Thread by @matthewstoller

1. What do monopolies have to do with China and the NBA? Plenty. Historically, there are important analogies bn how China uses its economic power and how Germany did prior to WWII. I have a chapter in my upcoming book called "Trustbusters against Hitler." simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/…

2. Let's start with just how powerful China is. Here are some domestic industries who told the U.S. government about dependencies on China. They were complaining about tariffs, but in reality exposing how little capacity we have here to do what we need to sustain ourselves.

3. Vitamin C, nylon products, optical scanners, consumer robotics, electronics, all types of clothing, specialty chemicals... mattstoller.substack.com/p/trump-antitr…

3. Stephen Lang of the American Bridal & Prom Industry Association said, “we can't make wedding gowns and prom dresses in the United States... It’s impossible… We can't even get the materials in this country to make this clothing.”

Prom dresses!

4. That doesn't get into all the electronics, circuit printing, and vital inputs for pharmaceuticals. And then there's all the military stuff. The Pentagon noted severe fragility among U.S. domestic industries. theamericanconservative.com/articles/ameri…

5. "Everything from chaff to flares to high voltage cable, fittings for ships, valves, key inputs for satellites and missiles, and even material for tents. As Americans no longer work in these fields, the engineering and production skills evaporate as the workforce retires."

6. In 2015 the U.S. government released a report on how China was censoring Hollywood. "Directed by Hollywood, Edited by China: How China's Censorship and Influence Affect Films Worldwide" This is an open secret in Hollywood. uscc.gov/Research/direc…

7. China uses the same channels and techniques domestic oligarchs do. It funds think tanks, U.S. politicians, and its corporations engage in predatory pricing (aka dumping) exactly like Amazon. China is a monopolist with an army and espionage service.

8. And the Chinese Communist Party's main mechanism for subverting U.S. liberty is... Wall Street. That's the key. To get Bob Rubin and Hank Paulson to each take care of the Dems and the GOP. They use our own corruption.

9. They even use our own ideology in bad faith ways. The CCP uses the language of open liberal internationalism to denigrate the use of tariffs to protect ourselves. Their fascist operatives speak of being offended and being discriminated against. They use online trolls.

10. We have been here before. The Nazis did the exact same thing in Europe and the U.S. In peacetime, they used international cartels to arrange production to suit themselves.

11. Here's Francis Biddle, FDR's attorney general, speaking in 1944.

"The integration of the European industrial economy under German leadership and control was well advanced, accordingly, even before the war began."

12. The Germans selectively subsidized certain key industries, and then used those subsidies to force foreign producers to cut deals to restrict output. They doled out patents selectively so that French, British, and American companies could only use some advances.

14. "German productive capacity increased as the non-German companies, resting on the security of these agreements, continued to restrict their own capacity and output, to limit their technical research and to neglect generally the development of new processes."

Sound familiar?

15. Naturally the Germans were using all of these output restrictions to prevent the U.S., the French, and the British from building up their armaments capacity, especially in the high-tech aluminum/aerospace area.

16. Here's an antitrust official in 1941. "The distinction between bombing a vital plant out of existence from an airplane and preventing that plant from coming into existence in the first place [through cartels] is largely a difference in the amount of noise involved.”

17. Here's DOD today. “China is the single/sole supplier for a number of specialty chemicals used in munitions and missiles…. A sudden loss of supply wld disrupt DoD missile, satellite, space launch, and other defense programs. In many cases, there are no substitutes available.”

18. So you think this fight is about China bullying the NBA and the NBA succumbing to greed. That isn't it, at all. This is about the U.S. being weakened by our elites peddling corruption and monopolization, and Chinese fascists taking advance of that to impose global control.

19. We've been here before. And we were able to preserve liberal democracy. We can do it again. This is our generational choice. Can we restore our liberal democracy here, and protect our rights and freedoms? It is up to us. simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/…

20. Also, for an unparalleled look into the political choices facing Nazi economic policymakers and how they integrated economics and power projection read @adam_tooze's amazing history of Nazi Germany's economy, Wages of Destruction. penguinrandomhouse.com/books/295490/t…