New meaning of "competitive"?

[Joel S. Berson]

On the Osgood File on Jan. 13, Prof. Larry Harris said:  "This is a
very competitive business --- and one thing that's always true with
taxes is that in a competitive business, the tax gets passed on to
the customer. So, this is a tax on financial services --- and the
people who ultimately pay it will not be the banks --- it'll be the customers."
http://tinyurl.com/yz2dlgf

Didn't "competitive" once mean "fight like cats and dogs to get
business -- and if you must, reduce prices to customers"?  So in the
competitive world of big banking,.competition means one can freely
increase the customer's cost?  Why am I surprised?  What did I forget
from Economics 101 about competition and oligopoly?

In the spirit of Jon Lighter, Lawrence E. Harris is Fred V. Keenan
Chair in Finance and Professor of Finance and Business Economics in
the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern
California.  I guess the holder of an endowed chair doesn't teach
Economics 101 any more.

Joel

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