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Matt Stoller Profile picture
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22 Sep, 4 tweets, 2 min read
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.
Though I'm a Democrat, I genuinely respect conservatives and I find many of their arguments compelling. That said, they have not coherently decided to move from finance-friendly to worker-friendly, and they use culture wars to obscure that.

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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
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
21 Sep
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…
Read 5 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

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