Businesses, left to themselves, often operate to increase their own profit at the expense of the environment and the general economy.
Regulation about working conditions are described in another chapter.
Competition promotion
Governments then try to ensure that no company gets a monopoly on any market, as monopoly reduces progress and keeps the prices up.
Illegal activities
Disadvantaging competition
Microsoft, in the 1990’s, bundling the internet explorer browser with its operating system, disadvantaged rival browsers and gained monopoly.
Cartel formation
Treating customers as the enemy, and competitors as partners, companies collude and resolve not to compete with each other by amicably dividing up the market and fixing the price. This drains customer money, and decreases GDP growth.
Eg: In 1995, a handful of American, Korean and Japanese manufacturers of lysene colluded to fix the price; were exposed and were fined.
Interoperability prevention
Microsoft was fined by EU for not providing adequate documentation for the various protocols used by its products.
Mergers/ acquisition for monopoly
[Incomplete]
Regulation
Government regulation designed to preserve and promote competition is called anti-trust/ competition law. Violations are met with severe fines in USA.
Sometimes, the government breaks up huge monopolies by breaking up the business into competing units.
Foreign political regulation
Boycotts
Economic embargos
[Incomplete]
Travel restrictions
[Incomplete]
Credit rating of individuals
Good credit rating implies lower assessment of risk from lenders, renters and employers. Thence implies lower interest rates on loans.
In USA, one can check yearly free reports from Experian, TransUnion and Equifax at equally spaced times during the year.
Growth
Have around 2 credit cards, maintain a high level of available capacity in each card. This contributes to increase in credit score.