It would have been like that for ever

He often did raise prices

That’s why prices fell

He only lowered it when there was serious competition, a new market to expand into, or an internal cost savings

Monopoly prices in kerosene and other products made by Standard Oil would have simply been replaced with substitute goods which Standard Oil did not control.

Look at the monopoly De Beers had

They artificially sky rocketed diamond prices

No idea about de beers

So I’ll look into that

They're a diamond company who had a monopoly

And btw when in the year of the Supreme Court decision

Standard oil had 150 competitors

But yes your own graph shows prices fell in general

They started of much higher

Those are crude oil prices

Not refined product

Misred

But they did fall

As I said

Diamonds aren't even rare

Infact , Standard Oil had no initial market power, with only about 4 percent of the market in 1870.

But De Beers set their prices insanely high

https://mises.org/library/how-cartels-ensure-diamonds-last-forever

They also spread campaigns that got us to propose with diamond rings

My point was that falling crude oil prices were the main drive behind Rockefeller’s drops in refined oil prices

It appears it wasn’t a natural monopoly

Not really the marginal competition

not especially, visitor

Obviously that was a factor but not the only factor

Unfortunately, I am unable to find historical data for refined oil prices

“the market has not been really free. In particular, in South Africa, the major center of world diamond production, there has been no free enterprise in diamond mining. The government long ago nationalized all diamond mines, and anyone who finds a diamond mine on his property discovers that the mine immediately becomes government property. The South African government then licenses mine operators who lease the mines from the government and, it so happened, that lo and behold!, the only licensees turned out to be either DeBeers itself or other firms who were willing to play ball with the DeBeers cartel. In short: the international diamond cartel was only maintained and has only prospered because it was enforced by the South African government.” @Anon365

and petroleum products p

Well yeah it was over 100 years ago

yep

I think standard oil is very misunderstood

It’s how people misunderstand the 2008 crisis

I guarantee you think it is something that it isn’t @Leo (BillNyeLand)

What do you believe caused it ?

The subprime mortgage crisis seems like the obvious answer

But what caused that