Probably the most important thing the Biden Administration is doing
You can often tell whether something is good or bad based on if the media hates it. For instance, the media hates Biden's withdraw from Afghanistan, while supporting Trump when he bombed Syria.
Essentially if the media hates something then it's probably good, and visa versa.
In a similar vein, you can tell whether something is important or not based on if the media talks about it. If the media ignores something then it's often important. For example, the media's refusal to talk about the link between capitalism and the destruction of the environment.
However, the topic I want to talk about is the Biden Administration's antitrust policy.
I’ve covered lots of administrations, focusing on the regulation of capitalism. And I’ve never seen anything remotely like this.Start with the resurrection of antitrust, left for dead after Robert Bork got through with it in the Reagan era. The incomparable Lina Khan heads the FTC, and another stalwart, Jonathan Kanter, will be assistant attorney general for antitrust.
Khan, while still in her 20s, wrote the authoritative law journal article on how antitrust could be applied to the big platform monopolies. And Kanter is the lawyer you retain when your company is being savaged by one the monopolies Khan describes. It doesn’t get any better.
Meanwhile, Tim Wu, one of the smartest big-picture competition policy people in the world, coordinates this stuff at the White House, while Bharat Ramamurti, former chief economic adviser to Elizabeth Warren, handles it at the National Economic Council. There has been nothing like this since the Roosevelt era.
The news is equally good on the financial regulation front, where one top job after another has gone to progressives. The latest two such posts about to be filled are Graham Steele to be assistant secretary of the treasury for financial institutions, and Saule Omarova to be comptroller of the currency, the key regulator of national banks.
This Treasury job, even under Democrats, usually goes to people congenial to Wall Street. Steele is different. He has been chief banking counsel to Sen. Sherrod Brown, and currently heads the Corporations and Society Initiative at Stanford Law School. He once worked for Public Citizen (yes, that Public Citizen.) He is a major proponent of tougher regulation under existing Dodd-Frank provisions, including greater attention to the risks in bank investments in carbon related industries.
That may sound like too good to be true, and normally you would be correct to be very skeptical.
But this isn't one of those times. You can tell by the response from the financial media.
The federal government stopped enforcing antitrust laws back in the Reagan Administration, and no administration since then, neither Democratic or Republican, has been incline to change that.
Until now. Republicans wouldn't have a problem with this, except that the monopolies in the tech sector tend to lean Democratic. This opens the bipartisan window to fighting the monopolies that afflict every sector of our economy. This has led to the FTC officially calling Facebook a monopoly and seeking to break them up.
Breaking up the monopolies are essential, not just for our economy, but for our political system as well.
Comments
Then and Now
Because it's never bad to support a pointless, unwinnable war.
a Brit friend of mine tells me Blair is mouthing off
in a sane world he'd never have come to power but if he had, then he'd be locked up now.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58295384
"The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was wrong and based on an "imbecilic" slogan, former PM Tony Blair has said."
Everyone's an expert,
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Lest we forget: "Media" is a plural
The media hate - not "the media hates".
Of course, that has gotten less and less true over the past 30 years, BUT HERE'S HOPING we're actually seeing a formidable silver lining here!
You're right; it does seem too good to be true - of course, maybe the fact that it IS Team-Sirrus clamoring for breaking up Achenar-loyalist corporations that is our ace-in-the-hole.
So much for the black-and-white of the '000s...?
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
The media is studiously ignoring Tulsi Gabbard
Which means she's dead on.
(Warning:truth bomb incoming)
https://youtu.be/16_YskdLFzQ
The policy you're discussing
is not anything I know about.
But I can add this: Tim Wu was Zephyr Teachout's running mate when she tried to topple Cuomo in 2014. Very cool that he is advising Biden.
NYCVG
What other outcome could it be?
We essentially forced our way in and created a civil war in Afghanistan. Our enemies and friends looked alike. Tribes were on both sides, spies were on both sides. While everyone is lamenting how our Afghan allies wouldn't fight, they had been losing about 10,000 fighters in skirmishes a year. A lot of the equipment we "gave" them was useless because we never let them know how to fix or run it, leaving that to US subcontractors under contract to the Pentagon.
Add in the built in corruption capitalism we practice. With Afghan troops not getting paid, clothed or fed while watching the leadership flee with all the gold does not give anyone a reason to die.