OUR unemployment rate

[theblindferrengi]

I suspect any example I give will be rejected because it is "no longer a monopoly" or doesn't conform to your standard of what a monopoly is. I will say in advance that most, if not all monopolies these days do not exist as true "monopolies" anymore because of government intervention.

Two examples comes to mind. Dyson have had a monopoly on dual cyclone vacuum cleaners ever since they invented and patented the technology. They sell them for affordable prices, and their vacuum cleaners are more effective at picking up dust than bagged ones.

The other example of a good monopoly is almost kind of abstract. The Patenting System gives exclusive rights for the inventor of a technology to sell their invention for 20 years. The reason this is a good idea is that it encourages new development of technology. What is the point of a person spending hours of time, thousands of dollars, etc on developing a new technology if anyone can go and copy it and make a profit on it.

A monopoly can function within reason, but, by definition, there is no reason for it to. Dyson vacuum cleaners had a monopoly on a category of the vacuum market, and their machines were severly overpriced ($500-$600 USD each, more than twice the normal vacuum, and well out of the range for the average consumer). Since, the Hoover company and the Shark company have produced models of those no-loss-of-suction cleaners and have been selling them for reasonable prices (~$150-300 USD). This monopoly is innefective, as people can always buy regular vacuum cleaners, thus nullifying any advantage Dyson had.

The patent system was created as an incentive for inventers as you say, and could create a monopoly, but for the patent holder to sell the rights to a product to only one manufactuer/retailer would be counter productive to sales, and therefore not in the best interest of the patent holder.

If a monopoly did become large and problematic, then there are several things that could be done, for example, if Folgers suddenly had every coffee bean in the world at its disposal, then the other coffee companies could buy as much coffee as they could afford to buy from Folgers, but not sell any of it. Folgers would still have to meet the demand of the consumers, but would have less coffee to meet it with, so the price would go up; and to stretch the supply out, the quality would go down. The consumers would be pissed off by this and stop buying. This would leave an enourmous opening for the other coffee companies who stockpiled the coffee.

Though Microsoft is not a true monopoly, it does display some negative trends of monopolies, such as price gouging and inferior products, but because of this they have lost consumers to Apple, and others.

As for true monopolies, how about the government? Sure they arent a company, but without competition to keep them in check, that just leaves the people, and the people will not fare as well as a competing organization would.

What actual monopolies there are (and they are) work behind the scenes, and are not well known. They often own multiple companies that do the same thing so they can create the illusion of competition while still being in control. You have probably heard of some of the television companies owned by Viacom (CBS, MTV, Paramount, etc.) as they are advertised, but the parent company does not publicize itself well. Some other examples of this are Kraft Foods owns more than 60 brands including Oreo, Maxrell House, and Oscar Meyer; and Nestle, which owns Cherios, Hot Pockets, Alpo dogfood and more than 50 other brands.