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More from @matthewstoller

Matt Stoller

@matthewstoller

2 Jan

@JosephPolitano

Here’s a useful @JosephPolitano piece attacking my argument on inflation and concentration. (Ht @GeorgeSelgin) apricitas.substack.com/p/are-rising-c…

@JosephPolitano

I think my response to @JosephPolitano is that his analysis is divorced from the underlying reality of commerce. Like most macro-economists, he assumes that individual markets are generally competitive, and that concentration is not the norm.

Take this argument on how meatpacking monopolists don't really matter because meat is a small portion of the CPI. This only makes sense if you assume that meatpacking is an outlier. But is it? No.

Read 12 tweets

Matt Stoller

@matthewstoller

2 Jan

Rather amusing to see a debate over price controls as if we have a functional government who could implement them in time to do anything about inflation. Adorable!

People who cite John Kenneth Galbraith as controlling inflation often neglect to point out that there was a large competent bureaucracy and public support to implement them. What are we gonna do today? Hire McKinsey?

The anti-monopoly movement spent years studying how to organize the bureaucracies and it’s still really hard to turn the ship around. The idea you can snap your fingers and return to a WWII model of economic organization should be embarrassing to its proponents.

Read 4 tweets

Matt Stoller

@matthewstoller

1 Jan

I’ve lost huge amounts of respect for academic historians over the last fifteen years, with superficial and cringe essays like this. Elite historians are increasingly just MSNBC pundits with phd’s. politico.com/news/magazine/…

I remember under Obama how ‘top’ historians just loved him, and ignored his policy choices. Under Trump they mostly followed the same obnoxious groupthink.

Like all progressive institutions, the university system is in crisis. And academics should expect political attacks because they are upholding an increasingly illegitimate order.

Read 5 tweets

Matt Stoller

@matthewstoller

29 Dec 21

Inspired by Larry Summers and his tirade against antitrust, I looked into inflation and market power. It turns out 60% of the rise in inflation is going to corporate profits. mattstoller.substack.com/p/corporate-pr…

This is the corporate profit increase from 2019 to 2021, from $1T to $1.7T, or $2,126 per American. Yes, you pay more than two thousand dollars a year more for everything than you did before the pandemic, purely because corporate profits have gone up that much.

"For every American man, woman and child in the U.S., corporate America used to make about $3,081 in 2019, and today corporate America makes about $5,207 in 2021. That’s an increase of $2,126 per person." mattstoller.substack.com/p/corporate-pr…

Read 6 tweets

Matt Stoller

@matthewstoller

21 Dec 21

https://twitter.com/Sherman1890/status/1473239247859634179

There's an enterprising career waiting for a business historian willing to debunk Hovenkamp's problematic historical work. He's just wrong that 19th century anti-monopoly policy was merely about gov't privilege. Ultra vires suits were the keystone.

https://twitter.com/Sherman1890/status/1473239247859634179

Hovenkamp is a deeply influential pro-monopoly advocate, a sort of Diet Bork who spread a more annoying and difficult to administer version of Chicago School philosophy throughout the courts.