Special Advisor at the Federal Trade Commission. Views are my own.
Sep 20, 2022 • 19 tweets • 5 min read
Reminder that @linakhanFTC and AAG Jonathan Kanter have been busy protecting working families from abusive corporations and challenging harmful mergers across the board.
Millions of people have hearing loss, but the hearing aid industry has long been controlled by a cartel that makes sure prices stay high and regulators sit on their hands.
But today, the Biden @WhiteHouse and @US_FDA took action to break their power.
2/ Hearing loss is a pervasive health problem. It can lead to diseases like dementia — and 2/3 of people over the age of 70 experience some form of it.
But only 20% of people who have hearing loss actually use hearing aids.
Aug 16, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
After 40 years of corporate lawlessness, how can you tell which public officials are fighting to finally make sure powerful corporations aren't above the law?
1. Underlying the debate over what’s causing/how to respond to inflation is another important debate: which perspectives should be taken seriously on economic questions (and which should be childishly mocked and mischaracterized).
2. It’s just so striking to me that many influential economists refuse to demonstrate any curiosity around the role of market power in rising prices and profit margins at a time when economic concentration is broadly understood to be pervasive.
May 12, 2022 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
We know why there’s a baby formula production crisis. It’s because dominant corporations — like Abbott Labs — are confident that consumers can’t abandon them, competitors can’t displace them, and lawmakers will never punish wrongdoing with anything more than a slap on the wrist.
We hear the phrase “an economy that works for all” ad nauseam. Here’s what I don’t hear enough of:
Nov 23, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Listening to @POTUS' speech on supply chains? The shipping business is complex. But the crisis that’s rattled the supply chain for consumers and businesses alike, and left store shelves empty during a global pandemic? That’s simple.
One word, four syllables, starts with ‘M.’
2/ Shipping is among the most concentrated industries in the world. Just 4 monopoly shippers control 60 percent of all cargo capacity. Just 8 control 80 percent.
These 8 corporations operate in three “alliances” -- legalized cartels designed to avoid competition.
Dec 9, 2020 • 22 tweets • 11 min read
Today is an enormous win for the rule of law, fair and open markets, and American democracy.
@NewYorkStateAG, along with 47 state and territorial AGs and (finally!) the @FTC, has filed an open-and-shut case to #BreakUpFacebook and restore fair competition in digital markets.
2/ This comes on the heels of @RepCicilline’s historic investigation into Facebook and other platforms’ monopoly power.
Amazingly, breaking up (and regulating!) Facebook to protect democracy and commerce from its broad range of harms was seen as fringe back in 2018.
Apr 11, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Democracy is dying one newsroom at a time.
Facebook and Google’s advertising monopolies and business models are the biggest reason why.
We need to galvanize a bigger, broader movement to save journalism, folding this fight other efforts to protect democracy from autocracy. 1/
