Share this page!

Matt Stoller Profile picture
Twitter logo
21 Sep, 5 tweets, 2 min read
It's nearing time for the U.S. to basically lay out conditions for continuing NATO. Enough of this dance where Europeans get super pissy at us for paying for their defense while they coddle China. Either we're allies, or we're not.
I've never had such contempt for European strategists. It's just remarkable. They know that Biden is the best American partner they will ever have, but their bureaucratic sloth and constant searching for fake unity means they cannot act to concede anything.
This @andreaskluth oped on Europe's own internal problems is right. There's a reason no one takes Europe seriously. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
"In this council there are a lot of things that we can see pretty clearly what we can bring and will bring to the US, maybe it’s not always clear what the US can bring to us.” - EU Commissioner Thierry Breton
yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/09/2…
Despite all the obnoxious cliches about human rights, Europe only reacts when the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan and France loses a large defense contract. European strategists are passive aggressive bloodthirsty greedheads.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Matt Stoller

Matt Stoller Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @matthewstoller

Matt Stoller Profile picture
23 Sep
Here’s Merkel praising China’s totalitarianism and attacking democracy. We can work with European countries where it makes sense, but it’s time to come to grips with Western Europe being in China’s sphere. Democracy has lost its legitimacy in Europe. ImageImageImage
After reading this I can’t see how NATO is viable without significant restructuring. The US needs to have a hard conversation with our allies about whether they want access to our markets and defense umbrella. wsj.com/articles/angel…
I spoke in Germany a few years ago at a political conference and the normies in the audience asked Chinese speakers tough questions on human rights. The German political elites were offended that their own people were so rude.
Read 4 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
22 Sep
It's concentrated capital that's suppressing wages and causing shortages, not the flow of people. A pro-worker society requires having pro-production policies. Neither party has those yet. mattstoller.substack.com/p/shortagewatc…
The conservative framework of 'let's stop immigration so that wages will go up' conflicts with 'how come no one wants to work at low wages?!?'
It turns out we have this thing called a government, and it can do stuff. Right now it does stuff like enforce contracts that 30 million Americans had to sign forcing them to stay at their jobs instead of getting higher wages.

It could do other stuff tho.
Read 4 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
21 Sep
1. A lot of people are getting really freaked out by shortages. And they should be. But so far, no one has proposed answers. That's starting to change. mattstoller.substack.com/p/shortagewatc…
2. The shortages we're seeing were predictable, and I (among others) predicted them. This is because the supply chain problems have been obvious for decades. wired.com/story/covid-19…
3. What is the problem? In short, we stopped caring how we make and distribute stuff. Since the 1970s, policymakers allowed relentless cost-cutting in the name of efficiency. That has meant in practice lower pay, fewer production lines, more monopolies. mattstoller.substack.com/p/counterfeit-…
Read 15 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
15 Sep
The Federal Trade Commission's open meeting is starting in 10 minutes. Get ready for angry pro-monopoly Republican commissioners who will try to explain why their opposition to investigating monopolies shows Lina Khan is partisan or something.

ftc.gov/news-events/ev…
FTC staff is going to present findings on big tech acquisitions of small firms. This should be interesting.
Big tech had 660 undisclosed acquisitions between 2010-2019. ImageImage
Read 14 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
9 Sep
Here's my stab at trying to explain why there are shortages everywhere. Basically a monopolist is a business model based on bottlenecking something, so to the extent you encourage monopolization, you get shortages. mattstoller.substack.com/p/counterfeit-…
The number one problem small business mention these days is shortages, either labor or product. The Fed's Beige Book two days ago mentioned shortage 80 times. This is a huge unstated political problem. mattstoller.substack.com/p/counterfeit-…
I've gotten a lot of feedback from consumers, business people and various workers on shortages they are seeing, and that info is super helpful. I've set up a form where you can share what you're seeing or or experiencing re: shortages. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…
Read 10 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
3 Sep
1. I want to put something on the table for conservatives who fear big tech. The FTC just refiled an antitrust suit against Facebook to break up the company, and both Republicans on the commission - @FTCPhillips and @CSWilsonFTC -VOTED AGAINST IT. mattstoller.substack.com/p/lina-khan-le…
2. There are a bunch of Republicans, like @RepKenBuck @RepArmstrongND and @HawleyMO who are serious about market power questions. Lina Khan, who led the refiling of this antitrust case against Facebook, got 16 Republican votes for confirmation. But... mattstoller.substack.com/p/lina-khan-le…
3. The GOP is split. GOP leaders Jim Jordan, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and Kevin McCarthy oppose stronger antitrust laws, because “the laws currently on the books can and should be used to break up Big Tech.” Their own allies OPPOSED refiling a FB antitrust case Trump initiated.
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @matthewstoller has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @matthewstoller!

Read all threads by @matthewstoller

:(