Conglomeration Lecture Response

Conglomeration is a merger of two companies, normally one larger company buying a smaller one, that allows the now one business to achieve a vertical monopoly in their business. The advantage of conglomeration for these companies is that they do not have to pay other companies to produce,distribute, and sell their product but instead, do it themselves. This also allows the company to have only one accounting department, one HR department, and so on. This is good in that it's very convenient for the larger company, but it also takes away job opportunities. Conglomeration is both good and bad in many ways, which makes it very interesting to learn about. It is quite apparent to anyone who cares to look that conglomeration is very efficient. There is no hassling with other companies when you own every company that you associate with. And if one source of a companies income goes under, they won't even have to fret because they have so many other sources of income that it just doesn't matter. But as I said, for every good part of Conglomeration, comes something not so great. If it ever seems like everything you see is the same, that's because it's all from the same companies. Two notable examples of large Conglomerates would be Disney and Time Warner. Another disadvantage of conglomeration is that when they discover something popular, that milk it for all it's worth. It's like you are trying to make orange juice, but instead of just giving the orange a good squeeze and then moving on, you take the orange, squeeze out every drop, and then just throw the peel into glass and drink it all. The juice is delicious when it's only one squeeze, but no one wants to drink peel. Conglomeration is the way our society is headed and whether or not this change is good or bad is currently unclear, so I guess we all just have to wait and see.