Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

He pretty clearly is arguing that monopolies are not an inherent end point of capitalism.  I'm pretty sure he understands a monopoly is nearly always bad for consumers.  He seems like a pretty bright guy, to me.

Why do you go there?
This is what I'm talking about.
Never have I called into question his intelligence.  But you add that little barb that suggests maybe I did.  
.
You've been pretty sassy the last few weeks.  I've noticed.
You've stopped being an honest interlachuter.  

They spend money preventing it from being able to support the claim factually.

Maybe English is a second language here?

Without rehashing everything in this thread I have a few thoughts on the subject:

Rich vs Wealthy:
We've talked mostly about NAV and to me that is more about "Wealthy" than "Rich". 

If you are, let's say, a Surgeon who makes $1M/yr but you are also a crazy spender who spends every penny (as crazy as this sounds, there are people like this) then you are "rich" because you are living an extravagant lifestyle that costs $1M/yr (well not actually $1M but the after tax take-home on it). That said, you have a NAV of approximately zero so you clearly are NOT wealthy. 

"Rich" to me is about the "income statement". If you have a lot of income, you are "Rich regardless of what your balance sheet looks like.

"Wealthy" to me is about the "balance sheet". If you have a high net worth, you are wealthy even if you have MUCH less income than the $1M/yr Surgeon in my example above. 

That said, the definition of "rich" varies greatly by location. I don't know @betarhoalphadelta 's income nor whether that makes him "rich" in California but it would take a LOT more income  for him to be "rich" than it would for me here in Ohio. 

Wealth is less regional because you either have the net worth to live comfortably in an expensive locale or you don't. Ie, if you have a net worth of $10M you can afford to live more-or-less wherever you want. If you are retired with a net worth of say $3M you can live pretty comfortably in a relatively low cost-of-living area but you'd be stretching it to try to retire in Hawaii on that money.

Interplay between "rich" and "wealthy". 

I borrowed my $1M/yr Surgeon example from a book I read, The Millionaire Next Door. 

The authors started out as marketing gurus and they were studying high net worth individuals on the mistaken assumption that those people would spend a lot of money. They found instead, at least in the $1-10M range, that most individuals were pretty thrifty and lived on a reasonable budget. 

I loved this quote:
Someone asked them why a Millionaire would have a budget and they said: "Have you ever noticed that the people you see running EVERY morning don't look like they need to run every morning?"

Same principle applies to net worth. Most people in the $1-10M range inherited only a small fraction of their wealth (if any). They are mostly business owners and they mostly fit in such that if you were their neighbor (hence the title of the book) you would have no idea that they had a high net worth. 

I think when people mentally picture "the wealthy" they tend to think Beverly Hillbillies or someone being showcased by Robin Leach. I mean the Ultra-Wealthy types who can buy basically anything, fly basically anywhere, etc. 

Someone with $1M could buy a Ferrari or take a trip to Paris or whatever but they can't just buy any car any time or go to Paris every weekend. 

Wealth also has both an age component and an income component. 

Age:
The older you are the less you need. Some 20-something who hit it big and wants to retire needs a LOT of money because he has a remaining life expectancy of more than 60 years. An 85 year old retiree has a remaining life expectancy of five, maybe 10 years so he needs a lot less.

Income:
A family with a household income of $50k clearly isn't "rich" but that also means that they are spending around $50k/yr so if they have $500k in the bank that is 10 years at their spending. If the Surgeon from my example above had the same $500k in the bank that would only cover his expenses for six months. 

They would IFF there is another competitor.  Imagine I make paper towels and toilet paper and over time drive out or buy up every competitor.

My point is that Walmart is one of the brakes that stops you from taking that big of a market. 

There are also others. If P&G starts making moves to buy up competitors beyond a certain level, that signals to the market an intent to become a monopoly. Other large companies may defensively buy up other paper towel / toilet paper companies to defend against letting P&G have them. 

For example Costco. Costco knows that TP and paper towels drive a lot of revenue in their warehouses. Right now, I think they're happy contracting out the supply portion. But if they get a market signal that P&G is trying to corner that market, they might buy up a supplier to ensure they're getting stable supply at a price they prefer while still having that supplier sell into the general market. 

Costco has already shown a willingness to do that with chickens. What's to say they wouldn't do it with these other items to protect their supply chain--and in turn, helping to protect a free market even if that wasn't their initial goal?

Maybe in the modern era business methods make monopolies unlikely, I can see that.  In the distant past, a P&G probably could buy up all the paper companies without a "Walmart" knowing about it.

Maybe in the modern era business methods make monopolies unlikely, I can see that.  In the distant past, a P&G probably could buy up all the paper companies without a "Walmart" knowing about it.

I can stipulate that. I.e. why Walt Disney had to resort to all sorts of shell companies to quietly buy up the land around Orlando to build Disney World because he knew that if anyone knew he was doing it, the price would climb immediately. 

It's a lot harder to pull that kind of stuff off these days.