No innovation or competition comes from letting giant companies devour their rivals.

Exactly! It only helps people with too much already hobble competition to pocket even more for themselves at society's direct expense at those levels, while completely discrediting the primary supposed core tenant of capitalism we're indoctrinated from childhood to believe it provides: competition.

Civilization has been propagandized to forget that economies aren't supposed to exist to maximize capital extraction for private investors at society's expense, an economy is supposed to be a lowly tool of a society used to maximize the efficient and equitable distribution of goods and services within a society for the benefit of said society.

The tail is wagging the dog, and captured world governments loudly declare during any crisis that they will use all the power at their disposal to protect the well being of their beloved ~~societies~~ economies.

Just dwell on how perverse that ideology is. The entire point, the well being of human beings, is lost.