Mergers Ruin Everything - BIG by Matt Stoller
Welcome to BIG, a newsletter about the politics of monopoly. If you’d like to sign up, you can do so here. Or just read on…
Today I’m writing about all the money and power in the world, which is to say, mergers. My goal with BIG is to offer analysis that helps explain the world, but also that moves policymakers. The reason for this particular topic is that there is an opportunity for us to influence regulators, who recently asked for public feedback on merger policy. So I’m going to explain why the secret force in the universe is the rules by which corporations are allowed to combine with one another, and how we can fix it.
This is also the beginning of a project. Over the next few months, I’m going to ask for your help putting together a public comment to submit. Together, we’re going to get into the guts of the administrative state, which is normally the province of well-heeled lawyers and lobbyists, but technically is open to everyone. For the first time in a long time, regulators want to hear from us, so we should tell them what we think. The monopolists certainly will offer their point of view.
Sometimes Antitrust Is Rocket Science: Lina Khan’s FTC and the Pentagon just challenged the high-profile merger of Lockheed Martin and Aerojet. Lockheed’s goal was to monopolize the hypersonic missile business, but the government said no. Why? One reason is the Pentagon is starting to get cross-wise with Wall Street.
