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Matt Stoller Profile picture
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27 May, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Bill Gates is a greedy guy who lies a lot, which has been clear for decades. It is nice that his ex-wife's PR firm is trashing his reputation, but, you know, why the two decade halo from the press? In 2019 I pointed out he lies about antitrust to this day. wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/s…
It's been an open secret that Bill Gates lies about big things, aka the source of all his wealth and power. And by 'open secret' I mean he goes around saying he was found not guilty of antitrust violations and he was actually found guilty. He should be in jail for monopolization.
“A partnership with Microsoft is like a Nazi non- aggression pact. It just means you’re next.” —Anonymous partner of Bill Gates

That's who this guy is.
My book Goliath goes into this history on Bill Gates and the origin of modern politics. If you want to know how our politics is actually organized by billionaires and policymakers, I wrote it down. simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/…

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More from @matthewstoller

Matt Stoller Profile picture
30 Apr
1. I have some bad news for Democrats. Biden's economic policy is likely to fail because of one simple yet very large problem.

Mergers.

This failure isn't inevitable. But we're not on the right track. Follow along for an explanation and a solution. mattstoller.substack.com/p/is-biden-acc…
2. Since the early 1980s, when we weakened antitrust, we've seen waves of corporate mergers. This has consolidated power into the hands of a fewer and fewer group, in every industry. Today there are fewer than 3500 public companies, vs 8k+ in the 90s.
mattstoller.substack.com/p/is-biden-acc…
3. Problems with mergers are well-known. Corporate concentration leads to layoffs, less innovation, income and wealth inequality, supply chain fragility, and political chaos. Big mergers, as @sandeepvaheesan notes, are especially bad. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Read 16 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
25 Apr
1. This is an excellent piece by @zachdcarter on economist Joan Robinson and how she helped restructure how economists understand competition to include buying power and employer dominance. A few nitpicks. nytimes.com/2021/04/24/opi…
2. My critique is that this is too economics focused. At first, the piece says that Robinson helped innovate within economics. Then the piece says Robinson helped restructure "our" understanding of competition.

But who is we? Not Americans. They already knew what Robinson said.
3. As early as the 1820s or 1830s, American labor organizers and farmers were making these arguments, in various forms. By the Sherman Act debates, in the 1890s, the idea of concentrated capital hurting farmers and workers was obvious to everyone. So why is Robinson an innovator?
Read 7 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
22 Apr
Does it really matter that the FTC lost its 13(b) authority? The FTC has been irrelevant for 30 years, ever since Tim Muris pioneered using that authority.

If Congress wants to act, it should make a private right of action to enforce the FTC Act.
@PharmaCheats
As @chopraftc notes, there are other things the FTC can do, like write rules or use dormant penalty authority.
Fundamentally, the FTC is not relevant to Wall Street or most actors in the economy because it hasn't actually held the powerful accountable for 30 years. Why should we care that the FTC just lost authority it started using at the time it became irrelevant?
Read 4 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
21 Apr
Lina Khan being introduced by @SenAmyKlobuchar at Khan's nomination hearing. c-span.org/video/?511008-…
And now @SenBlumenthal also introduces Lina Khan. Seems like she's well-liked.
Senator Cantwell asks Lina Khan about the collapse of local news in the face of Google and Facebook. Khan responds by saying there are dominant gatekeepers, and that there are problems - "potential criminal activity" - in adtech.
Read 8 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
20 Apr
"While the FTC is quick to bring down the hammer on small businesses, companies like Google know that the FTC is simply not serious about holding them accountable."

🔥🔥🔥
"First, we must make clear that FTC orders are not suggestions. Google isn't the only repeat offender. In 2012, after the FTC finalized an order with Facebook on privacy abuses, the company violated the agreement almost immediately – and continued
violating it again and again."
Senate Commerce Committee hearing now with FTC commissioners. commerce.senate.gov/2021/4/strengt…
Read 9 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
18 Apr
The US is so much better than anywhere else on this front it’s not funny. I know people think Germany has ‘dealt with their past’ but German self-reflection is mostly a performative bad joke.
I don’t get the constant reflexive loathing of America as a nation. It’s weird. This is a good place with a good people.
The reason Germany is so ‘good at self-reflection’ is because the US and USSR utterly destroyed their military and occupied their nation for years after they caused TWO WORLD WARS. It’s not as if they woke up one day and said ‘let’s be better people.’
Read 4 tweets

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