Thread by @matthewstoller

1. Ok, so last week Joe Biden made a speech that is potentially as significant as Reagan's comment that "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." He said the era of corporate power is over.
mattstoller.substack.com/p/biden-launch…

2. "We are now forty years into the experiment of letting giant corporations accumulate more and more power." With an explicit attack on Robert Bork, Biden pronounced this experiment "a failure." whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

3. It's weird for Biden, a 78-year old political lifer from the 'corporate state of Delaware' - as he put it - would break with how the Democrats have been for decades. But Democrats aren't blind, they recognized Trump was a symptom of an angry public. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

4. The speech was about an executive order mandating broad and sweeping controls on big business. White House Chief of Staff @RonaldKlain approvingly tweeted out these headlines. They know what they are doing.

https://twitter.com/WHCOS/status/1413889221127966730

5. Standing behind Biden as he signed the order was @linakhanFTC, the new aggressive chair of the Federal Trade Commission. And almost immediately afterwards, news broke on the FTC launching an investigation into Amazon's purchase of MGM. theinformation.com/articles/ftc-o…

6. The order does a lot. It decrees U.S. policy that consolidation in pharma, ag, tech is a problem. It recommits the Federal government to addressing consolidation and sets up a council to focus on fair competition. And it has 72 specific action items. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

7. Biden is mandating that the FDA write rules allowing hearing aids - which cost thousands of dollars for no reason - be sold over the counter. That will cut costs dramatically. mattstoller.substack.com/p/biden-vs-the…

8. This the main hearing aid cartel member, Swiss firm Sonova. The stock cratered yesterday after Biden's order breaking the hearing aid cartel. Not coincidentally, Sonova set up a D.C. lobbying shop earlier this year. mattstoller.substack.com/p/biden-launch…

9. The executive order has mandates across a host of concentrated industry. It orders the Surface Transportation Board to crack down on railroad monopolies. Their stocks weren't happy when this news came out.

10. The order goes across many sectors of the economy. Biden has asked the Federal Trade Commission to curtail non-compete agreements forced on workers. 30-60 million workers have signed those. It's not a partisan thing. Marco Rubio opposes noncompetes! rubio.senate.gov/public/index.c…

11. The list of items is too long to mention. There are right-to-repair rules for electronics, farm equipment, and military systems. Hospital price transparency. Beer/liquor consolidation, seed, and supermarket studies. Crackdowns on pharma. Etc.

13. Is Biden serious? Dems liked the order. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar were supportive.

But so did right-leaning farm groups such as the Farm Bureau and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association! farmprogress.com/farm-policy/pr…

14. Big business was not. The U.S. Chamber called it a 'government knows best approach.' Hospital barons said this will harm care and railroad execs said it'll destroy railroads. Antitrust defense lawyers were so mad. Libertarians said 'Biden doesn't understand economics!'

15. The most interesting pushback was from Netchoice, a group backed by Google/FB/Amazon, as well as Chinese tech firms. Netchoice focused not on the order, but on praising Jim Jordan and Mike Lee for standing up to populist Republicans on antitrust. Chinese tech firms?!?

16. The big question, though, is whether Biden can actually pull all this off. And there are real questions as to whether he can. First, he hasn't staffed the administration. There's still no head of the antitrust division! mattstoller.substack.com/p/biden-launch…

17. Plus, the deep state is real. Congress passed a law saying the FDA should issue hearing aid orders by 2020. They didn't. Because the bureaucrats there didn't want to. That's true across the board. Our government staff by and large doesn't want to deal with competition.

18. Staff across government are going to look askance at random priority from above on competition, written by political people who probably won’t be there for long. That’s a challenge, prioritization and management of a big lethargic organization called the Federal government

19. Finally, there's the politics. Huge distrust of government, and Democrats. The TV media in general doesn't like to talk about political economy, and most politicians don't know how to even talk about this stuff as political. Dem primary voters don't even notice business.

20. Still, this stuff - consumer protection, promoting small business, raising wages, reining in big business with fair competition - polls well. It's hard to know if it'll generate votes. Reporters are wondering if this order will impact the midterms. nytimes.com/2021/07/10/us/…

21. Hard to know. Still, Biden just said it is U.S. policy to break from forty years of pro-corporate policymaking. I don’t know if he can do it, and if it will translate into a new kind of politics. But standing behind him, smiling, was Lina Khan. mattstoller.substack.com/p/biden-launch…

22. Final note. The open question here is follow through. Most good faith critics of this order basically think it’s window dressing and nothing will change. And based on history that’s a reasonable view. Biden will have to prove them wrong.