Since the 1970s, the US has seen a growing power imbalance between workers and employers. This story was not inevitable, but the product of conscious legal and political choices.
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The government tamed AT&T into behaving like a utility. It’s time to stop letting Facebook run wild.
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For the last year, public officials across America and Canada have held an embarrassing beauty contest to entice Amazon to place its so-called “second headquarters” in their region.
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In The New York Times, Open Markets board member Zephyr Teachout writes that a city that thrives on the energy of its neighborhood merchants should not offer incentives and giveaways to an internet giant known for squashing small businesses.
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Open Markets Food & Power reporter Claire Kelloway covers the story of a lawsuit by seven corporate agriculture interest groups against the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to halt the extension of a public comment period on a proposed mega-dairy expansion in Winona County, Minnesota. The suit highlights broader efforts by agribusiness to silence opposition from rural residents who speak out against large concentrated animal feeding operations in their communities. Her story from Food & Power, re-published on The Fern, is available here.
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Open Markets Food & Power reporter Claire Kelloway published a story on Civil Eats about how the Trump administration cleared the way for chicken plants to increase their processing line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175 birds per minute. The change deals a blow to workers and reverses the efforts of labor and animal welfare advocates, who fought to halt poultry line speed increases in 2014.
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How America’s anti-monopoly laws got turned against the little guy.
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This week’s FTC hearings on the growing power of companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google only included economists who have taken money, directly and indirectly, from giant corporations that have a stake in the debate.
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Laissez-faire economics has left firms bending the knee to Beijing.
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Federal crop insurance and livestock indemnity programs mainly serve larger, industrial farms. After a disaster like Hurricane Florence, where do small farmers turn? Open Markets Food & Power reporter Claire Kelloway published a story on Civil Eats highlighting the damage done to farmers after Hurricane Florence and how the Federal crop insurance is failing small farmers.
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The Federal Trade Commission should get tough and break up Facebook. It has the power to force spinoffs of Instagram and WhatsApp, and needs to use it.
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Jeff Bezos runs a powerful monopoly that causes him to exert huge power and control. We shouldn’t be praising him but tackling his power
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The Republican line on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh stresses his dispassion. A typical example comes from Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who hails Kavanaugh as a judge who does “not rewrite the rules of the game” and “who call[s] balls and strikes.”
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Read The Economist's interview with our Executive Director, Barry Lynn.
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In his Forbes debut, Open Markets fellow Austin Frerick wrote that Senator Tom Carper's conflicts of interest may explain why he did little to oppose a merger that is bad for Delaware. DuPont merged with the Dow Chemical Company to create DowDuPont, the world's largest chemical company in terms of sales. This merger occurred amid a massive wave of consolidation in the agricultural sector.
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In the Guardian, Barry Lynn, Executive Director explains, that as gatekeepers to the news, Google and Facebook pose dangers to even the most successful outlets.
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"The knee-jerk reaction to the European Union’s decision to fine Google $5.1 billion is to blame the Europeans. How can it be possible that in Europe the antitrust authorities determined that Google abused its dominance in the smartphone market when in America it did not?
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Sandeep explains why an antitrust enforcer anchored in consumer welfare is an antitrust enforcer anchored in anti-labor.
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