Re: Joe's Universal Corporation (tm)

Michael Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Thu, 17 Dec 1998 12:51:10 -0500

Joe E. Dees wrote:

> From: Dick.Gray@bull.com
> To: extropians@extropy.com
> Date sent: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 16:38:57 -0700
> Subject: Re: Joe's Universal Corporation (tm)
> Send reply to: extropians@extropy.com
>
> >
> >
> > Joe asks, "What about Standard Oil, Dick?"
> >
> > What about it? It was an innovative company that made kerosene available to
> > the masses at very affordable prices. But when Rockefeller got a bit too
> > ambitious, it lost a healthy chunk of market share to upstart competitors -
> > long before anybody thought to invoke the newly-concocted "antitrust" laws
> > against it.
> >
> > Your point was...?
> >
> > Dick
> >
> >
> Historical revisionism in the servise of shoring up an indefensible
> position becomes no one. Standard Oil had a stranglehold on the
> vast preponderence of the oil supply and would undersell (below
> their own cost - it's called 'dumping') "upstart" competitors out of
> business in any region where they cropped up, at which point they
> would jack their prices back up to usurious levels. They were tailor-
> made for government dissolution in the interests of the citizenry. Joe

On the contrary. While the beginning of the investigation of Standard Oil happened when they had a stranglehold, by the time it was broken up several new companies came along with new technologies which gave them an advantage.

Mike Lorrey