The Capitol Forum Podcast

U.S. Representative Buddy Carter is a pharmacist by trade and a lifelong resident of the First District of Georgia, which he represents. He recently wrote a letter to the FTC calling for an investigation into the ways Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) spike consumer drug prices and reduce access to life saving drugs.He discusses the monopoly problems that PBMs present and what the FTC and Congress can do to stop anticompetitive conduct in the industry and protect independent pharmacies.

Moe Tkacik is a Senior Fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project.  She’s a former journalist who has worked for the Wall Street Journal and Time, and she discusses the supply chain crisis behind the Baby Formula shortage and possible solutions to the problem. 

Maurice Stucke is the Douglas A. Blaze Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee and recently wrote Breaking Away: How to Regain Control Over Our Data, Privacy, and Autonomy.Breaking Away sounds a warning call alerting readers that their privacy and autonomy concerns are indeed warranted, and the remedies deserve far greater attention than they have received from our leading policymakers and experts to date. Through the various prisms of economic theory, market data, policy, and law, the book offers a clear and accessible insight into how a few powerful firms - Google, Apple, Facebook (Meta), and Amazon - have used the same anticompetitive playbook and manipulated the current legal regime for their gain at our collective expense.While much has been written about these four companies' power, far less has been said about addressing their risks. In looking at the proposals to date, however, policymakers and scholars have not fully addressed three fundamental issues: First, will more competition necessarily promote our privacy and well-being? Second, who owns the personal data, and is that even the right question? Third, what are the policy implications if personal data is non-rivalrous?

His recent report, “To Stem the Tide of Rural Decline, Stop the Bank Merger Wave” is making its own waves in the antitrust community as regulators look to revamp the banking merger guidelines. Basel shares with us how big the merger wave has been since the 1980s, why it happened, the effect it’s had on farmers, entrepreneurs, and rural communities, and his solution for fixing the problem.

Josh Kosman has been covering the financial industry for twenty-five years. He is a reporter for the New York Post, a former editor at Mergermarket.com and a former senior writer for The Deal and Buyouts Newsletter. Josh also literally wrote the book on private equity – his The Buyout of America: How Private Equity is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy, published in 2009, made a big political impact at the time, with Obama advisor David Axelrod reportedly using it as the basis for his attacks on Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign.Private equity and mergers. The FTC and DOJ are, according to Capitol Forum reporting, taking a harder stance on private equity firms as potential divestiture buyers for assets companies are proposing to sell in their attempts to cure anticompetitive mergers.Private equity and rising interest rates. Josh’s website details how “Moody’s in May 2020 reported that two-thirds of the companies with the lowest debt ratings” were private equity-owned. “Standard & Poor’s in February 2020 reported $1.5 trillion in speculative-grade US corporate debt matures through 2024…Roughly 60 percent of the money has been borrowed by private equity firm-owned companies. With interest rates rising this poses a big risk.” Josh adds.Private equity’s political power. Josh is also expert on private equity’s political influence, and has written about Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-AZ) support for the industry and President Joe Biden’s ties to Carlyle Group Co-Founder David Rubenstein.

Baron Public Affairs recently issued a report naming the top 10 antitrust super influencers, and they share their findings in this episode.Baron Public Affairs is a unique firm that “combines objective strategy development with groundbreaking research platforms” to help corporate clients “identify, understand and surmount” regulatory threats. They developed their list of antitrust super influencers by sifting through “approximately 27,000 references made by members of Congress, executive branch officials, and others.”Baron’s top 5 antitrust super influencers are:1) William Kovacic, George Washington University2) Sarah Miller, American Economic Liberties Project3) Charlotte Slaiman, Public Knowledge4) Adam Kovacevich, Chamber of Progress5) Matt Stoller, American Economic Liberties ProjectSee Baron’s full report for the top 10. The report is full of insights, and worth noting in particular are Baron’s conclusions that “antitrust super influencers prioritize practical achievements over intellectual purity” and that “economics is losing authority in the political arena.”

Shahid Naeem is a policy analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project and the author of a memo calling for the Department of Justice and Department of Transportation to block the merger between Spirit and Frontier.  

Tahir Amin is an attorney with more than 25 years of experience in intellectual property law and the co-founder of I-Mak, which seeks to build a more just and equitable medicine system for all via patent reform.

Jason Kint is CEO of Digital Content Next, the only trade association to exclusively serve the unique and diverse needs of high-quality digital content companies that manage trusted, direct relationships with consumers and marketers. Jason guides DCN’s diverse and powerful group of members — established brands such as The New York Times, Conde Nast and ESPN, and digital natives, such as Vox, Politico and Insider — into the future, setting the agenda on a range of issues.  Jason produces must-read analysis of ongoing litigation against the big tech platforms, primarily Google and Facebook. In this episode, Jason tells us what he’s focused on in the tech platform battles in the courts, and what we can expect to see going forward.

Ted Tatos is Managing Director of EconOne and co-author of the recent report, “Protecting the U.S. Postal Service from Amazon’s Anticompetitive Assault.”  In the conversation, we get into a lot of different aspects of Amazon’s ongoing effort to dominate the postal service. A quick note: Ted’s report was funded by a conservative group called The Family Business Coalition, which includes small family-owned businesses that ship parcels.  For the report, Ted also interviewed a couple of prominent voices in the antimonopoly movement whom we’ve had on the show before—Matt Stoller from the American economic liberties project and Stacy Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self Reliance.