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Matt Stoller Profile picture
Matt Stoller
@matthewstoller
Researcher at https://t.co/2sa8IVbyFk Publisher of BIG: https://t.co/8QDW3bGtIv Co-host of Organized Money: https://t.co/nyRbG31qns
66 subscribers
Dec 18 • 19 tweets • 5 min read
1. You learn a lot about politicians when the spotlight is not on them. So I want to offer an observation about something Kamala just did - a quiet and almost wholly unnoticed favor to big business and Mitch McConnell - suggesting she would have been a problematic President.🧵 2. In late November, after the election, the Biden White House nominated two people for something called the International Trade Commission. The ITC is the body designed to address cheating by foreign companies who dump products to destroy US producers.

whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…
Nov 28 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
1. This is a useful response in terms of how to understand the Abundance theory of politics. Yglesias is making a *policy* argument about private equity. It's not bad! It depends! We have to be nuanced! Ok, that's true. So what's the problem? 2. People increasingly hear 'private equity' and associate it with pillaging. It's not always true; KKR has done a great job with Simon & Schuster. But it's often true. So demonizing private equity is like demonizing Wall Street - it's a symbol of a society with haves/have nots.
Nov 27 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1. There's a fascinating dynamic among Trumpy venture capitalists trying to manipulate the right-wing for their own purposes. For example, here's vc Marc Andreesen saying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau forces conservatives to lose their bank accounts. 2. Andreesen says the CFPB 'terrorizes' financial institutions and denies them access to the banking system, and says it is going after conservatives. But is that true? Well, as @dorajfacundo points out, the CFPB is doing the opposite.
Nov 22 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Trump is a lot like Obama. He is about to destroy the Republican Party as badly as Obama destroyed the Democrats, and for the same reason. He's promised a realignment for the people, he's going to deliver a realignment for Wall Street. Trump is also a godsend for Democrats the way Obama was for the Rs. In 2024, the Democrats are a spent force, dominated by horrible Obama retreads. By 2028 MSNBC will be gone and a wave of populists will have redefined the Dems as a renewed faction.
Nov 20 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
1. Identity politics is bad because it's fundamentally a con, a way of ensuring plutocrats control our society. It's the inversion of 'rights' to support authoritarian corporate power. Here are some examples.

*Stopping offshoring is racist.* 2. Regulating trillion dollar social media and search monopolists to protect children from addiction is actually an attack on gay people. wsj.com/politics/polic…Image
Nov 19 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
1. Since the new line on why antitrust is bad is the Spirit Airlines bankruptcy, let's talk about what is really happening. Here's a hint. The CEO of Spirit was paid a $3.8 million bonus the week before the bankruptcy. But you don't hear about that. wlrn.org/business/2024-… 2. What's really going on isn't a bad enforcement regime, it's a bunch of greedy incompetent airline executives blaming the government for not letting them violate the law for money. Let's start at the beginning.
npr.org/2024/11/18/nx-…
Nov 17 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
I dislike the nonprofit industrial complex because the feedback loop has fundamentally distorted both parties. Paul Sabin's history here is very good. But let's be clear, the legacy is Hillary Clinton and a bank-dominated society.
history.yale.edu/publications/p… The nonprofit industrial complex is a Ralph Nader created world on top of which built most boomer politics. Example, Hillary Clinton got her start at the Children's Defense Fund. But the whole right-wing built their apparatus on top of it in the 1980s.
Oct 25 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
1. Let's talk about Jeff Bezos's manipulation of the Washington Post for political purposes to help Trump and what this choice is causing Democrats to realize. For a long time, there's been a debate over the merits of big business and billionaires. 2. Writers like Matt Yglesias and @EricLevitz see Amazon as generally good. Here's Yglesias: "Amazon, as far as I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers.” slate.com/business/2013/…
Oct 16 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It's not just a white young male problem, it's a young male problem, period. Part of the answer is progressive elites dramatically overvalue civility and order, and thus disdain much of the cultural stuff that young guys enjoy. I once attended a Young Dems conference, and there was an hour when all the different caucuses met. Disability caucus, black caucus, women's caucus, LGBT caucus, et al.

What was left were a group of straight white guys just standing around, awkwardly. What kind of shit is that?
Aug 27 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
1. Since 2008, Google has systemically destroyed evidence relevant to antitrust investigations. And judges are beginning to hold Google accountable. Today I was a courtroom to watch Judge Leonie Brinkema, the latest judge, who is presiding over Google's third antitrust trial. Image 2. Why so many trials? Well Google has many lines of business! One trial was on its control of app stores. Another trial was about search. This one's on its power over online ad software that manages publishing sites and ad buying. All involve Google's document destruction.
Aug 23 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
"Our tool ensures that [landlords] are driving every possible opportunity to increase price even in the most downward trending or unexpected conditions.”

BOOM. That's illegal, and antitrust enforcer Jonathan Kanter just dropped the hammer. "In its pitch to prospective clients, RealPage describes AIRM’s and YieldStar’s access to competitors’ granular, transactional data as a meaningful tool that it claims enables landlords to outperform their properties’ competitors by 2–7%."

Interesting.
Aug 16 • 23 tweets • 9 min read
1. Ok why is Kamala Harris talking about price-fixing, gouging, mergers, and general pricing bullshit? Obviously it polls well. But why? Let's go over the *evidence* for why Americans are mad at big business over pricing. Let's start with rent. propublica.org/article/yields…
Image 2. A company called RealPage works with the biggest corporate landlords to hold apartments empty so they can increase prices. That's illegal. How important is this conspiracy to increased rents? “I think it’s driving it, quite honestly,” said Andrew Bowen, a RealPage executive.

propublica.org/article/yields…Image
Aug 14 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Anti-semitism is not a meaningful problem in the United States and the paranoid musings of Jewish boomers is annoying. Chuck Schumer probably experienced a bit of antisemitism as a kid. But seriously stop it. Jews are super-empowered in America in virtually every way, which he knows when he talks to the disproportionate number of Jewish Senators. We aren't defined by our grievances.
Aug 12 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
1. Here are some possible policy ideas for Harris to go at prices in food, rent, medicine, and general costs. Call it the "Break Up Ticketmaster Agenda" since everyone hates Ticketmaster and the Biden-Harris administration is suing that corporation. 2. First, sign onto Ron Wyden's bill to stop corporate landlords from colluding to jack up rent prices. Antitrust enforcer Jonathan Kanter is already going at RealPage software, the hub of the conspiracy. People will get it. wyden.senate.gov/news/press-rel…
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Aug 6 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
1. Where is Tim Walz on monopoly power? Well, his track record is excellent, with a few blemishes. Let's start with a law he signed to block hospital mergers, which killed the $14B Sanford/Fairview combination. Hospitals drive a third of health care costs. boondoggle.substack.com/p/how-minnesot… 2. In 2023, Minnesota passed the broadest law enabling the right-to-repair of devices, though it exempted "farm and construction equipment, video game consoles, specialized cybersecurity tools, motor vehicles and medical devices." Still very good.
pirg.org/media-center/r…
Aug 5 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
Reading the decision in the Google case now. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… "But Google also has a major, largely unseen advantage over its rivals: default distribution" Image
Jul 25 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Democratic Silicon Valley billionaire Reid Hoffman gives $7m to Harris, immediately demands she fire FTC Chair Lina Khan. Donor or owner? LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman thinks he owns Kamala Harris. Imagine giving $7 million and then publicly demanding a total reversal of tough on corporate crime policies. Harris took the money, she needs to repudiate this.
Jul 12 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Neoliberalism doesn't mean being anti-government or for the free market or for or against welfare, it is a specific form of statecraft that uses financial markets as a veil to disguise governing policies. Neoliberalism means organizing state policies by making them appear as if they are the consequences of depoliticized financial markets. It means moving power from public institutions to private ones, and allowing governance to happen through concentrated financial power.
Jul 9 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing starting with Lina Khan testifying. Republican @RepGusBilirakis is blasting Khan for releasing a report on PBMs and saying she's terrifying 'innovators.' energycommerce.house.gov/events/innovat… So Republican @RepArmstrongND knows Khan is doing an excellent job consistent with his priorities on big tech but lies about it because that's what you do when you're a Republican and someone actually governing is in front of you.
Jul 2 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision just overturned a case in which Biden was trying to deport an immigrant found guilty of aggravated child abuse.

Fun times. Image The Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision just vacated a decision saying a small solar panel plant gets to sell electric power to big utilities. Image
Jun 30 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
1. There are four parts to the Democratic Party, and only one matters right now. There are media Dems, policy Dems, donor Dems, and regular Democrats. Only the regulator Democrats matter. Who are they? They are the electeds, unions, black preachers - those who deal with voters. 2. Each has their role. Media Dems communicate the message. That's the NYT and Washington Post, MSNBC, black radio, etc. Most deny they are partisan but sure Jan and all that. They want Biden to step down.