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What is a monopoly, and how do they form?

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What is a monopoly, and how do they form?

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A company becomes monopolistic, when they can set the price of their product at any price they desire, without fear of competition.  Essentially, the company, can severely overcharge their consumers.

This power is hard to come by, but one way that these monopolies are often able to form, is when they have complete control of a rare resource.

-Matt (And Pictures)

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--Natural Monopolies- exists when a variety of factors make competition unworkable, financially unfeasible or impossible, such as locality or expensive cost of starting.

--Geographic Monopolies- When only one business provides products or services to a local area, because customer base is not large enough to support competition.

--Technological Monopolies- A business that's first to market a product or service may get a patent or copyright. That legal protection makes the business a technological monopoly. As competitors can not make/offer the same product for cheaper.
~Andrew M.

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We believe regulations are both good and bad. Regulations are good because they help break up monopolistic companies. However, regulations can hurt the small companies. Small companies do not have the funds to pay the fines for breaking regulations like the big companies do.

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What happened to Microsoft in  U.S. Vs Microsoft in 2001

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What happened to Microsoft in  U.S. Vs Microsoft in 2001

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Basically what happened was that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson declared that Microsoft was a monopoly. The only options to stop this was to either split Microsoft into the Windows OS part, and the Microsoft Applications part, or to share their Windows source code with competitors. Jackson decided to push for the prior. This however did not pass as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the remedy Jackson had, because it was found out that he had private conversations with reporters while the trial was still going on. So all in all, nothing happened to Microsoft in the end because of this specific court case.
~Andrew M.

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The U.S. government is responsible for different types of regulation. The two major types of regulation are economic and social regulation. Economic regulation sets prices or conditions for firms to enter a specific industry. Examples of regulatory agencies that provide these types of conditions are the Federal Communication Commission, or FCC. Social regulation deals with the protection of individuals through an agency, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

In the last few decades, there has been a decrease in economic regulation and an increase in social regulation. Regulation is determined upon risk or who should be responsible for it. For example, the CPSC is responsible for toy safety for children.