Open Markets Institute

View Original

WATCH: Midwest Forum on Fair Markets

WITH KEYNOTES BY
Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General
Alvaro Bedoya, FTC Commissioner

After several decades in which government policy actively encouraged corporate concentration, Americans are suffering the consequences. From stagnant wages to sky-high prices, struggling family farms to shuttered local businesses, communities across the country are squeezed as a few giant corporations consolidate control over our economy and political process. Monopoly power has become a leading issue at the kitchen table and along Main Street. 

View the Sept. 22 forum that featured keynotes by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, along with panel discussions by activists on the frontlines of antimonopoly reform in Minnesota and across the nation. Participants described paths for creating an economy in which power and prosperity are widely distributed and progress is easier to achieve. 

This antimonopoly, pro-democracy event was co-hosted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Open Markets Institute

Welcome Remarks

  • Barry Lynn, Open Markets Institute

  • Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Keynotes

  • Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison

  • FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya

Panel Discussions

  • Retail and Buyer Power - Remedies that state and federal policymakers have to level the playing field in the retail sector where megacorporations abuse their power to control prices and product availability.

  • Food Systems - How corporate consolidation harms farmers, food chain workers, and the families that depend on them, and how regulators can foster resilient and equitable food systems.

  • Healthcare and Hospitals - How antitrust policy can reverse the concentration in healthcare and hospital systems that has led to poorer health outcomes and care for midwesterners.