[lawrenceyan]

Fear of regulation is a large factor in strangling M&A here. In many respects, the U.S. government actively hampers and acts at the detriment to American tech companies, whereas it's the complete opposite in China.

Tech companies in America succeed in spite of our government. And this honestly baffles me. We should be enacting policy that supports, not hinders, the industry that quite literally is the only reason our country currently isn't in a recession.

[jacobwilliamroy]

You misunderstand success. Yes regulation inhibits profit. In return businesses are forced to offer more utility to users and to develop better technologies. The Chinese economy is more of a cartel with tight bonds between business and government all attempting to serve the government and meet its foreign policy goals. In a deregulated economy, the result is the same except it's private companies with no transparency or accountability owning and operating the cartel instead of a public organization like the government.

And the U.S. is in a depression. There is no plan for the Federal Reserve to recoup all the 6 trillion plus dollars it's invested in the last few months. Our economic demise is coming soon.

[tyre]

> the industry that quite literally is the only reason our country currently isn't in a recession.

Why do you believe this to be true?

Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc. don’t employ _that_ many workers. Yes, there are contractors associated with each, and localized impact for service workers (now surely less.)

But I’m not sure that we can say tech is saving our economy right now.

Amazon requires people to buy to increase revenue, meaning they have to have spending power already. So they have to either use savings or have income.

Apple the same. Netflix too.

There needs to be more information that Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, etc. are employing more people than before — i.e. backstopping what would otherwise be a crashing economy.

When you look at their numbers, that’s not the case. They’re not seeing explosive growth during the pandemic, despite expectations to the contrary.

If we look to the stock market as a measure of economic strength — and we shouldn’t — it has been propped up by lowered interest rates.

With bond yields as low as they are, investors have to put their money _somewhere_ and stocks are the seemingly appropriate risk/return for the moment. But that’s not a sign of a good economy. Quite the opposite.

[missedthecue]

We go to great lengths to protect US steel workers, and those three companies employ about 3x as many as all steel companies in the US combined.

[kjs3]

Which particular aspect of regulation is crushing American tech companies?

- Honesty in financial disclosure?

- Fairness in employment policies?

- Responsibility in data governance and handling?

Something else?

[novok]

It's not formal law, but informal warnings straight from congress and who knows what else privately. Ex: The current investigation into big tech poo-pooing FB's acquisitions of WhatsApp & Instagram, who say that under current law that there isn't anything illegal going on, but maybe we, congress, should make that kind of stuff illegal too.

Everyone has learned from microsoft's antitrust trial you want some semblance of a competitor and not look too self serving.

[kjs3]

So...nothing that low overhead ethical business practices would make a company uncompetitive.

[novok]

Yes what you cite has little to do with mergers and acquisitions (m&a) that the parent post was talking about. While the examples i gave were acquisitions that got congressional attention

[Barrin92]

can you tell me what exactly the purpose is of supporting an industry that is, by your own admission, not struggling?

[nobodyandproud]

Many of the tech companies you see today wouldn’t exist, if the US policies allowed monopolies to exist unchecked.

[karpierz]

So why don't tech companies pay out to their shareholders so that they can use that money to invest in other companies?

[strangeattractr]

I'm concerned that you don't seem to believe America is in a recession at present.

[novok]

Even before COVID most economic growth in the USA was tech companies.