Instead, the bulk of the note talks about thesizeofUnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare.
(Mangione has pleaded not guilty to the shooting.)
Though the manifesto gets some facts wrong UnitedHealth actually stood at No.
Despite a century of antitrust legislation and litigation, American business is bigger than ever.
Of course, companies consolidate for all sorts of reasons.
For one, size allows them to take advantage of economies of scale.
Butmonopolizationcomes at a steep cost.
(The practice is being challenged by a class-action lawsuit and asuit by the Federal Trade Commission.)
Americans are well aware of the problem.
As shocking as that might be, we’ve been here before.
At the end of the 19th century, as major trusts consolidated entire industries, Americans turned to violence.
In 1920, awagon full of explosives was parked on Wall Streetto target the banker J.P. Morgan.
The bombing killed more than 30 people and injured hundreds more.
Violence against monopolies dissipated for two reasons.
The first was government regulation.
The second was low prices.
Taken together, those efforts helped create a large and prosperous middle class.
For decades, things seemed to be going well for regular Americans.
Then, in the 1980s, the government shifted its philosophy toward antitrust enforcement.
No economic harm, no legal foul.
The new philosophy allowed consolidation to soar without sparking consumer unrest.
Amazon might rule the world, but who cared?
The prices were low, the deliveries were fast, and the returns were free.
A sense of powerlessness, as history has repeatedly shown, breeds violence.
