Open Markets' Food & Power reporter Claire Kelloway reports on the "Stop the Stealin'" rally where nearly 500 cattle producers from 14 states rallied in Omaha, Nebraska to denounce corporate control over cattle markets and to demand that the Trump administration do something to fix it. She also covers developments in the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF)’s case for why beef checkoff funds should not go to private entities without ranchers’ consent. Here's her latest on Food & Power.
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The Guardian exclusively reports that as US job market tightens Bechtel senior vice-president appeared to urge companies not to compete on salaries, arousing ‘real wage-fixing concerns. Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan tells The Guardian: “This type of activity is collusive or a prelude to collusion. At a minimum, the remarks should be treated as inviting rivals not to compete for workers.”
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"Senator Booker’s plan is long overdue," said Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan. "The NCAA is, in effect, a cartel of employers robbing college athletes of fair, competitive wages, not dissimilar to how corporations in tech and other sectors have conspired to suppress their employees' salaries."
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Gerald Berk reviews Open Markets Senior Fellow Matt Stoller's new book Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy on The American Prospect. He writes that Matt Stoller’s ‘Goliath’ seeks to recover and explain the anti-monopoly tradition of the 20th century, at a time when it is urgently needed in the 21st. "Democrats who seek to revitalize their party would do well to study Matt Stoller’s Goliath and incorporate—in a complex and thoughtful manner—its central teachings," Berk says.
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Axios Future analyzes why Walmart remains under the radar as big tech comes under scrutiny. “I don’t think anyone is paying attention to Walmart,” says Director of Enforcement Strategy, Sally Hubbard.
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POLITICO's Steve Overly reports that investigations from state attorneys general and federal agencies are causing a rift between free market conservatives and the party's more populist voices. He talks to Open Markets fellow Matt Stoller about the tech industry's waning influence. “People aren't afraid of them anymore" said Stoller. "It’s not that they don’t have power, they do have power. They don't carry the same level of fear."
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"That PayPal has woken up to the dangers Libra poses to democracy, and has chosen to leave the project, is enough of a signal that the remaining consortium partners should do the same and walk away," said Open Markets Chief of Staff Laura Hatalsky in a statement.
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“Senator Warren recognizes that antitrust law should be an integral part of a pro-worker agenda," Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan said in a statement. “We applaud her efforts to return power to workers.”
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On October 3, Open Markets Institute joined a group of public interest groups and one union to file a petition before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to put the T-Mobile/Sprint merger on hold.
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Open Markets Health Care Researcher and Reporter Olivia Webb writes on The American Prospect about how investment firms have bought up emergency medical service companies, squeezing soaring profits from vulnerable patients. "The Great Recession created an opportunity to financialize the practice of lifesaving emergency transport," she writes. "After 2008, a number of private equity firms moved to take over ambulance and air ambulance providers."
Welcome to The Corner. In this issue, Sandeep Vaheesan lists some actions the next administration could take on day oneto fight concentrated power. And we explain why Senator Mike Lee is getting the U.S. constitutional philosophy wrong when he criticizes regulatory overlap between the DOJ Antitrust Division and the FTC.
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At a Senate oversight hearing last month, antitrust subcommittee Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, reacted to reports of disagreements between the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice over who would investigate Facebook for antitrust violations. The whole exchange, however, revealed a deep misunderstanding of American’s antimonopoly tradition and political philosophy generally. Read the latest piece from The Corner newsletter.
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The below is a statement from Claire Kelloway, Reporter & Researcher at Open Markets Institute, regarding Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s comment “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out.”
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