Part One:
WHY IS THE CONCENTRATION OF ECONOMIC POWER BAD FOR AMERICA?
We speak with Amitrajeet Batabyal, professor of economics at Rochester Institute of Technology, about his article explaining why antitrust enforcement is so important. He takes us through the history of antitrust law — beginning with Republican Teddy Roosevelt’s crusade against the Robber Barons more than 100 years ago. FDR was able to dig us out of the Great Depression, in part, by breaking up other large corporate monopolies and oligopolies.
In current news, the proposed merger between T-Mobile and Sprint will cause real harm to the U.S. economy. It will reduce competition in the telecommunications industry and raise customer prices by billions of dollars. In addition, the merger will exacerbate the rampant growth of inequality.
We remind listeners, too, that traditional economic analysis of antitrust enforcement — like other governmental regulation of “free markets” — is valid only if there are “perfect markets.” The conclusions reached through that analysis cannot be relied on if there are “imperfect” markets, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, a lack of perfect information about costs, prices, barriers to entry into certain concentrated industries, and “downstream effects” (like pollution) which constitute real costs to society but which the corporation doesn’t have to include in evaluating its own cost-benefit analysis (unless government regulations force them to).
Part Two:
BLOOMBERG IS THE WIZARD OF OZ, AND ELIZABETH WARREN EXPOSES THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
We discuss last night’s Democratic debate in Nevada with Bill Curry, who was twice the Democratic nominee for Governor of Connecticut and later a White House advisor in Bill Clinton’s administration. All of the Democrats attacked Mayor Bloomberg (who was appearing for the first time at one of these presidential debates).
But Elizabeth Warren stood out in her vigorous, lucid and compelling focus on Bloomberg’s long history of allegedly racist and sexist comments and policies, his police department’s racial profiling, and the lawsuits against his company for sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Bloomberg’s responses on these issues came across as hollow and insensitive (at best), as he appears to have learned nothing from the #MeToo movement or Black Lives Matter.
The question is whether Warren will actually reap any political benefits from her outstanding debate performance. Klobuchar got a big bump after her performance in the New Hampshire debate, but she could well get a similar bump *downward* after her less-than-stellar debate last night. Also, is it possible that Warren could catch some flak for seeming overly aggressive last night? Perhaps she should have limited her criticism to a more restrained, fact-based focus on Bloomberg? (Of course, this is the critique that women leaders hear all the time.)
Bill’s advice to all candidates is to be as unsparing with the *facts and fierce *logic as possible, but at the same time, as *restrained and *civil in *tone and & *language as possible. That’s the winning combination. It’s not that you let anybody off the mat when you’ve “got them” pinned down with a real concern. But you realize that the *way* you “get them” is by the power of *reason* and the power of *values*.
We note that some of last night’s negativity is understandable, given that every candidate knew well that this debate could be the last opportunity for their campaigns to survive. They’re all just one debate away from extinction. Se their staffs probably advised them to throw their best punches, so the candidates let it all hang out.
Speaking of punches, Pete Buttigieg is the master of sticking the shiv into his opponents, without seeming to. It’s a skill that may benefit him in taking down his opponents, but only as long as no one notices. At some point, however, we wonder whether the trust factor could become more important to voters than the momentary skewering. I.e., will voters at some point realize that they too must take care not to turn their backs on the affable Mayor Pete lest they too get stabbed?
