Half of all companies in the US use big banks as their primary financial services provider. Today I document two cases where small businesses were ruined by their big bank. The loss of relationship lending has a cost. 🧵
prospect.org/economy/2025-0… Case study #1: Elcon, a 42-year-old public works construction firm in the Seattle area. KeyBank called in a $7m line of credit in a fit of anger, a highly unusual maneuver in the industry, especially for a company with $250m in future business lined up. prospect.org/economy/2025-0…

This took a while, but I've chronicled my day among the protesters in Los Angeles, and the idea that this is anything but a celebration of cultural heritage and a firm, nonviolent demand to protect family, friends and neighbors is totally ridiculous. (links and pics below) Most important, here's the link, which covers a rally for a detained union later who was later freed, a clergy sit-in with the National Guard well behind the LAPD, and an impromptu Tejano dance party.
prospect.org/justice/cries-…

The Trump administration has effectively ended white-collar crime enforcement. All this week, we're going to look at what ripoffs, deceptions, and cons will rise as a result to part the public from their money.
This intro sets the stage: it's the Golden Age of Scams. It's important to study where the scams will come from because historically they have led to larger catastrophes that cascade out from the main victims. Our project is to find the growth industries in ripoffs.
prospect.org/power/2025-05-…

Today on TAP, from me: This moment feels like February 2020. If you read closely, you know something bad will happen soon, but it's not visible yet.
In this case, it's the dismantling of our supply chains, empty store shelves, and recession. It's a matter of time. 🧵 We know that volumes from China are falling. That really starts to hit next week. The immediate impact is on logistics. Companies pulled forward orders, which will keep them OK for a little while. But it's impossible to hold off the pain forever.
prospect.org/blogs-and-news…

NEW: Frank Bisignano, Trump's nominee to run the Social Security Administration, is CEO of an oligopoly for back-office banking services, buoyed by at least 40 acquisitions in the last 34 years. SSA could be his latest conquest. 🧵 Fiserv is one of three "core providers" that provide back-office support to 72 percent of all banks and nearly half of all credit unions. Smaller banks have routinely complained about complex, expensive long-term contracts and substandard services. prospect.org/health/2025-03…

NEW from me: The Trump administration will likely change the Biden-passed broadband buildout so Elon Musk's Starlink can get more of the $42.5 billion pie. But there's another way to hand Starlink critical infrastructure for its business: through government spectrum sales. 🧵 Currently the FCC isn't authorized to conduct spectrum auctions. Some Republicans want to reauthorize but also accelerate auctions & dictate what spectrum should be sold. This is an accounting gimmick to "raise" money to offset the tax cuts, by pulling spectrum revenue forward.

I got a message last week from the White House. They pitched a new writer for us: Joe Biden. Today, @TheProspect is publishing the 46th president explaining his economic agenda: what he accomplished and why he did it.
See below for details. The president writes that he wanted to reverse the failed approach of trickle-down economics, the offshoring of jobs, the high cost of things like prescription drugs. Here's what he sought to do instead:
prospect.org/economy/2024-1…

tl;dr: Lina Khan is successful at working legal levers of power to uphold the law, and as conservatives we hate that
oversight.house.gov/wp-content/upl… This alleged rampant illegality starts with pro-monopoly conservatives grousing that Khan was appointed to a White House council. Can you imagine!

We are rolling out a special issue today. It's about the states. We're calling it the Cold Civil War. And I want to explain why we did it. 1/
prospect.org/politics/2024-… We've noticed two major trends over the past few years. One is that, while Trump led a shadow government in his mind, the locus of power in the conservative movement is really at the state level, where all the ideological extremism has come from.

Financial advisers went to court and blocked a rule that they have to act in the best interest of their clients. They sued to steal your retirement money, and won.

https://twitter.com/hamiltonnolan/status/1823382017058210001

The rule in question has a 15-year history. It starts in 2009 with one public servant in the Department of Labor named Phyllis Borzi. It took her the entire 2 terms of the Obama administration, through sheer will, to get the rule done.
The 5th Circuit then blocked it in 2018.

This is the final day of our pricing series and we have two pieces for you.
First, @Bilalgwork of Groundwork looks at what policymakers can do about unfair, deceptive, and abusive pricing. Turns out there's a lot, some of which is already happening
prospect.org/economy/2024-0… One thing not brought up enough in the context of this pricing evolution, and corporate power more generally, is tax policy. Bilal does that:
prospect.org/economy/2024-0…

We continue our series on how pricing really works with one of my favorite pieces: Joanna Marsh on subscription pricing, which relies on dark patterns and absent-mindedness to keep consumers paying.
prospect.org/economy/2024-0… It's the inattention economy: "A survey found that consumers estimated they were spending $86/month for their subscriptions. The total was actually $219."
Subscriptions are so out of hand that there are now subscription services to help you manage them.
prospect.org/economy/2024-0…

So:
Judge Pittman (Trump judge in Texas) got the Chamber's challenge to CFPB credit card late fees.
He said it wasn't germane to Texas, sent it to DC
The 5th Circuit said no, sent it back to Pittman
And now Pittman put it on hold.
accountable.us/wp-content/upl… Pittman clearly seems mad about how the process went and mad at the Chamber. He even added this graph of the winding timeline of the case.
But that didn't stop him from ruling for big banks.

The $138 billion in student debt that's been relieved by Biden has nothing to do with his "Plan B" for debt relief after the Plan A was shot down by the courts. It's just about Biden's Education Department running existing forgiveness programs with a modicum of competence. Today's announcement, for example, involves the speedy implementation of the updated income-driven repayment (SAVE) program, which promised that people paying 10 years with less than $12,000 in debt would get it forgiven.
npr.org/2024/02/21/123…

The UAW's selective strike strategy is new for UAW, but it's been very successful for one other union. So much so that they trademarked the practice.
That would be @afa_cwa's CHAOS strategy. 🧵 CHAOS stands for Creating Havoc Around Our System. It began at Alaska Airlines in 1993. There was a protracted strike with the flight attendants, despite the airline earning record profits. Negotiations had dragged on for 3 years.

I read @FranklinFoer's Biden bio The Last Politician, and found this disconnect between a peripatetic presidency of action and the public perception that nothing's happening. What accounts for it? Maybe it's the White House's theory of politics.
prospect.org/culture/books/… Reading the accounts of Biden directing meetings and horse-trading with Congress—the work of politics—is so disconnected from this White House's extreme cloistering of the president that it called to mind the old SNL Reagan mastermind sketch:

This whole story is quite something. Timeline goes like this:

https://twitter.com/ChristaLaser/status/1693740050553409737

Aug 7: Josh Wright suddenly announces he's leaving GMU
Aug 7: Prof Laser releases Wright's attempt to turn a job interview into a date ()
Aug 8: GMU bids Wright a fond farewell ()

https://twitter.com/ChristaLaser/status/1688753648589819904

https://twitter.com/lutherlowe/status/1693744341607452908

Our business of health care series continues with a history of UnitedHealth, the largest insurer & the largest employer of physicians in the country, with so many subsidiaries that 25% of its revenues come from *itself*.
From @SaraLSirota & @KristaKBrown.
prospect.org/health/2023-08… We go through UnitedHealth's entire history, from its founding as a way around state laws that required HMOs to be nonprofits run by physicians to its serial acquisitions of just about everything in healthcare.
https://t.co/DYbarYOQxJprospect.org/health/2023-08…

OK I've got a #longread today for our health care series about the godfather of modern health policy, responsible for Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, risk adjustment, physician payment schedules & more.
His name is Tom Scully.
prospect.org/health/2023-08… Once out of government, Scully became a partner at the leading health-focused private equity firm (Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe), using his unparalleled knowledge of a system he helped create to exploit pockets of government support.
prospect.org/health/2023-08…

So according to the president's words, they're going to create a new program, I presume with the same parameters, under the compromise & settlement authority of the Higher Education Act that we discussed as the main way to cancel student debt 4 years ago: prospect.org/day-one-agenda… He mentioned that "it will take longer." I think this is what that means.
There are a couple regulatory hurdles. They are discussed in this letter:
static.politico.com/4c/c4/dfaddbb9…

Breaking: 90% of the $4 trillion in Covid funding properly spent, and thousands of people who grabbed at the other (potentially) 10% have been arrested, with thousands more investigations underway
apnews.com/article/pandem… Also another $1 trillion has yet to be spent and therefore has yet to be stolen. So it's more like 8% (potentially) stolen, with many of those responsible arrested and that number probably maximized for sensationalism's sake