Middle fingers: "It’s never been better to be a big company in America, but it has rarely been a worse time to be an entrepreneur."

What Democrats might be doing about it.

Indeed, the opening reference is intended as ironic, because ...

"America’s biggest companies have never been bigger, but all too many people are sitting in a McDonald’s, drinking coffee and wondering where their town went."

If you agree that "small is losing the war against big," then a logical corollary would be ceasing to accept at face value the bilge dispensed by oligarchy-based entities like One Southern Indiana.

There are other ways, you know. But Wendy's not going to be telling you about them, is she?

Monopolies Are Killing America, by Ross Baird and Ben Wrobel (The Development Set)

From rural farms to inner cities, small is losing the war against big. And we don’t see it getting better.

... The regulars asked what I did, and I told them I run a firm that funds small businesses — specifically, high-growth startups. One man pointed out the window at a nearly deserted clapboard Main Street and said, “Small business, man, that’s all we got. We used to have the hardware store there; when they opened the Lowe’s twenty miles away, well, that went under. The Walmart in Locust Grove killed off a few more. Now, McDonald’s is all we have.”

The most basic American rights — which the authors of the Declaration of Independence called “inalienable” — are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American promise is equality of opportunity. These rights weren’t universal when Thomas Jefferson first inked these words in 1776.

And while, at first glance, America has become more free for women, people of color, and others who weren’t landed gentry in 1776, I’d argue that thanks to monopolies, American freedom is quickly in decline — and because of the unchecked power of big enterprise, we’re on the road to serfdom.

It’s never been better to be a big company in America, but it has rarely been a worse time to be an entrepreneur.