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In Project Syndicate: Is America’s Merger Fever Breaking?
A major shift is afoot in the federal government’s stance on big business. The US Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission’s draft merger guidelines represent a major break with the neoliberal assumptions that have underpinned US antitrust enforcement for the last 40 years. In the Project Syndicate, Stacy Mitchell and Ron Know write how the draft guidelines, if adopted, would stop runaway corporate consolidation, rebuild local economies, and help preserve US democracy.… Read More
In Civil Eats: Pacific Seafood Controls the Dungeness Crab Market, but Small Crabbers Are Fighting Back
Small fishermen in the Pacific Northwest are taking a stand against Pacific Seafood, the dominant West Coast crab processor, alleging that the corporation is exploiting its power to manipulate industry regulations in its favor and drive down the prices the fishermen receive for their catch. Writing in Civil Eats, Ron Knox provides our latest dispatch on how local economies are suffering the effects of unchecked monopoly power.… Read More
In The Sling: When Confronting Amazon’s Anticompetitive Conduct, the FTC Should Invoke Its Section 5 Authority
As the Federal Trade Commission sets its sights on challenging Amazon’s dominance in online retail, Ron Knox argues in The Sling that the agency must leverage its most potent weapon against anticompetitive behavior: Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.… Read More
Amazon’s Tight Grip on Cloud Computing Poses Multiple Threats. ILSR Urges FTC Action.
In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, ILSR warned that control over cloud computing, the backbone of the modern economy, is dangerously concentrated. Amazon Web Services (AWS), which controls more than 40 percent of global cloud infrastructure, has exploited its position to lock-in customers, shut out rivals, and reap unfair advantages in its other non-cloud business lines. ILSR urges the FTC to use its authorities to open the market to needed competition.… Read More
In the New York Times: The Real Reason Your Groceries Are Getting So Expensive
As big retailers exploit their financial control over suppliers, independent grocers face extinction, creating food deserts and driving up prices for everyone. In the New York Times, Stacy Mitchell calls to resurrect the Robinson-Patman Act and restore fair competition in the warped landscape of the American food system.… Read More
In ProMarket: Today’s Tax Code Fuels Corporate Power. It Wasn’t Always This Way
Our tax system used to serve as a check on corporate power. Now it fuels market concentration and undermines the ability of small businesses to compete, Susan Holmberg and Niko Lusiani explain in ProMarket. … Read More
Report: Tax Dodging is a Monopoly Tactic
Local and federal policymakers have systematically structured tax policy in a way that deepens the concentration of corporate power, Stacy Mitchell and Susan Holmberg argue in this issue brief, co-published with the Roosevelt Institute.… Read More
Dollar Store Restrictions
As dollar stores multiply rapidly across the U.S., cities are developing dollar store-specific policies to rein in their growth. Such policies include “dispersal restrictions” that set limits on how close new dollar stores can be to existing ones. These ordinances account for the existing concentration of dollar stores within a neighborhood or city and help ensure that these chains cannot amass at such a density that they impede opportunities for grocery stores and other businesses to take root and grow. Our new map shows dollar store defeats and restrictions across the country. … Read More
In the Antitrust Chronicle: Ending Monopolization Via Mergers
Ron Knox writes in Competition Policy International that in order to foster a more democratic economy we must strengthen merger guidelines and enforce anti-merger laws, promote anti-merger enforcement in Congress, and educate federal judges about the intent behind anti-merger laws.… Read More
Report: The Dollar Store Invasion
In this report, we spotlight communities rising up against dollar chains and how federal policymakers need to address the ways in which misguided policies are fueling the destructive proliferation of dollar stores. … Read More
Stop Dollar Store Proliferation in Your Community: A Strategy Guide
More than 75 cities and towns have defeated dollar store projects in the last four years. Our new strategy guide can help you keep these chains out of your community.… Read More
Helping Lending Programs Reach Underserved Small Business Owners
For the past year, ILSR and Recast City have collaborated on bringing Equitable Lending Leaders, a program to help small business lending programs reach more underserved entrepreneurs and small business owners, particularly owners of color. Now that more than 120 RLFs have participated in Equitable Lending Leaders, we have identified several best practices.… Read More
Minnesota Joins the Fight Against Monopoly Power
Lawmakers in Minnesota will have the opportunity this legislative session to put the state at the forefront of a growing national movement to improve and strengthen laws to constrain monopoly abuses against workers, independent businesses, and communities.… Read More
In Slate: Radicalize the Swifties
Ron Knox writes in Slate how the shocking collapse of Taylor Swift’s tour ticket presale was an inevitable failure of the monopoly Ticketmaster.… Read More
How Tax Policies Fuel Monopolies and Undermine Small Business
Amazon’ strategy for dominance — which includes securing government favors, particularly tax advantages — offers a road map of how to harness the tax system to build a monopoly.… Read More