American households are in a much more financially fragile state than we were in the 1980s. It's a Chinese finger trap economy, dependent on the stock market and more inequality to keep going.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Judge Amit Mehta had a chance to restore some semblance of the rule of law when he handed down a remedy decision in the Google case. He didn't. Google won this round. And Wall Street is rejoicing.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Crypto used endless spending to get rid of all political opposition. Now Mark Zuckerberg will do the same against those who want to regulate AI. Plus, a ruling on tariffs and a dentist revolt.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Economists predicted doom if the Federal Reserve were controlled by the President. Trump has moved in that direction, but Wall Street doesn't care. Is 'independence' not what we think?| www.thebignewsletter.com
Let's introduce ourselves to other BIG readers. What got you interested in monopolies and finance? Plus, why are at home Covid tests still more expensive in the U.S. versus Europe?| www.thebignewsletter.com
Utility holding company middlemen have convinced timid regulators to give them guaranteed excessive returns. But why? If we cut out the middleman, we'd make money and cut our electricity bills.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Judge Amit Mehta is going to hand down the Google decision this month. Donald Trump probably can't keep himself away from the case. Plus, anger at big business is showing up in jury selection.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The producer price index had bad higher-than-expected numbers today. But much of the increase was due to higher profit margins. And why wouldn't it show that? That's what Trump wants.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The U.S. needs Intel's high-end chipmaking production capacity. It's possible to save the flailing company, but it would require leadership to do it. Are policymakers or businessmen interested?| www.thebignewsletter.com
Parents feel financial stress as rage builds against inflation and dynamic pricing. Plus candidates embrace anti-monopoly themes, new rules for supersonic flight, and furniture industry consolidation.| www.thebignewsletter.com
How did a debate over housing become a call to end the anti-monopoly movement? Abundance co-author Derek Thompson used slimy tactics to protect wealth and power in America. It's worth examining how.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Epic Games will launch an app store on Android after an appeals court upheld Google's loss in a monopolization case. Plus, Silicon Valley's sore winner problem, and anger at the big railroad merger.| www.thebignewsletter.com
From cheerleading to video games, business leaders are saying "Enough!"| www.thebignewsletter.com
Like the rest of the government under Trump, the Antitrust Division just got turned into a pay-to-play operation. Four Senators are trying to expose what's happening to antitrust, and our society.| www.thebignewsletter.com
American Bar Association Antitrust Section lawyers run a lot of antitrust policy. And they are extremely mad at Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Elizabeth Warren and Senate Dems release a major bill on housing, while New Democrats do a trickle-down 'Innovation' agenda. Which will win? Plus a war within MAGA on antitrust, and a market bubble.| www.thebignewsletter.com
MAGA-linked operatives are trying to overthrow populists at the Antitrust Division over a corrupt $14 billion merger deal. The wrinkle is a liberal judge has the power to expose what's happening.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Yes, generative AI is transformational. Will it eliminate most entry-level jobs? That depends. Will we continue to demand excessive returns on capital? If so, then we're in trouble.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Wall Street is ignoring Trump antitrust enforcers. Plus, the rare earth crisis abated, the superrich really hate Zohran Mamdani, Trump caves on China, and the NFL players union is in crisis.| www.thebignewsletter.com
In the Booming Twenties, all decision-making is about protecting the value of financial assets held by older people. Therefore, the number must go up. And nothing else matters.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Donald Trump wants to fire Fed Chair Jay Powell. He should be able to do so. The Fed needs to be controlled by elected leaders, not Wall Street. Even if those elected leaders are bad.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Jeff Epstein was a touchstone for MAGA to articulate anger at concentrated power. It also powered a business model for the podcasteratti. Trum threatened all of that. Plus, the merger spree starts.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Primo Brands is the child of Nestle, Danone, and Suntory, a roll-up of water delivery companies and bottled water brands. I've rarely seen the internet hate a company more.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Replacing private pharma middlemen with state agencies cut costs and saved pharmacists. Wheee! Plus, Trump's tax bill passed, DOJ beat Apple on antitrust, and South Park creators got mad at a merger.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Abraham Lincoln once said, “Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Are we coming to remember that once again?| www.thebignewsletter.com
A ban on state AI regulation got stripped from Trump's giant tax bill, due to a combination of Democratic Senators, populist Republicans, and left populist tech and MAGA activists.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Rocket, Zillow, and Compass are all trying to take the $100 billion that now goes to real estate agents. It's a war for the last monopolist standing. Plus, Trump enforcers pull back on antitrust.| www.thebignewsletter.com
A New York City mayoral election is a watershed for populism, as winner Zohran Mamdani campaigned on a platform of bringing down costs. He even did an event with antitrust enforcer Lina Khan.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Will Iran hit back in a meaningful way? Wall Street doesn't think so. Plus, Zuckerberg recruit in AI because Meta can't build good products. And the NYC mayoral race has implications for big business.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Google has lost three separate antitrust cases, and more are on the way. Why does this company still exist in one piece? It shouldn't, but we're still dealing with the hangover of the 1990s.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The Israeli-Iranian conflict has lessons on market power and war. So does China's use of rare earth magnets. Plus Meta tries a big AI acquisition, and Warner-Discovery splits up after a dumb merger.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Oregon passes SB 951, a bill that prohibits private equity and corporate decision-making in health care. UnitedHealth Group, Amazon, and private equity lobbied fiercely, but lost. Is it a trend?| www.thebignewsletter.com
The Antitrust Division proposed a comprehensive solution to Google's monopoly, including pushing Apple into search. Now comes a mini-trial where Judge Amit Mehta will decide what to do.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Harvard is under attack by the Trump administration. How are the best and the brightest responding? Plus, Apple takes another hit. And is a McDonald's ice cream machine fix coming?| www.thebignewsletter.com
A trade court said Trump's use of tariffs is unlawful. Plus, we start to see what the Google remedy might be, and a major bill in Oregon banning corporate ownership of doctor's practices passed.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Dallas was one of the last big cities in America where a working family could buy a house. No longer. And it's not because of zoning policy—it's because of corporate consolidation and private equity.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The House Republicans have put forward a proposal that says states cannot make laws that regulate artificial intelligence or 'automated decision-making.' Conservatives should be upset about it.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The record label industry nearly died a few years ago. But now it's back, and like every other sector of commerce, it's consolidated. Fortunately, European regulators look set to act.| www.thebignewsletter.com
In a little noticed interview, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg offers a host of exceptionally creepy comments. Plus, tariffs, the Cambrian explosion of apps, Medicare Advantage exposed, and more...| www.thebignewsletter.com
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rebuked the phone giant, opened the app store, and made a criminal contempt referral to an Apple executive for lying under oath. Plus, a bad antitrust bill goes down.| www.thebignewsletter.com
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan released a bill to move all antitrust work from the Federal Trade Commission to the Department of Justice, deleting a key antitrust law. PBMs and Amazon could benefit.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Donald Trump's tariff choices have already had significant impacts on small businesses, who can't deal with shocks. Economic termites could feast, and price gouging and fixing could accelerate.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled against the search giant for its control over the software underpinning online ad buying. Now it's on to the remedy.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The stock market slides as Trump's tariffs roil markets. Wall Street is terrified and mergers slow. Plus Capital One-Discover gets the green light, and Zuck lobbies Trump directly on antitrust.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Donald Trump's problematic tariff plan will engender a 'capital strike' from big business and the rest of the world. Wall Street is planning revenge. Small business is panicking. What comes next?| www.thebignewsletter.com
America has a 'number go up' strategy for Wall Street, and that means we can't build. Plus, Planet Fitness lobbyists try to kill the Click to Cancel rule. And is our Democrats learning?| www.thebignewsletter.com
The American Medical Association has a government-granted monopoly over medical billing codes. Is that why the AMA was silent when Robert Kennedy Jr. was sent to run American health care?| www.thebignewsletter.com
The Democratic establishment brain was at the giant law firm Paul Weiss. They just bent the knee to Trump. Plus, tennis players revolt, and Google accidentally confesses to monopolization.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Donald Trump picked a fight over firing officials at the Federal Trade Commission. If he wins, Federal Reserve independence is next. And an Amazon lobbying firm, Ballard Partners, may be involved.| www.thebignewsletter.com
In part two of "Hatching a Conspiracy," BIG delves into the obscure world of chicken genetics. Two secretive firms control the global supply of layer hens. And yes, private equity is involved.| www.thebignewsletter.com
This week was Donald Trump's first State of the Union. Wall Street is abuzz with rumors Trump is seeking to re-architect the global financial system. Plus his enforcers go hard-core on Google.| www.thebignewsletter.com
'More hens, less income!' So said the United Egg Producers' economist Donald Bell in 1994. The industry has gotten more consolidated ever since. And avian flu is just the latest excuse to hike prices.| www.thebignewsletter.com
This week the American consumer got spooked, and the Atlanta Fed said the economy is shrinking. Plus, Trump antitrust officials move through Congress. And Jim Cramer asks, "Where are all the mergers?"| www.thebignewsletter.com
Massive turnout at town halls and at Bernie Sanders' Tour Against Oligarchy suggest that something new is happening. In 2017, the resistance was corporate. Today, corporate America is the villain.| www.thebignewsletter.com
New Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson and acting Antitrust Division chief Omeed Assefi endorsed the 2023 merger guidelines. There's a new bipartisan consensus.| www.thebignewsletter.com
In the bargain after the financial crisis, banks got a bailout in return for some mild oversight. They, along with big tech, have now broken that deal. And the consequences will be significant.| www.thebignewsletter.com
A new paper shows how a small group of experts have inverted the electric utility model, destroying what was once a reliable set of public service corporations.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Donald Trump signed an executive order levying tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico. He also hit a key loophole used by Amazon, SHEIN, and Temu. Wall Street is mad.| www.thebignewsletter.com
In its first action, the Trump DOJ files suit to block Hewlett Packard's $14 billion attempted acquisition of Juniper Networks. Is Wall Street wrong about Trump?| www.thebignewsletter.com
During the LA fires, dozens of fire trucks sat in the boneyard, waiting for repairs the city couldn't afford. Why? A private equity roll-up made replacing and repairing those trucks much pricier.| www.thebignewsletter.com
At least for a few more days, laws are not suggestions. In the end days of strong enforcement, a flurry of litigation is met with a direct lawsuit by billionaires against Biden's Antitrust chief.| www.thebignewsletter.com
How important is artificial intelligence? It's not clear. But there's a reason we keep hearing about it. If AI doesn't live up to its promise, a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Have laws become suggestions again for the powerful? Disney's CEO Bob Iger has just bought up Fubo, a streaming rival, to monopolize sports content, collaborating with Fox and Warner Bros to do it.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The Make America Healthy Again agenda from the Trump administration will see a major test in the upcoming Farm Bill. What will it look like? Plus monopolization continues with mergers aplenty...| www.thebignewsletter.com
In 2024, we saw some fruits of the anti-monopoly revolution. Jonathan Kanter and Lina Khan revived antitrust law across the board. But is it now over? What's coming next?| www.thebignewsletter.com
Regulators pass rules to stop hotels, banks, and Ticketmaster from hiding what they charge. It's just one part of the war on junk fees, which will continue despite the end of the Biden administration.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Steve Bannon says it's time for Donald Trump to join George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as one of the great American leaders. It's a 1932-style alignment, he says. But that, um, seems unlikely...| www.thebignewsletter.com
Big business has been going after plaintiff lawyers since the 1980s. Why? 90% of antitrust cases come from private attorneys, restructuring everything from real estate to college sports to big tech.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The history and politics of monopoly power. Click to read BIG by Matt Stoller, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The Federal Trade Commission went after the middleman economy. Plus, Kid Rock may keep the Ticketmaster antitrust suit alive, and other news of the week.| www.thebignewsletter.com
UnitedHealth Group is not an insurer, it's a platform. And it's in the crosshairs as Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley propose breaking it apart, severing its pharmacy arm from the rest of the business| www.thebignewsletter.com
Chalk up another and perhaps final win for Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, as Judge Adrienne Nelson prevents the consolidation of the grocery industry.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The murder of UnitedHealth Care CEO Brian Thompson was brutal. The reactions were telling. Elite disdain for the rule of law is leading to a society that is spinning out of control.| www.thebignewsletter.com
There's a trade-off between re-industrializing the country, keeping prices low, and high corporate profits. Trump will have to pick.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Big business wants white glove treatment in Donald Trump's America. One example, economic termite Verisign, is illustrative of how Washington, D.C. is accommodating the new administration.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Anti-monopolists attached themselves to the Democratic Party. And we got blown out. Why? And are there larger lessons?| www.thebignewsletter.com
Airline lobbyists, CNBC anchors, bankers can't hide their excitement as media CEOs discuss their 'desperation' to consolidate. And a House GOP leader floats a consolidation-friendly proposal.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Albertsons uses land use restrictions in Mammoth, CA to stop competition so it can be the only store in town.| www.thebignewsletter.com
What happens to regulators and enforcers who apply the rule of law? We're about to find out. The rage from corporate America is flowing.| www.thebignewsletter.com
One of the easiest ways to expand our electric grid is to use data to make it more efficient. Who is standing in the way? Utility monopolies.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Jeff Bezos used his control over the Washington Post to avoid offending Trump. Bezos needs those defense contracts. Yet in doing so, he's taught Democrats a valuable lesson.| www.thebignewsletter.com
A win for the Federal Trade Commission's Lina Khan as Tapestry, the owner of Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman, is barred from buying Capri, which owns Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, and Versace.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Too many big corporations in America cheat consumers through subscription scams. The FTC's Click to Cancel rule just made them mad. And in an obscure document dump, their lawyers showed why.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The DOJ put forward a proposal to take apart the search giant's market power. What happens when antitrust stops being polite, and starts getting real?| www.thebignewsletter.com
CFPB Director Rohit Chopra is single-handedly blocking a massive sell-out to Wall Street. Plus, where are Trump and Harris on monopolies?| www.thebignewsletter.com
The auto glass repair company runs third party administrator services for auto insurers. It's a 'glass benefits manager.'| www.thebignewsletter.com
The Antitrust Division sued Visa for levying a private sales tax on every merchant in America. It's about time. The DOJ is going to win, as this case looks a lot like the case against Google search.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The FTC sued the key middlemen of big pharma. Plus more on the Wall Street campaign to fire Lina Khan, and the ad world prepares for Google's break-up.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Algorithms are no longer a Get out of Jail free card. The Third Circuit ruled that TikTok must stand trial for manipulating children into harming themselves. The business model of big tech is over.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The Antitrust Division finally sued RealPage for orchestrating a conspiracy among corporate landlords and illegally hiking rents for millions in cities across the country.| www.thebignewsletter.com
During a merger investigation, Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran and three other execs deleted text messages the court had ordered preserved. The Federal Trade Commission asked the judge for penalties.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Kamala Harris proposed a slew of proposals arguing that pricing in America has gone haywire. Economists got mad. Trump called her a Communist. What does it all mean?| www.thebignewsletter.com
Henry George was right about land values. And today we have a homebuilder cartel rooted in control of land and financing.| www.thebignewsletter.com
Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by excluding rivals from the general search engine market in order to maintain its monopoly. What happens now?| www.thebignewsletter.com
Google is too big to get rid of cookies. Even when it wants to protect users, it can't.| www.thebignewsletter.com
The Federal Trade Commission proposed a full ban in April. What's the status of that ban? Plus, more than a dozen states have acted after the effort of journalists, lawyers, regulators, and citizens.| www.thebignewsletter.com
LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman gave $10 million to Harris' campaign and demanded an end to Biden's tariff and antitrust policies. Bernie Sanders reacted angrily.| www.thebignewsletter.com
With Joe Biden not running for re-election, his running mate Kamala Harris is now in the spotlight. Her record on monopolies and financial concentration is mixed. Will she cede populism to the right?| www.thebignewsletter.com
Wall Street is freaking out that Donald Trump picked populist JD Vance as his running mate. But parts of Silicon Valley and crypto venture capitalists are elated. What gives?| www.thebignewsletter.com
4% of all the money in America flows through a few mafia-like health care conglomerates. The FTC just released a ground-breaking report on how they operate. And it is gearing up to sue.| www.thebignewsletter.com
