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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
65 subscribers
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.
Jun 27 • 23 tweets • 8 min read
1. Let's talk economic termites, the companies you don't notice, but behind the scenes overcharge you in ways you don't see. Today we're going over CDK Global, a software company that raises the price of cars. thebignewsletter.com/p/economic-ter… 2. CDK Software is business software for auto dealers, managing service, parts and inventory, vehicle financing, accounting, payroll, insurance information, customer information, etc. 15,000 auto dealers use it nationwide. thebignewsletter.com/p/a-supreme-co…
Jun 11 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
"We are also proposing a ban on lenders repossessing wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, and other medical devices."

That's good wait wtf that's a thing?!? "It is perhaps immoral to repossess a prosthetic limb but it's not the state's role to prohibit a private equity fund from doing so." - former Senator Pat Toomey, probably
May 15 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
The spread of Walmart in the 1980s shattered Southern politics, that’s *purely* a trade and antitrust story. The civil rights movement is not why the South went to the right.

Also West Virginia was never Republican. The story of civil rights delivering the south to the right makes no sense! The myth of modern liberalism is rooted in southerners being racist instead of Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy deregulating airlines and trucking to crush labor. It’s just rich kid story time.
May 1 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Boeing whistleblowers keep suddenly dying. Image Image
Mar 24 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Can we admit Obamacare was a disaster and Obama was a bad President yet? Or are we still pretending that Biden is the problem because he’s not cool? time.com/6279937/us-hea… If the Rs has an alternative beyond ‘feed sick people into a woodchipper’ they would have implemented it already.