Whole Foods/Wild Oats merger

[Boris]

WSJ is reporting that the FTC plans to oppose this merger. Anti-trust concerns. If true, this will be one of the worst decisions in recent memory. The only way to extract monopoly rents in the grocery industry is to have a sweet location. Any by sweet location I mean protection from competition through zoning regulations. A merger of these two companies will do nothing to prevent this kind of localized monopoly. There is however a somewhat convincing history of economies of scale in the grocery industry. Meaning a merger of Whole Foods and Wild Oats could actually reduce prices for consumers, which is a good thing.