This post was written by Chris Pummer, special contributor to AOL Money & Finance.

Almost every American has a mega-company they dislike or downright despise. A select few companies bear the undesired distinction of being widely abhorred.

While consumers hold some whole industries in contempt like insurers and airlines – the latter unfairly given historically low fares -- certain industry leaders have become magnets of scorn.

Today's monopoly-wannabes are different than monoliths like John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil dismantled in the trust-busting era a century ago. The bygone variety abused a fast-expanding smokestack economy and vast scientific advances. Today's are retail and technology giants exploiting the deregulated business environment spawned in the 1980s and consumers' indiscriminate appetite for cheap prices and convenience.

Our collective spending choices and patronage vaulted each into its dominant position. Consumer champion Ralph Nader blames not only weak government oversight, but also our swift shift to a cashless society, in which consumers pay little mind to the consequences of their hasty credit- and debit-card transactions.