The Capitol Forum Podcast
The Capitol Forum
Exploring Solutions to Monopoly ProblemsFollowing forty years of laissez-faire antitrust enforcement and industry consolidation, the White House is considering a fundamental rethink of how to interpret, enforce, and rewrite antitrust law, and many questions remain unanswered for the antitrust community. On the heels of federal and state litigation against Google and Facebook, is Amazon next? Will the new administration put big agriculture, big banks, and big pharma in its crosshairs? Will the courts stop antitrust enforcers in their tracks? Will the Biden administration get cold feet?The Capitol Forum Podcast provides in-depth discussions with antitrust experts about the answers to these questions and about proposed solutions to the biggest monopoly problems of our time. Backed by the investigative resources and intellectual rigor of The Capitol Forum, Executive Editor and host Teddy Downey examines the effects of the current concentrations of market power across a vast array of industry verticals as he and his guests analyze the potential responses from the federal government. Offering thoughtful conversations with analysts and decision makers, The Capitol Forum Podcast provides everyone from C-Suite executives to policymakers, and all those in-between, strategic antitrust insights at the intersection of law, policy, and markets.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Dec 23, 2021 • 60min
Luke Herrine: FTC Should Reject the Conventional Folklore Around its Unfairness Authority
Luke Herrine, author of “The Folklore of Unfairness.” Herrine’s article, published recently in the New York University Law Review, argues that conventional wisdom – which holds that the FTC in the 1970s pursued an expansive notion of its unfairness authority but failed spectacularly – “gets the law and the history wrong.”Instead, argues Herrine, the commission’s actions in the 1970s were quite popular, and the FTC Act’s ban on “unfair…acts and practices” is therefore “more potent than commonly assumed.” That argument could take on new urgency as current FTC Chair Lina Khan seeks to push the boundaries of the commission’s authority.
Dec 16, 2021 • 34min
Amazon’s Toll Road with Stacy Mitchell, Co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Stacy Mitchell is co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and directs its Independent Business Initiative, which produces research and designs policy to counter concentrated corporate power and strengthen local economies. ILSR’s new report, Amazon’s Toll road, finds that “Amazon is exploiting its position as a gatekeeper to impose steep and growing fees on third-party sellers” and that “even as these exorbitant fees bankrupt sellers, they are generating huge profits for Amazon, a fact that the tech giant conceals in its financial reports.”
Dec 9, 2021 • 49min
Jeff Hauser: Cracking Down on Monopolies is Winning Politics
Jeff Hauser is the founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, which is an influential organization that scrutinizes executive branch appointees to ensure they serve the public interest rather than large corporations’ interests. The Revolving Door Project’s newest polling and analysis memo, “Corporate Crackdown” concludes that there is broad, bipartisan support for a President who is willing to stand up to entrenched corporate power and illegal corporate conduct.
Dec 2, 2021 • 31min
The “No Collusion” Rule by Brendan Ballou, DOJ Trial Attorney
Brendan Ballou is a trial attorney at DOJ’s antitrust division and author of “The 'No Collusion' Rule,” published earlier this year in the Stanford Law & Policy Review. In that article, Ballou proposes that the FTC, under its unfair methods of competition authority, should pursue a “no collusion” rulemaking , which would seek to prevent companies from raising prices simply because their competitor has done so.
Oct 28, 2021 • 40min
Barry Lynn, Executive Director of the Open Markets Institute
Barry Lynn has literally written the book on two of the hottest economic and policy topics right now—monopolies and supply chain fragility. His book on monopoly is called Cornered: the new monopoly capitalism and the economics of destruction and his book on supply chains is called End of the Line. On a previous podcast, former FTC Chair Bill Kovacic said that Barry Lynn’s work on launching the antimonopoly movement is “one of the most successful efforts to develop a new intellectual framework and to get it into the bloodstream of the policymaking process.” In this episode, Barry talks about the importance of the President's executive order on competition and where the antimonopoly movement is headed next.
Sep 30, 2021 • 46min
The Honorable Bill Kovacic
The Honorable Bill Kovacic gives his outlook for antitrust enforcement in the Biden administration and distinguishes between antitrust Transformationalists and Traditionalists and their struggle for influence. He also discusses antitrust rulemaking, antitrust legislation, and Robinson-Patman enforcement.
Sep 10, 2021 • 40min
Claire Kelloway on Meat Industry Consolidation’s Impact on Workers and Citizens
Teddy talks with Claire Kelloway, a senior reporter with the Open Markets Institute. She’s also the primary writer for Food & Power, a website providing original reporting and resources on monopoly power in the food system. Claire gives her outlook for antitrust enforcement in the meat industry during the Biden administration.miheGBWc0OwEliouw3ea
Jul 15, 2021 • 1h 14min
Seth Bloom’s Outlook for Antitrust Legislation
Teddy chats with Seth Bloom, founder of Bloom Strategic Counsel and former General Counsel of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, to get his thoughts on which antitrust bills can pass Congress and get signed into law and which will be left on the cutting room floor. Seth and Teddy also talk about new priorities at the FTC, which already-consummated mergers the FTC might investigate and try to break up, and other parts of the FTC’s agenda that are being overlooked.
Jul 1, 2021 • 48min
Ron Knox says, “Break up Big Music”
Teddy chats with Ron Knox, senior researcher and writer at The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, about his recent article in Wired Magazine, Big Music Needs to Be Broken Up to Save the Industry. He tells stories about why music is worse now than it was when the industry was more competitive, how Sweet Jane Recordings is actually owned by a big conglomerate, how independent record stores ended up with prescription cough syrup instead of indie records,how YouTube effectively sets a floor on streaming royalty rates, and how big radio pays no royalty rates for playing music. Lastly, he talks about how he is optimistic that new antitrust leadership and new legislation in Congress will reshape the industry.
May 27, 2021 • 30min
The Honorable William Baer
Teddy chats with Bill Baer about antitrust being at an inflection point, the consumer welfare test as "not even a useful construct anymore," antitrust rulemaking as a new tool in the enforcer toolbox, stepped up criminal antitrust enforcement, and a likely increase in focus on buyer power concerns from antitrust enforcers.
