlikely to call a company a monopoly if it lowers prices for consumers. A possible hang-up is curbing innovation, as new barriers to entry are created. Often, regulators review the impact of the merger a year or two later.

My point is, again, that over generalizing corporate greed is silly. It makes you look like the 'COVID Hoaxers' of economics.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Tomm

Just to hone in on the problem, what exactly are you claiming is bad? Abusing power? How? Moving this conversation forward would be easier if we don't make assumptions or leave things up for interpretation.

Using their position and wealth to eliminate competition? Give me an example. Just to help nudge this conversation along, I believe it's important to recognize that "mergers and acquisitions" are not an abuse of power, they are agreements between two companies and happen for MANY reasons. Also your perception of M&As are subjective.

Let's look at one of the more recent mergers (that impacts a lot of people)- Amazon buying Whole Foods for $13.7B.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/16/inv...ods/index.html


This is hardly abusing their power to eliminate competition. Was Amazon in the 'position' to make this merger happen? Sure, because not a lot of companies have $13.7B on deck and are willing to drop it on a declining company. On top of that, the FTC has to approve M&As of this magnitude.

https://sites.law.duq.edu/juris/2018...-foods-merger/


My point is, again, that over generalizing corporate greed is silly. It makes you look like the 'COVID Hoaxers' of economics.

My wife is an assistant store manager at Whole Foods. I know all about it—the good and the bad.

There are so many specific and general examples and so many things to discuss that I wouldn’t know where to start.

Some of the methods Starbucks has used to expand and maintain their dominant market position, including buying out competitors' leases, intentionally operating at a loss, and clustering several locations in a small geographical area (i.e., saturating the market), have been labeled anti-competitive by critics.[16] For example, Starbucks fueled its initial expansion into the UK market with a buyout of Seattle Coffee Company but then used its capital and influence to obtain prime locations, some of which operated at a financial loss. Critics claimed this was an unfair attempt to drive out small, independent competitors, who could not afford to pay inflated prices for premium real estate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Starbucks

Limited market options, limited ability for work mobility, price fixing, lobbying power, competition buyouts, location saturation, unfair competition, price gouging, lack of variety of products, scale of industry impacts, etc. I could go on and on. Look up any major company and type in antitrust or controversies, and you will find a lot. Monsanto, Amazon, Verizon, Apple, Tyson, any of them.

I’m actually surprised Tmobile and Sprint were allowed to merge when Tmobile was denied previously. I’ll have to look up how that happened. Crazy we only have three major carriers and a bunch of tertiary companies piggybacking off the networks of the big guys.

[Tomm]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

Limited market options, limited ability for work mobility, price fixing, lobbying power, competition buyouts, location saturation, unfair competition, price gouging, lack of variety of products, scale of industry impacts, etc. I could go on and on. Look up any major company and type in antitrust or controversies, and you will find a lot. Monsanto, Amazon, Verizon, Apple, Tyson, any of them.

I’m actually surprised Tmobile and Sprint were allowed to merge when Tmobile was denied previously. I’ll have to look up how that happened. Crazy we only have three major carriers and a bunch of tertiary companies piggybacking off the networks of the big guys.

Pretty sure WaPo debunked that lease sabotaging scandal: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...a3e_story.html

So let’s talk ab these because the devil is in the details.
Limited market options, - fought by capitalism but do you mean that there is a gap in supply? If so you need to go experience country life. Limited of options is a golf course kid’s problem.
limited ability for work mobility, like career progression? Try being in the technical career field.
price fixing, illegal
lobbying power, has pros and cons
competition buyouts, M&As are not predatory tactics
location saturation, fought by capitalism but that argument collapses on itself because it would completely backfire on any company unless demand is so high they need to saturate the local market. If I’m interpreting what youre saying incorrectly.
unfair competition, How so? This is the free market, do what you want but it do it better than the rest. My knock off Keurig is better than any coffee shop (compete with that, pretty unfair if you ask me) but Dunkin is better than Starbucks.
price gouging, mostly illegal
lack of variety of products, this is silly, if you suck at producing good products you should probably reconsider careers.
scale of industry impacts, interesting, but It’s in the best interest of a thriving company to produce a good or service for as many people as supply demands. But if you want to elaborate that might help.

[Irace86.2.0]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sea...-take/%3famp=1

Biden wants to halt all U.S. climate emissions by 2050. Here’s what that would actually take.

[Tomm]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sea...-take/%3famp=1

Biden wants to halt all U.S. climate emissions by 2050. Here’s what that would actually take.

I don't see the airline industry or natural gas industry moving much in 30 years.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Tomm

I don't see the airline industry or natural gas industry moving much in 30 years.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...ne-ever-to-fly

It is already moving. I think aviation will have to offset their fuel use with renewable biofuels and carbon capture technologies, but they will likely make a move to electric or hybrids in some capacity within the next 30 years. They could certainly reach a net-zero level if properly motivated. As a reminder, we aren't looking to eliminate all CO2 production; we want to get to a point where we aren't adding more CO2 to the environment.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...ne-ever-to-fly

It is already moving. I think aviation will have to offset their fuel use with renewable biofuels and carbon capture technologies, but they will likely make a move to electric or hybrids in some capacity within the next 30 years. They could certainly reach a net-zero level if properly motivated. As a reminder, we aren't looking to eliminate all CO2 production; we want to get to a point where we aren't adding more CO2 to the environment.

Electric/Battery in planes just doesn't make much sense outside smaller planes to me.

One of the critical things with planes is weight and balance. One of the primary ways of adjusting for load is to adjust fuel (exchanging cargo weight for less fuel on shorter flights for example).

Airbus, with the backing of folks like Gates and Bezos, is taking this path.

[AnalogMan]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Electric/Battery in planes just doesn't make much sense outside smaller planes to me.

I'm certainly not an aeronautical engineer, but it seems the energy density of the fuel is far more important in a plane than a car. (It's important enough in a car as well, and is responsible for BEV limitations of range, charge time, etc.).

A car just needs to move in 2 dimensions. The engine and power source just needs to move it horizontally. A plane needs to move in 3 dimensions. The power source needs to get it off the ground, and safely keep it there (running out of fuel in a plane usually has more severe consequences than the same thing happening in a car). Range anxiety would take on a whole new importance if you're several thousand feet off the ground.

Liquid fossil fuels have about 100 times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. Less energy available (or much greater weight for the power provided) means the laws of physics make it much more difficult to make battery planes practical and financially viable (other than small specialized applications or demonstration prototypes).

Carbon-neutral liquid fuels could be a bridge to the future. Until (or if...) technology advances sufficiently to make some kind of electricity storage competitive with the energy density of liquid fuels, maybe carbon-neutral liquid fuels, such as Porsche's idea, could allow energy-dense uses such as flying while not adding to atmospheric CO2. The chemistry is well-known to do this. But making it happen still requires that the fundamental energy come from renewable sources, such as using solar, wind, tidal, etc. to generate the electricity to run the process of creating the liquid fuel (electrolysis + Sabatier reaction, etc.).

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Tomm

Pretty sure WaPo debunked that lease sabotaging scandal: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...a3e_story.html

So let’s talk ab these because the devil is in the details.
Limited market options, - fought by capitalism but do you mean that there is a gap in supply? If so you need to go experience country life. Limited of options is a golf course kid’s problem.
limited ability for work mobility, like career progression? Try being in the technical career field.
price fixing, illegal
lobbying power, has pros and cons
competition buyouts, M&As are not predatory tactics
location saturation, fought by capitalism but that argument collapses on itself because it would completely backfire on any company unless demand is so high they need to saturate the local market. If I’m interpreting what youre saying incorrectly.
unfair competition, How so? This is the free market, do what you want but it do it better than the rest. My knock off Keurig is better than any coffee shop (compete with that, pretty unfair if you ask me) but Dunkin is better than Starbucks.
price gouging, mostly illegal
lack of variety of products, this is silly, if you suck at producing good products you should probably reconsider careers.
scale of industry impacts, interesting, but It’s in the best interest of a thriving company to produce a good or service for as many people as supply demands. But if you want to elaborate that might help.

We can go on for days with this stuff. There are millions of examples. I left the youtube links broken, so they aren't dominant in this thread, and I am going to leave this conversation with the following. You can reply as you feel, but I will have to agree to disagree from here on out. If anything, for the sake of the thread and a two-person endless conversation that really could go on and on:


Limited market options is like how many areas might only have one utility company or one internet provider or a really small handful. Please read all of this:

https://www.highspeedinternet.com/re...rnet-providers

Limited mobility in the workplace was more directed at the idea that someone may find getting a different job hard when there are few employers. If we are talking about media then we have 6 corporations owning almost all the media. If we are talking utilities, it may be less. If we are talking phone networks, it may be less too. In a given area, there may be few options for job hoping. My hospital for instance has merged with a number of hospitals in the area and state. Sure I have a few options, but if I burn my bridge with one company then I'm left with few options, or if I want a job at a different corporation then my options are limited. Imagine a future like in the movie Demolition Man where all restaurants are Taco Bell--hopefully a cook isn't fired because then he needs to find a new career.

https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/...a-infographic/

Price fixing and gouging beyond supply and demand is more likely to happen as companies become more powerful, have more lobbying power and where there is less competition. We also see this in a more open market with less regulations. There are some examples below, and we see this in the price of many products from medications to diamonds. What are the pros of corporate lobbying? What are the pros of having former execs like those of Monsanto in political offices and vice versa? I think it gives way to more bias, back room deals, kickbacks and incentives than what we gain from any expertise they may have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing#Examples

htps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRsZbGs24jY

M&A don't always result in killer acquisitions to reduce competition, but they always lead to less variety in the marketplace. For instance, when Apple bought Beats, or when Marvel bought Star Wars, was there not a change to the direct of each of these product lines. This can be good and bad. It really depends. I'm not saying it is always bad. There can be a synergistic effect where the final merger is greater than the sum of either two products, and the reverse can be true too, but as more and more mergers happen because the parent company continues to gobble up businesses under an expanding profit margin, the market loses competition and the consumer suffers.

One example of this might be cellular networks. AT&T was not allowed to merge with TMobile back in 2011 because the market would lose its forth network provider, but then years later, Tmobile was allowed to merge with Sprint because Dish worked its way into the deal to rise as the forth network provider to maintain competition. Four networks = competition. Ok. Anyways, Dish is using TMobile's networks for seven years, and TMobile promised not to raise anyone's rates for three years, so you know, it'll all work out fine for the consumer. Some people might be confused because they have heard of Mint Mobile and many other mobile providers. Well, these just offer the service, but they use one of the four network provider's networks, so Mint Mobile is actually TMobile's network. Maybe four (really three) network providers is fine in some people's eyes, but I think it is terrible.

https://www.wired.com/story/t-mobile...-merger-guide/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...work_operators

Out of about 750 drug acquisitions per year, the team estimates, an average of 54 were killer acquisitions.

https://insights.som.yale.edu/insigh...shut-them-down

Market saturation or over-saturation as a tactic to eliminate competition or gain a competitive advantage is well documented. The example I already gave from Starbucks is not limited to Starbucks. In that example, Starbucks added more stores in a given location than what demand allowed to operate for a profit, but Starbucks is huge, so they can operate on tighter margins, or they can even operate at a loss, but this isn't the case for their smaller competitors. What happens to them? They go out of business, so now Starbucks can absorb the small business' customers, and now those Starbucks locations have larger margins.

Walmart and other big retailers do this all the time. They get people into the store with household basics that they sell at a loss, so consumers spend time buying other items at a profit. In fact, Walmart is famous for their Roll Back items in the center of the walk way. Yes, the toaster is amazingly $8, but the consumer thinks, this is so cheap, but kinda ehh. What other cheap toasters do they have? Except the toasters in the isles aren't cheap at all. I recall Walmart tried to do this to Amazon back in the day by offering the hot new book at a loss and cheaper than Amazon, but it was only to get people into the store.

While it seems like the consumer wins with lower prices, it actually results in less competition in the marketplace, and it creates a system where there is a large cost to enter the market to be able to compete with such business practices.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...ticle-1.140129

htps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XduHK6XRxSo&feature=emb_title

Scale of industry is problematic in the ways above, but also in the way they change the market itself and the environment. Watch Food Inc, and you get a sense of what factory farming has done to the food industry. We have lost genetic diversity. There is inefficiency in trying to create efficiency by centralizing production instead of buying locally.

A single, large player in the market can have profound impact on the rest of the market. Take McDonalds, which I think was hurt by Food Inc and by Pink-Slime-gate. They recognized the problem, and they recognized the industry trend to buy locally, eat fresh, etc. They are making a change, but their change means a change to so many suppliers in their chain. In the end, their changes are good, but they still have more centralized distribution and production than smaller businesses, and they still have a drive for homogeneous products, so they can create a consistency across locations in a given market.

https://www.epi.org/publication/the-wal-mart-effect/

https://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/other...-united-states

https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciak...h=9ff617559628

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Electric/Battery in planes just doesn't make much sense outside smaller planes to me.

One of the critical things with planes is weight and balance. One of the primary ways of adjusting for load is to adjust fuel (exchanging cargo weight for less fuel on shorter flights for example).

Airbus, with the backing of folks like Gates and Bezos, is taking this path.

I totally agree. Hydrogen is far more adaptable and practical for planes, and it could offer the ability to go carbon free. It may even make sense for the plane to use a hydrogen engine for take off, ascent and landing, where most of the acceleration/fuel is typically used, but uses electric motors/batteries for most of the sustained speeds during the flight, much like how a car uses only 40hp or less to cruise down the highway.

Originally Posted by AnalogMan

I'm certainly not an aeronautical engineer, but it seems the energy density of the fuel is far more important in a plane than a car. (It's important enough in a car as well, and is responsible for BEV limitations of range, charge time, etc.).

A car just needs to move in 2 dimensions. The engine and power source just needs to move it horizontally. A plane needs to move in 3 dimensions. The power source needs to get it off the ground, and safely keep it there (running out of fuel in a plane usually has more severe consequences than the same thing happening in a car). Range anxiety would take on a whole new importance if you're several thousand feet off the ground.

Liquid fossil fuels have about 100 times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. Less energy available (or much greater weight for the power provided) means the laws of physics make it much more difficult to make battery planes practical and financially viable (other than small specialized applications or demonstration prototypes).

Carbon-neutral liquid fuels could be a bridge to the future. Until (or if...) technology advances sufficiently to make some kind of electricity storage competitive with the energy density of liquid fuels, maybe carbon-neutral liquid fuels, such as Porsche's idea, could allow energy-dense uses such as flying while not adding to atmospheric CO2. The chemistry is well-known to do this. But making it happen still requires that the fundamental energy come from renewable sources, such as using solar, wind, tidal, etc. to generate the electricity to run the process of creating the liquid fuel (electrolysis + Sabatier reaction, etc.).

I don't think range anxiety would be a factor any different than range anxiety would be a factor now with planes. They would calculate their trip ahead of time. Yes, the electric plane may have less range, but that would be worked out beforehand. There might be some advantage to using electric motors and batteries than ICEs for small planes because of reliability, and these small planes have a short flight distance typically.

Just saying, fuel is more energy dense, but the battery will deliver its "fuel" more efficiently, as an ICE wastes energy to heat. For these small planes, it would be cheaper to operate an electric plane. Skydiving anyone?

Commercially for large jets, it is different of course. I think hydrogen and biofuels is much more practical.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

I totally agree. Hydrogen is far more adaptable and practical for planes, and it could offer the ability to go carbon free. It may even make sense for the plane to use a hydrogen engine for take off, ascent and landing, where most of the acceleration/fuel is typically used, but uses electric motors/batteries for most of the sustained speeds during the flight, much like how a car uses only 40hp or less to cruise down the highway.

A hybrid might work, and would solve a second problem. Most cargo/passenger size planes can take off with more weight than they can land with. This isn't a problem if you are burning fuel, with batteries the batteries themselves would lower the total capacity of take-off weight to match landing weight.

If you are going to the effort to create a hydrogen powered engine though, I don't see much point in a hybrid. Just adds complexity and further reduces empty weight.

As you say, range anxiety would be non-existent in an aircraft since you fly within a margin of fuel anyway (regardless of the fuel type). Ultimately, range anxiety exists now in aircraft, except maybe military aircraft with mid-air refueling.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

For these small planes, it would be cheaper to operate an electric plane. Skydiving anyone?.

Yea for shorter missions with light weight (skydiving, flight training, even sightseeing) batteries could work. I'd fly a small EV plane, no problem.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

A hybrid might work, and would solve a second problem. Most cargo/passenger size planes can take off with more weight than they can land with. This isn't a problem if you are burning fuel, with batteries the batteries themselves would lower the total capacity of take-off weight to match landing weight.

If you are going to the effort to create a hydrogen powered engine though, I don't see much point in a hybrid. Just adds complexity and further reduces empty weight.

As you say, range anxiety would be non-existent in an aircraft since you fly within a margin of fuel anyway (regardless of the fuel type). Ultimately, range anxiety exists now in aircraft, except maybe military aircraft with mid-air refueling.

The only reason I offer a hydrogen-EV hybrid as a possibility is because almost all of our hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels in ways that aren't green. If infrastructure for hydrogen wasn't robust, but battery tech had evolved and renewable electric energy was robust, then I could imagine such a hybrid system would be necessary to meet the needs of regulations and the demands of the industry without straining the supply of hydrogen, leading to high price of hydrogen and flights. It all depends on how it plays out.

[Tomm]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

We can go on for days with this stuff. There are millions of examples. I left the youtube links broken, so they aren't dominant in this thread, and I am going to leave this conversation with the following. You can reply as you feel, but I will have to agree to disagree from here on out. If anything, for the sake of the thread and a two-person endless conversation that really could go on and on

We could but why would you say this and then proceed to continue the debate? My whole point of the second to last post of mine was to wrap my head around your perspective. Which is obvious at this point. Unfortunately, I think I’m the only one in this two way conversation attempting to do that. I think where you and I are diverting is the understanding of self-interest versus selfishness. In Adam Smiths theories, the pursuit of self-interest promotes the health and wellness of those surrounding you and that’s been a guiding principle for many economists. I find that I align with his theories in that realm. Why have this conversation if you’re not willing to be objective? Are you just trying to teach me something?