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Feb 13 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The answer is no, economists are not curious about why profits are radically higher.
It's common to ask 'well weren't firms greedy in 2019?!?'

Well, there has been a record merger wave from 2019-2021, accelerated by the pandemic and the Federal Reserve.

So yes, market power has increased.
No one is saying there's more greed, or that market power is the only cause of inflation. These are straw-men designed to police the boundaries of elite discourse. Keep doing it, economists, keep discrediting yourselves.
Market power has also increased simply due to pandemic restrictions and changed behavior. For example, restaurants are now dependent on food delivery apps who have market power. That's new.

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More from @matthewstoller

Matt Stoller Profile picture
Feb 14
1. This is an interesting piece by pollster Stan Greenberg, who coined the term 'Reagan Democrat' in the 1980s. It's all about Obama and his legacy, and not in a positive sense. Dems are losing black and hispanic working class voters now. prospect.org/politics/democ…
2. Greenberg sees the same trend lines for black and Hispanic working class voters as he did for white working class voters in the 1980s. And this all happened under Obama, who voters see as prioritizing Wall Street and big business.
3. While he's respected, Obama was insanely out of touch on what mattered to voters, and won reelection only because Mitt Romney was more out of touch. Obama is liked but the Obama political project is perceived of as disastrous. Obama is why Hillary Clinton lost in 2016.
Read 10 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Feb 13
Anyone who thinks the U.S. should defend Ukraine needs to explain why letting China waltz into Taiwan as our forces are bogged down in Europe is a good idea.
If Putin wants to invade Ukraine, there's nothing we can or should do. There is no rules-based international order, we saw to that with the invasion of Iraq. And Putin's fear of NATO expansion is legitimate. There is simply no reason to be involved in the defense of Ukraine.
Taiwan is actually strategically vital to the U.S., Ukraine is mostly not. This isn't complex, but the Army is embarrassed about Afghanistan and they have no role in the Pacific. And our bureaucracies know how to hate Russia but don't want to deal with the Wall Street-China axis.
Read 4 tweets
Matt Stoller Profile picture
Feb 11
Listening now, man the judge is angry at Facebook. Asks plaintiffs to call for sanctioning them over their bad behavior in discovery. Also calls for the lawyers to also be sanctioned. Wow.
Judge Chhabria: "I want to invite the plaintiffs to invite to file motions for sanctions if they agree with me, and in any other areas where Facebook has engaged in sanctionable conduct. The partners in the pleading and Facebook should be jointly liable in the sanctions."
Judge Chhabria is saying the associates perhaps should not be sanctioned, but the partners should be. Perhaps to pay attorney costs for the other side. He's holding #BigLaw accountable.
Read 7 tweets
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 7
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.
Read 4 tweets

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