I'm sorry, but this @csternopher story is inaccurate. I like Gene a great deal, but he's a consumer rights guy not a foe of big tech. For example he pushed for DOJ to sue book publishers on behalf of Amazon, thus solidifying Amazon's market power in books. theinformation.com/articles/the-b…
There's a tendency to read 'Democrat X wants more antitrust enforcement and likes consumers therefore X is a reformer,' but that view reflects a misunderstanding of the debate. Consumer rights types often support concentrating power with the goal of getting conduct changes.
There is a potent debate about whether to orient antitrust around consumer welfare/efficiency or around the competitive process and small business. Kimmelman is a consumer welfare advocate which is why he doesn't seek to break up big tech.
One of the key reasons this merger is on the table is precisely because Gene Kimmelman and the Obama DOJ helped clear the road for Amazon's book monopoly. Faced with publishers banding together to compete with Amazon, Kimmelman sued... the publishers.
The reason Kimmelman advocated suing book publishers who were trying to stand up to Amazon is because his view was that Amazon's lower book prices were good for consumers, and that a concentrated market structure wasn't relevant. Consumerism!
Gene Kimmelman's recommendation to deal with big tech is not to break them up, but to have a code of conduct for the platforms, to be negotiated by the platforms. Here's a paper he wrote on the subject. brookings.edu/events/could-a…

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More from @matthewstoller

26 Nov
What Dayen doesn’t understand is that the only possible candidate for the NEC job is Blackrock exec Brian Deese because he did some mediocre stuff for Obama ten years ago. No one else in the entire country is qualified.
What I find irritating about Brian Deese is how naive or greedy he is. Blackrock hired him purely because it’s a multi-trillion dollar Too Big to Fail monstrosity that needs political protection. It was the well-paid waiting house for ex-Obama officials. economicliberties.us/our-work/new-m…
To hear this line - Deese tried to push ‘from the inside’ - from @billmckibben is a straight up indictment of the whole lifestyle brand that McKibben has pretended to offer as environmentalism.
Read 6 tweets
24 Nov
1. An important new paper from @steelewheelz on big money managers: The New Money Trust: How Large Money Managers Control Our Economy and What We Can Do About It economicliberties.us/our-work/new-m…
2. "The solution is to go straight at the concentration problem by limiting their market share," Graham Steele, who wrote the American Economic Liberties Project paper, told CNN Business. cnn.com/2020/11/24/bus…
3. And separate platform and commerce by forcing BlackRock to split off its Aladdin tech platform. ft.com/content/524a1f…
Read 4 tweets
24 Nov
Excellent review of Obama's book by @ryanlcooper. There's something however that I don't think progressives are willing to countenance. And that is Obama's Democratic Party simply may not include a faction that seeks to decentralize economic power. theweek.com/articles/95090…
Most of the critique from progressives of Democrats is that Dems aren't successful at winning elections or gaining political power, and that if they did what progressives sought, they would be. But aside from untrue, isn't that besides the point?
Obama's political legacy is a Democratic party with moderate upper class Bush Republican, Ivy League social liberals, and older black voters, financed by Wall Street/Silicon Valley. There are no progressives in there, or perhaps that's just where progressives are.
Read 8 tweets
22 Nov
1. I worked for a House member in 2009-2010 elected on opposition to war. Early in his term my boss spoke up for getting out of Afghanistan. We got a lot of hostile email from Democrats saying "I used to agree with you but I trust Obama and he wants to surge into Afghanistan.'
2. The problem was systemic. I worked on the Financial Services Committee from 2009-2010, and while Geithner et al. were horrific, Barney Frank, the progressive nonprofit apparatus, and Dem voters were in lock step on bailing out the banks.
3. In 2008, before he was elected, Obama lobbied on behalf of the bailouts. He promised then-Rep. Donna Edwards that if she voted for it, he would work to write off mortgage debt by changing bankruptcy laws. He was lying, his policy team had already dismissed that option.
Read 16 tweets
21 Nov
I think it's important to acknowledge credit where credit is due, and that means it's time to recognize that under @ddayen, @TheProspect has become the most important political magazine of the last few years. It's not just that they keep scooping others on the transition.
By centering what had traditionally be a center-left magazine around business and power, @ddayen created relevance around governing in an important way. The Day One Agenda has become the most relevant policy reporting done in the 2020 cycle. prospect.org/day-one-agenda
It's time to start recognizing the work that the @TheProspect has put out. Or we can just read the prospect and watch other major media outlets report the same thing 10 days later without credit.
Read 4 tweets
19 Nov
Watching the Equitable Growth event on antitrust, and seeing how Heather Boushey is pointing out all the costs of lax antitrust enforcement, but this is a key problem with their new report on competition policy.
The report's recommendations for Congress are both much weaker and more vague than those of the Congressional Antitrust Subcommittee itself. equitablegrowth.org/research-paper…
I really respect @Michael_Kades, and I appreciate his point that it's important for people who served in government to recognize their mistakes. It's a good thing to learn!
Read 5 tweets

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