21 Comments

I can't think of many bigger wins impacting millions of workers than getting rid of non-competes and cracking down on "contractor" games that employers play.

Expand full comment
Mar 11, 2022·edited Mar 11, 2022

"Because tens of millions of people are about to have the non-compete clauses in their contracts declared void. And if employers are wage-fixing, the Antitrust Division is coming with handcuffs."

That's great, it will stimulate the economy. Each worker is like a small businesses and as everybody knows its small businesses that drive the economy, not clunky, inefficient and corrupt monopolies that suck. Furthermore, each worker is also a consumer and we know that consumers must be protected at all costs. EACH WORKER IS LIKE A SMALL BUSINESS. STOP CRUSHING SMALL BUSINESSES.

Expand full comment

"emblematic of the Biden administration’s and the new populist antitrust movement’s push to direct the purpose of antitrust away from consumer welfare price effects..."

They pretend to protect the consumer by screwing over the worker. The whole concept is a farce. In most cases the consumer also works, with the exception being the rich bastards who write the laws - they don't work for their money and sure as hell don't need protection.

Expand full comment

Another great and informative newsletter - Loved the video but I would suggest China has learned from the best (us). Absent the power of sanctions, China uses its market power to punish. The use of Hollywood to convey domestic ‘propaganda’ has been going on for a long time (Mint Press has done several stories on DoD and CIA influence) and let’s not forget who are favourite villains are in the entertainment world. Also the US has been loathe to acknowledge our role with China in viral research and Covid (Sky Australia has footage of Fauci explaining why the US would conduct such research in China vs the US). China plays the long game creating dependent trading partners for scarce commodities and is implementing the Belts and Road initiative to secure their giant marketplace. Their state flower should be the Venus Fly-Trap. Meanwhile, like the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, the US was busy getting fat on the ‘good life.’ You are right, we can barely handle expensive gasoline (in Europe it’s always been expensive!!).

Expand full comment

Good article, though you should use the term Monopsony when referring to concentration of buyers.

Expand full comment

This seems too good to be true. I really hope some of this optimism bears fruit.

Expand full comment
founding

The American people are pissed and frustrated over the low wages they have been paid over the past 5 decades. The analysis here gives us one very big reason why. Folks know that they are getting ripped off, but they don't quite know how or by whom. (They know the why: greed). This piece gives them a very good sense of the how and the whom. Workers are not quite chattel slavery, but they are fenced in, particularly when State and Federal regulators are complicit in the work of the monopolists, who allow wage fixing and are otherwise ignorant of the negative impact on labor occasioned by the schemes of monopolists. This, of course, is both an economic and political issue, and the political party that leads, and persists, in pointing out that “free markets” are stealing a fifth of their wages will attract lots of new voters.

Expand full comment

This is a good article, very specific, reasonable and actionable recommendations. On the one hand I don't trust zealous and anti-business, Democrat-types of solutions, but on the other there are many anti-competitive laws that have been baked into the system by corporate lobbying over the decades that can easily be repealed to improve things almost instantly.

Expand full comment

Hi Matt

Good story, and one which should have been told decades ago. One of the worst-hit sectors is journalism. Rates for freelance work have been static or in decline for decades, and "worldwide rights in perpetuity" grabs by publishers are now standard. And no-one can write about it, because they can't find a publisher to run the story, or they can run the story once, and then never work again as a journalist. Given the concentration of power that's happened in the news (especially print) business, you might want to turn your eagle eye there.

Expand full comment

Is. Whated-mess,,, My view this started from 1980`s. leverage pay outs, to a Libertarian type economy. Globally, being from and note in 2010 MIF put "globally" poverty level at $1.25 an hour .

For the USA this wasnt going to be sustainable for at lease the bottom half.

With Corp greed as it is,, I hope we can become more in depend for Our own needs.

Oil and Gasoline, note: 2007 or so when Oil hit $147 barrow, on annalistic views of 1% over what was being produce a day. what will 7-10%shortages do to prices? All goods down the line.

I state, We have Oil here in the US. Oil companies just put caps on wells.

We can be exporters like in 2019, JUST open the tap that`s already online.

Expand full comment
founding

If Section 230 is modified such that server operators become responsible for content they host which originated with another user, user generated content will enter a dark age.

This will only be remedied when fully decentralized, anonymized, and encrypted channels for content distribution become mature. Protocols like matrix are already remarkably capable, but social networks have yet to adopt them as the backbone hosting.

Such an incentive would be incredibly detrimental both to big tech (which depends on centralized servers) and businesses based on intellectual property.

Expand full comment
Mar 12, 2022·edited Mar 12, 2022

I'm not sure I can get onboard with Thomas' vision of curtailing Section 230, because I don't trust him not to simply weaponize control over speech, to attack people he dislikes, and grant impunity to those he does like. And the moral panic against "sex trafficking" (which happens, but is orders of magnitude rarer than it is made out to be by folks like Thomas), as embodied in laws like FOSTA / SESTA, is already causing lots of problems for people who were happily and voluntarily making their living in various types of sex work. In particular, it's becoming very difficult for such people to accept payments for their work, because the Visa/Mastercard duopoly have started demanding that any platform that uses their service demonetize people based on arbitrary and capricious rules. It makes the people who do that work poorer and less safe.

Expand full comment

US Monopolies are the tip of the Iceberg called Betrayal!

The CCP, Wall Street, The US ☭hamber Of ☭ommerce and ☭orporate Ameri☭a bribed ☭ongress to write the laws that made it legal to screw over America and allow the greatest transfer of jobs, wealth and intellectual property in modern history to an avowed enemy, Communist China, making them the threat they are today.

☭ongress and ☭orporate America are the real enemy!

Expand full comment