David writes…….If companies know they must create moats to attract investors, they will use political power to raise barriers to new entrants or acquire patent protections, building the walls ever higher. Failing that, they’ll just buy out the competition. Tepper notes that Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft have purchased 436 companies and startups in the past ten years, without a single regulatory challenge to any acquisition.
The effects of all this are profound. Tepper started the book to decipher the wage puzzle: Why did leading indicators keep pointing to higher wages that never came? He found that workers with fewer choices to deploy their talents—a condition known as monopsony—cannot bargain for better pay. As the benefits of economic growth pool in corporate boardrooms instead of workers’ pockets, inequality naturally follows.