Spoils for America's rich and powerful put capitalism to shame, says ALEX BRUMMER
The US Republican Party has travelled a distance since the early 20th century when Teddy Roosevelt found himself in the White House after the assassination of Trump hero William McKinley.Roosevelt launched an assault on robber barons who controlled American business. He launched 44 anti-trust lawsuits in eight years breaking up the railroads and, most famously, John D Rockefeller’s Standard Oil of New Jersey, which controlled 90pc of known reserves.In Donald Trump’s trillionaire America the rich and the powerful have the inside track. The President believes everyone has a price which is why he declares he wants to buy Greenland.His feeble use of anti-trust laws, used by predecessors against big oil, AT&T’s telecoms monopoly and IBM, allows corporate aggrandizement.Elon Musk is not satisfied with his ownership of Twitter, now X. He has set sights on Europe’s biggest airline, £30billion Ryanair. Snub: The row between Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary (pictured) and Elon Musk flared when the airline said using Musk's Starlink internet service would come with a bill of $250bn The Tesla boss posted on X that he wanted to ‘buy Ryan Air’ and restore the company to its rightful owner. Never mind that founder Tony Ryan died two decades ago.The row between pugnacious Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary and Musk flared when the airline declared that using Musk’s Starlink internet service would come with a bill of $250billion (£185billion).The notion that everything is for sale encouraged the world’s once-second-richest person, Oracle chief Larry Ellison, to believe that family dominated Paramount Skydance will triumph in the battle to control Warner Bros Discovery. The belief is the President is unlikely to go after the deal on anti-trust grounds.The entitlement of the rich has seen Musk’s fortune swell by $234billion during Trump’s first year in office. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has become $15billion richer, and so on. The incestuous AI boom has seen the big players, such as Microsoft, accumulate a 27 per cent stake in OpenAI. There has been barely a squeak from the authorities about the Silicon Valley champions scooping up AI pioneers.Britain has given ground to big tech and the monopolists by inserting an Amazon chieftain, Doug Gurr, as chairman of the Competition and Markets Authority. Labour required the admirable chief executive Sarah Cardell, who battled the might of Microsoft, to speed up probes and go easy. The accumulation of market and political power by the rich, at the expense of consumers, shames capitalism. O’Leary is right to fight back.Paying the priceEconomists predict Britain’s inflation rate, the highest in the G7, will be back at its 2 per cent target in the first half of this year. The Government has made tackling the cost of living its priority.Despite changes such as the Budget pledge of a £150 cut in household energy bills from April and frozen rail and prescription charges, consumer price inflation was stubbornly high at 3.4 per cent in December.The jump is blamed on tobacco and air fares, as if they are exceptional items. Yet they impact millions of lives. Core inflation, excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, is stuck at 3.2 per cent. As worrying is the cost of services, a key measure for Bank of England rate setters, which rose by 4.5 per cent last month, up from 4.4 per cent.There are other price shocks in the pipeline. Natural gas is up 25 per cent in the last week. The decision of Chancellor Rachel Reeves to confine relief on business rates to pubs, excluding restaurants and hotels, can only add to bills. Wage settlements at 4.5 per cent may be trending down but cannot be absorbed fully. Moreover, as Keir Starmer noted this week, the impact of new tariffs could make goods less affordable. The disease of surging prices is undefeated.Heritage mattersChanging leadership can work. Much of the speculation about Burberry in recent times has been around who would step in to save Britain’s flagship luxury retailer.The arrival of Joshua Schulman in 2024 and a return to a core focus on trench coats, scarves and legacy has dramatically altered prospects. Sales to Generation Z consumers in China are soaring.Across the group store sales were up 2 per cent in the three months to December. A 29 per cent rise in the shares this month should help keep predators at bay.DIY INVESTING PLATFORMSAJ BellAJ BellEasy investing and ready-made portfoliosHargreaves LansdownHargreaves LansdownFree fund dealing and investment ideasinteractive investorinteractive investorFlat-fee investing from £4.99 per monthFreetradeFreetradeInvesting Isa now free on basic planTrading 212Trading 212Free share dealing and no account feeAffiliate links: If you take out a product This is Money may earn a commission. These deals are chosen by our editorial team, as we think they are worth highlighting. This does not affect our editorial independence.Compare the best investing account for you
