Why We Live In A Second Robber Baron Era

Step aside John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and other robber barons of the late 19th century. As profits soar and the stock market booms while the overall economy and median wages stagnate, “we aren’t just living in a second Gilded Age,” writes Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, “we’re also living in a second robber baron era.” Why? Citing the example of Verizon, Krugman points to the lack of investment by big companies, which in turn, he says, is due to monopoly power and the lack of competition. “Many customers have no place else to go,” so there is “no need to spend money on providing better service (or, speaking from personal experience, on maintaining existing service).”