Share this page!

Matt Stoller Profile picture
Twitter logo
Feb 7 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Now this is a middle finger to antitrust enforcers. nytimes.com/2022/02/07/bus…
For context on all the airline mergers during the Obama administration and what those did to the industry... economicliberties.us/our-work/ctl-a…
When they file their merger notification, that'll be the only time Spirit and Frontier Airlines actually have to pay a fee.
Spirit and Frontier are going to corner the market on treating customers like absolute dogshit.

• • •

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
Feb 7
1. Ok, this is kind of interesting. NBER's industrial organization section, which is the gathering of economists who study antitrust, just did something that seems a bit odd with regards to its annual conference. nber.org/conferences/in…
2. On day one of their conference, Friday, there was a panel with a bunch of antitrust economists who very much dislike Lina Khan and the new anti-monopoly movement. It was a lively panel, and I watched it. Image
3. Economist @florianederer live-tweeted the panel, and it kicked up something of a storm among those of us who care about the politics of antitrust economics. You can read his thread here.
Read 16 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Feb 7
I am no MMTer but I'm struck by how the basic critique by @Noahpinion of MMT - 'they always claim they are right' - apply to failed mainstream models of economics. None of them got the financial crisis or free trade or shortages.

It's all garbage. All of it.
Price controls are a good idea sometimes and a bad one sometimes. We are imposing controls for shipping right now, which no one in this debate seems to understand. We cannot impose broad price controls because we lack the capacity, which no one in this debate seems to understand.
The point of economics is not to be right or wrong, that's entirely incidental. The point is to develop a political language that excludes normal people from discussing political economy. That is it. mattstoller.substack.com/p/what-is-the-…
Read 4 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Feb 4
1. There is a major change afoot among antitrust regulators. The FTC's Lina Khan and the Antitrust Division's Jonathan Kanter are not screwing around, and are about to take on all the money and power in the world.

Let's talk merger policy. mattstoller.substack.com/p/mergers-ruin…
2. As anyone who's been through one knows, mergers suck. A few weeks ago, @adamconover described why his show - Adam Ruins Everything - was canceled. The show was popular, but that didn't matter.

AT&T bought Time Warner, and wrecked it.
3. In 2016, AT&T breathlessly announced it would buy Time Warner. We have phones, they have TV shows. What if... people watched TV shows on their phones?!?! Someone forgot to mention that people already did that. But whatever. about.att.com/story/att_to_a…
Read 23 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Feb 4
1. Apple chose to shoot Facebook in the head and move Facebook's ad revenue to Google, because Apple shares in Google's profits.
2. Apple's decision to block tracking on mobile devices significantly harmed Facebook's ad business, which is good. But Apple did not apply the same provisions to Google's mobile services. So ad money moved from FB to Google. Why did Apple do this?
3. It's simple. Google pays Apple something like $15B a year for Google search to be the default on the iPhone's Safari browser. That's at the heart of the DOJ antitrust suit against Google filed in 2020.
Read 5 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Feb 3
The Senate markup on the bill to break app store monopoly power is on deck right now.
California Senator Dianne Feinstein opposes the bill because it targets "three California companies," Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
And now California Senator Alex Padilla is up. He's mostly just trying to avoid getting cross-wise with either big tech, or with labor, which doesn't like big tech.
Read 4 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Feb 2
I think the most surprising thing I've learned over the last couple of years is just how insane elite liberal institutions have become. I don't really know what to do about it.
The assertive lunacy of most American elite institutions is a widely held opinion within the elites, but unstated publicly because the retribution isn't worth it. I happen to care less about social sanction than most of my peers.
I keep going back to this thread from @AlecMacGillis. In a set of increasingly bizarre moral panics, American liberals have decided to overlook the costs of destroying society.
Read 4 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

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

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

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @matthewstoller has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @matthewstoller!

Read all threads by @matthewstoller

:(