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Matt Stoller Profile picture
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8 Jun, 5 tweets, 3 min read
The Clarence Thomas fallout continues. The Republican Ohio Attorney General just filed a fascinating complaint against Google. The AG is asking Google to be declared a common carrier and for the search results to be required to be done in a neutral manner. ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Files/Briefing…
I wrote up Thomas's important statement a few months ago. The right is rapidly changing on big tech, substantively. Not everyone is rejecting libertarianism. But it's happening. mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-is-clare…
Meanwhile, Republican Senator @SenatorHagerty has a bill to regulate big tech as common carriers, pegged to reform of Section 230.
assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2069…
The Ohio AG suit: "As a common carrier, Google has a duty not to artificially prioritize Google services and links higher than they would be displayed as a result of
Google’s search algorithms in which the algorithm is not programmed to prioritize Google’s products/services."
Basically if @randfish wrote a rule for Google, it would be what @OhioAG Dave Yost just did.

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More from @matthewstoller

Matt Stoller Profile picture
1 Jun
So @samhaselby and I wrote a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the toxic influence of the Ivy League. chronicle.com/article/how-me…
The Ivy League really is a cartel, and not just in a metaphorical sense. The Justice Department investigated them for price-fixing in financial aid over the course of FOUR DECADES. nytimes.com/1991/05/23/us/…
23 Northeastern universities held an annual meeting in which they “discussed the financial-aid applications of 10,000 students who had been accepted to more than one institution in the group." The attorney general called them a “collegiate cartel.”
Read 5 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
29 May
Liberals are finally noticing Stephen Breyer has bad judgment. Of course, those of us who watched him ruin antitrust law knew that all along. Same with RBG.

Antitrust hackery is a tell.
Do you dislike high pharma prices? Thank Breyer’s mess of an opinion in Actavis.

Dislike big tech monopolization? Thank Breyer (and RBG) signing onto Trinko and Linkline.
Stephen Breyer isn’t a bad justice because he won’t retire. He’s a bad justice because of his legacy of promoting monopolists and corporate power.

Howard Metzenbaum nearly voted no on his confirmation.
Read 5 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
27 May
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.
Read 4 tweets
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

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