this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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There is a subtle, but fundamental, difference between being a distributor - someone who buys in bulk at Location X and sells retail at Location Y - and a monopoly/cartel - an individual or group that takes control of a critical point in the supply chain and then operates as a monopoly reseller at enormous mark-ups to everyone downstream.
The general distinction is in the degree of markup that your position provides. For inelastic goods/services (staple foods/energy/medical/emergency services) and opportunity-limited services (concert tickets/first-edition prints and collectibles) you can capitalize in a sudden spike in demand to raise prices astronomically.
No better example of this than the Texas electricity grid. Natural Gas power providers run a cartel in our state which allows them to limit how much electricity they generate during periods of peak usage. So when the weather starts cresting 100° and electric demand for A/C peaks, they can charge upwards of $3000/Mwh for electricity that was trading at $15-20/Mwh hours earlier.
You seem to be furthering my original point. Here where I am it's our supermarkets, they just got awarded the shonky from choice, for price gouging. That line is blurred. There almost is no line. When we can just see how much one marks it up, we get all up in arms, all the others the original price they pay is hidden, so we don't feel as put out, but it's not as fair a system, in those hidden places, as we imagine, as you see and point out occurs in your power grid.