MD @ EconOne | Prof @EconUofU | ED @ UtahProject | NYTimes: "one expert for the plaintiffs" | Prospect:"preeminent watchdog of The Economist's most wrong takes"
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I was initially skeptical about @ZohranKMamdani’s muni-owned grocery stores having much of an impact. But there is an economic logic to the proposal, in that profit-chasing private grocers impose a considerable markup over the wholesale price of food, whereas the muni-owned stores won’t. That smaller (or even zero) markup could bring relief to low-income families. And it could also impose a modicum of price discipline on the privately owned grocery stores.
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Hey remember that @TheEconomist story from last week suggesting that there was no correlation between AI data centers and electricity bills? You know, the one that strangely compared rates at the state level (rather than at local levels), and plotted data centers against predicted rates (rather than against actual rates)? It was hooey.
bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-…
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Turns out Carter not only deregulated trucking, but also skiing, ushering in a glorious era of neoliberalism (and the associated indignities like $300+ lift tickets).
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Kamala Harris couldn’t bring herself to endorse Lina Khan as FTC chair, but Trump’s FTC chair has effectively endorsed Khan’s Merger Guidelines.
That is all.
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Assuming these results hold, the lesson here for Ds the next time they’re in power is when unscrupulous companies exploit a crisis by gouging their customers and coordinating price hikes with rivals, leadership ignores neoliberal economists and actually does something to stop it.
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Does Kamala not understand that the folks who are buying up media properties and studios are actually rooting for censorship of liberal voices? What a naif!
The quote also reveals why Kamala and mainstream Dems can't articulate a counter to Trump's preference for oligarchy. The rejoinder can't be "Our billionaires are nicer than theirs!"
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Klein's thesis is that Dems have moved too far to the left on nearly every issue: "They moved left on economics and lost ground with working-class voters." Although he claims that "I do not think the Democratic Party should just move right," Klein repeatedly holds out former Senator Manchin as an exemplar. But some issues like supporting a minimum wage increase, which Manchin opposed, are so critical to the party's pro-worker identity, that there can't be any compromise there. Indeed, had Dems been able to raise the minimum wage while they controlled all three branches, working-class voters likely would have voted differently in 2024. Instead, working-class voters had to draw inferences about what the Democratic Party stood for from things like green energy investment, for which Klein approves, whatever the hell that means.
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Against these benefits, I’m struggling to see the costs. Are we concerned that private grocers will stop investing when margins are squeezed? Will we see a reduction in grocery store “innovation,” and what would that look like?
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We need to start plotting the first 100 days agenda, in a way to inflict max pain on the oligarchs:
1. Billionaire tax
2. Raise min wage to $20
3. Reduce min Medicare age to 50
4. Eliminate all spending on SpaceX
5. Eliminate emission trading credits (the source of Tesla profits)
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Yes, but perhaps not at the 23 percent rate of Kroger or 33 percent rate of Whole Foods. Part of that markup is a return demanded by investors.
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Schumer also blocked two popular bills that passed out of Judiciary from coming to a vote on the Senate floor—one to prevent self-preferencing by Big Tech and another to permit newspapers to collectively bargain against Big Tech for accessing content. But sure, blame voters.
Chuck Schumer blames Democratic losses on "average working families who didn't realize how much we had done and how much we care for them."
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Insanity is defined as trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result
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The Abundance crowd can’t even fathom the possibly that landlords have any culpability in rising rents. They’re paid *not* to see it. Their landlord overlords have asked them to invent an alternative theory of rental inflation related to zOnInG lAwS.
The landlord cartels orchestrated by RealPage illustrate this point: The attorneys general of Arizona and D.C. allege that property managers worked with the software company to collusively raise rents and keep *existing* units empty
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I am sick of neoliberals saying the election is proof that progressive ideas are political losers. Biden was progressive on antitrust and not much more. On inflation, which cost him, Biden leaned entirely on the Fed—a policy championed by neoliberals and despised by progressives.
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DOGE is slashing wasteful spending except for wasteful spending on Musk's companies.
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This is some serious late-stage capitalism (and also nicely captures the strategy of many Silicon Valley startups that “innovated” by flouting laws and regulations)
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Let’s not be so quick to crown Powell as some savior of democracy. His choice to delay cutting rates until so close to the election—with cut #2 right after the election—was a huge gift to Trump. High interest rates inflicted harms on voters, who expressed their pain at the polls.
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In its cover, @TheEconomist calls @ZohranKMamdani's proposals "terrible public policy," and lays out its bases for that conclusion in this highlighted paragraph. The magazine suggests the causes of New York's affordability problem are "fealty to public unions, overregulation, a costly and expansive bureaucracy and expensive litigation." Just take comfort in knowing that The Economist does not speak for all economists.
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Per Moody's, the top 10% of earners now account for nearly half of all spending in the United States. If only there was some policy that would allow us to diversify income and spending across a broader swath of Americans. Oh well. Guess capitalism just has to be this way.
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Another profitable company (Southwest Airlines) announces mass layoffs, in an effort to appease Wall Street. Firing workers *outside of a downturn* is a breach of the social compact. Workers should share in the upside when employers are profitable; instead, they are cut loose.
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As expected, major companies are announcing planned price hikes and blaming tariffs. Without providing a detailed cost basis, however, they are positioned to raise prices by more than any cost increase--that is, to engage in price gouging. If only we had laws against this stuff!
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Huh. Maybe Trump's slashing of government funding of research is a bad economic idea?
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Egg producers, abetted by the NYT business section, is peddling the very convenient theory that bird flu and sHoRtAgEs are driving egg prices ever higher. No mention of the egg oligopoly or the prospect of coordinated pricing in a concentrated industry to exploit a supply shock.
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Problem: Investors buying up properties in Barcelona to convert into tourist rentals, leading to skyrocketing rents & inequality
Solution: Rent controls, end licenses to Airbnb, gov’t housing, and (with luck) bar investors from converting buildings to temp rentals
Let’s go!!!
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Sigh. The YIMBYs prevailed on Harris here. Now just imagine how this housing affordability ad would have resonated with voters had Harris (rightly) blamed private equity roll-ups and common pricing algorithms for higher rents.
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Sometimes I worry whether business reporters at the New York Times are even allowed to fathom that record-high prices can be the result of *choices* by suppliers, oftentimes in coordination, in a concentrated industry. Meatpacking plant closings don't happen by accident.
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New rule:
When a *progressive* proposes an intervention in the economy, whether rent controls or city ownership of a handful of groceries or price-gouging laws, it's called "socialism."
When a *conservative* proposes an intervention in the economy, whether taxing imports to protect domestic industries or requiring advertisers to deal with certain platforms or [checks notes] taking a stake in a publicly traded company, it's called "state-sponsored capitalism."
Got it?
Don't blame me. These are the rules.
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Remind me again why we should find solidarity with abundance centrists, after they reveal their hostility to unions and maliciously attack an anti-monopolist like @musharbash_b for merely pointing out there could be other factors besides zoning rules driving up home prices?
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This notion that the mere threat of being fired by Elon is causing millions of workers to pare back spending is plausible as an economic idea, and if it turns out to be correct, we can refer to the associated slowdown in growth as the "Elon Effect."
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In Virginia, the state runs the liquor stores (ABC) and they seem to doing just fine. Come across the river and I’ll give you a tour!
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Neoliberals have shifted their attack on @ZohranKMamdani from “He’s going to break capitalism!!!” to “His policies aren’t really achievable.” Progress of sorts.
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I bet few folks, including econs, know that Mexico’s and Spain’s leaders used price caps to shield consumers from the pain of inflation in groceries and gasoline and were rewarded at the polls.
Thanks for the econ and political lesson, @IsabellaMWeber!
foreignaffairs.com/mexico/go…
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Oh yes, The Economist, let’s celebrate another “ruthless CEO” for buying companies, laying off thousands of workers, slashing R&D, and then jacking up prices! This is just an extreme form of late-stage capitalism.
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Musk is trying to move the platform rightward in myriad ways, including by promoting "lefties" that promote corporatist (neoliberal) ideas
rollingstone.com/culture/cul…
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Here’s Ezra Klein blaming the D wipeout on its failure to shift back to the center after the midterms. Nope. Biden failed to police inflation based on advice of neoliberal advisors. And Harris’s price gouging plan—an admission of Biden’s failure—was also blasted by neoliberals.
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Wait. A bundle that forecloses Airbnb from competing against hotels for Bad Bunny fans? Yes, I can defend that one.
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This is why WaPo econ columns *must* deflect all blame for inflation away from the companies actually raising prices and *must* portray any claims of corporate malfeasance as conspiracy theories.
SCOOP: Jeff Bezos emails staff about a change to Post Opinions: "We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets."
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So rich that the libertarian billionaires who rail against the government almost always owe a debt of gratitude to a government program for their start in business. Hypocrites, every one of them.
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Here is Bezos's "defending personal liberties and free markets" mandate for the WaPo opinion page in action.
h/t @BalanceCrafting
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New rule: Utility customers should be shielded from any rate increase caused by the addition of a local data center to support AI.
The data center owner will pay for its incremental costs plus a new tax equal to the added costs it would otherwise impose on other ratepayers.
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Who was the guest? And yes, pre-distribution is a foreign concept for the Abundance (neoliberal) crowd. They tend to reject the notion of power imbalances in the economy.
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Literally no one is trying to challenge the “very existence” of Big Business. This is hyperbole. You go to court to challenge exclusionary conduct (in a monopoly case) or to prevent an anticompetitive merger or acquisition.
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Fantastic rejoinder by @IsabellaMWeber to the neoliberal (Summers, NYT Editorial) claim that @ZohranKMamdani's proposed rent freeze would result in fewer housing units. Nope. The rent freeze is just one aspect of Mamdani's larger housing plan.
newyorker.com/news/the-finan…
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Great point by @linamkhan here about how concentrated media is more *susceptible* to abuse (e.g., censorship) by leaders with authoritarian tendencies. When this point was raised a few years ago, I recall some (corporate) defenders of concentration arguing there was no proof that concentration *caused* fascism. But that's a straw-man argument: Lina is talking about building resiliency against potential abuse--not preventing a fascist from coming to power. If you want to limit the free speech harms of a would-be fascist who comes to power, deconcentrate the media industry by, for example, placing strict limits on how many local tv stations a single entity (like Nexstar) can own, or by splitting up a social media monopolist.
Former FTC Chair Lina Khan argues that the level of concentration in today’s economy is making it easy for a president with authoritarian tendencies to control critics and censor dissent.
With just five firms dominating U.S. media markets, censorship is far simpler than if 50 companies competed. She recalls U.S. studies after WWII showing German industrial monopolists helped Hitler rise to power, a lesson that led to the 1950 Anti-Merger Act. Decades of permissive merger policy, she warns, have erased those safeguards and left democracy exposed.
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The Economist has a story on the shrinking job prospects of MBAs. We learn the Big 3 consultancies are cutting job offers (as well as Big Tech), but not why. One idea is the Big 3 have gobbled up smaller consultancies/job slots and are now collectively exercising monopsony power.
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Fantastic story of corruption and regulatory arbitrage.
Kalshi named Don Jr as a strategic advisor and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission does a 180 and decides that “prediction markets” that allow sports betting are outside the reach of state regulators. Now sportsbooks like FanDuel are rebranding themselves as prediction markets to evade regulation and state taxation. Yet another example of “innovating” around regulation.
nytimes.com/2025/10/05/upsho…
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Oh dear Yglesias has a piece in the Times with so many cringe lines, but this is the tell.
The YIMBYs want you to believe that *consumers* caused inflation, so as to defect attention away from sellers that raised prices in coordination or unilaterally exploited a bad situation.
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Cool cool. We're now waving through anticompetitive mergers in exchange for ending commitments to hire minorities. So much winning!
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Amazon is now demanding detailed cost information from third-party sellers, which is unusual but also would allow Amazon to underprice merchants via Amazon’s private-label business. All under the microscope of an antitrust case. Brazen.
modernretail.co/technology/a…
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When Elon decried the House version as being fiscally irresponsible, that was code to GOP Senators for "More cuts to Medicaid!" Feigning concern about the debt never means raising taxes for the rich. It always means cutting services for the poor.
prospect.org/politics/2025-0…
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Umm. For the Ds to have any chance, the advisory board to Project 2029 needs *way* more progressives. As constituted, it would produce another milquetoast, neoliberal manifesto of garbely goop abundance that will appeal to only landlords, private equity, and their lobbyists.
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I don't get the deregulation push. We generally don't regulate firms in the U.S. economy. Not Big Tech, nor telecom, cable, airlines, ride share. Utilities are regulated. Banks are barely. We've rescinded regulations since Carter, and we've refrained from adopting new regulations
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I was wondering why Trump’s CFPB—run by Vought of Project 2025 fame—was trying to reverse Biden’s policy to limit medical debt info on credit reports. Now it becomes clear that Vought is acting at the behest of banks, which would like to raise rates on borrowers with medical debt (ie, price discriminate). I hope the bankers take care of Vought after he leaves the government.
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I wrote about the economics of the new bargain between workers and employers, in which workers now bear downside risk when their employers experience success. It is patently unfair. We should demand a different set of rules on behalf of our workers.
thesling.org/what-obligation…
Another profitable company (Southwest Airlines) announces mass layoffs, in an effort to appease Wall Street. Firing workers *outside of a downturn* is a breach of the social compact. Workers should share in the upside when employers are profitable; instead, they are cut loose.
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Guys, I got to check out that new White House study estimating that RealPage software, by allowing landlords to coordinate on their rents, is costing renters on average $70 per month or $3.8 billion in 2023. 🧵
whitehouse.gov/cea/written-m…
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Pretty disappointed in this @dealbook story on the impact of the Khan/Kanter legacy on antitrust. They focus on the “big setbacks,” as if that marks the legacy. @superwuster provided the actual win-loss record of the FTC; which when you count withdrawn deals is very impressive.🧵
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A forensic accountant who doesn’t understand basic economics. The point is that for-profit grocers mark up wholesale food prices considerably, in part to reward investors and in part to cover other expenses like rent. Muni-owed groceries won’t chase profits. And muni-owned stores might avoid rent by locating in government buildings or by receiving subsidies directly from the city.
A college professor who does not understand basic accounting. It’s not about the gross margins, it’s what’s left after Kroger pays its expenses which is under 2% of sales.
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In a new piece co-authored with Econ One’s Gavin Sicard, we explore whether DOJ’s inquiry into the egg industry, as reported by @Capitol_Forum on March 6, may have caused egg prices to plummet. If so, the implications would be big.
Highlights coming.
thesling.org/did-dojs-invest…
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Uh oh. Per RBC Capital Markets, almost three-quarters of Tesla’s value turns on its ability to successfully develop and market labor-free robotaxis. Odds are it will never work; even if it does, few customers will trust the technology. And Tesla’s main rival is giving it away!
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I nearly spit out my matcha latte upon reading these words in DealBook this morning. Made a clip for you, as proof that she really said those words!
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Can’t disagree w/ Klein’s idea that Ds should make gov’t work better—eg, relax environmental restraints so that high-speed rail is deployed faster. But this can’t be the centerpiece of a political campaign to combat Trumpism. Economic justice is more compelling than “abundance.”
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Musk is leading a war on workers, and in this issue, The Economist is cheering him on. In this work from home (WHF) piece, the corporatist magazine endorses the idea of reducing a worker’s wage if she elects to work remotely. All rationalized by a fancy economic study!!
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@mattyglesias can’t grasp that antitrust can focus on more than one thing at the same time. You can police practices that (1) lead to higher prices, OR (2) lead to lower wages, OR (3) lead to lower quality. A singular fixation on lower prices misses many anticompetitive harms.
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In case you're following from home, no response to date from Matt. Either he's furiously researching cases in which antitrust was used to promote worker welfare, or like many (most?) abundos, he believes workers' interests should be subservient to consumer (or investor) welfare.
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My goodness the number of Summers and Furman quotes in the NYTimes since 2020 is stunning. Expand your rolodex!
My latest is out in @TheSlingUtah today! It's a quick read about Ken Rogoff that ponders why he's still quoted as an authority in the media. Give it a read! 1/
thesling.org/ken-rogoff-rema…
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I want thank the centrist Ds who prevented the repeal of Trump’s tax cuts, which undermined forming a coherent message of fighting for the working class and against the oligarchs, and permits this kind of HORRIFIC reporting of Trump’s “palatable tax cuts” for the rich. Congrats!
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Some economic shibboleths never die.
Like the notion that a higher minimum wage increases unemployment.
Or the one that deficit spending “crowds out” private investment.
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Kinda stunning that a very serious centrist like Yglesias would trip all over himself to welcome Elon back to the party after Elon torched the federal workplace, separating tens of thousands of workers from their jobs, based on crank conspiracy theories involving evil Democrats.
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This seems bad. Without a viable outside option, employed labor can't credibly threaten to leave their current jobs, which slows wage growth. Yet prices are still rising quickly.
nytimes.com/2025/11/07/busin…
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There’s a story to be written about the corrupting influence of economists—how it undermined Biden’s capacity to fight inflation/price gouging, the Senate’s ability to raise the minimum wage, and Harris’s ability to articulate a coherent agenda to improve the lives of workers.
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This is how the revolving door worked in antitrust for forty-odd years until 2021. Lax enforcement in return for cushy defense gigs. One revolution and back onto helping clients—who likely appeared before you as enforcer—to “navigate” deals through a sea of enforcers hoping to spin out themselves. Khan and Kanter broke that cycle, but it appears to be back in force.
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Cool cool. Delta is using a common (AI-based) pricing algorithm by a consultancy that also sets the fares for Delta's airline rivals like Virgin Atlantic and WestJet. What could possibly go wrong?
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If you’re a business reporter doing a story on rental inflation and you assiduously avoid mentioning the contribution of explicit (or tacit) price coordination among landlords to higher rents—sticking instead to demand-side factors—you are doing a disservice to your readers.
FBI raid thrusts antitrust claims against Atlanta landlords into spotlight ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/fb…
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I’m adding the word “abundance” to list of words that must be banished from the new Democratic vocabulary, alongside other unappealing terms such as “incentives” and “tax breaks.” Dems must used words (and ideas) that connote tangible benefits to the working class within 2 years.
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Sigh. Corporatist outfits like @TheEconomist peddle the fiction that inflation originates in labor markets, then flows into output markets. If they ever laid blame on the corporations actually setting prices--many of whom are enjoying record profits--I would fall out of my chair.
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"At the same time, the boom [in AI data centers] threatens to drive up power bills for residents and small businesses. Nationally, the average electricity rate for residents has risen more than 30% since 2020, after years of relatively modest increases."
nytimes.com/2025/08/14/busin…
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Man, don’t tell neoliberals like MattY that their misguided free trade policies hollowed out the middle of the country by sending manufacturing jobs abroad, for the sake of everyday low prices. They get very angry when you question their judgment and call you dumb or dishonest.
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GOP senators are willing to defy the Senate parliamentarian for things they care deeply about (allowing trucks to pollute) but Democratic senators weren’t willing to do the same for what should be their most important constituency (a minimum wage increase for low-wage workers).
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“When THEY go radical, WE go moderate!!!”
— Future D candidate inspired by the teachings of Matt Yglesias
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If Delta were implementing AI-based personalized pricing on its own, it would be bad for travelers. That Delta is using a common algorithm from an GenAI airline pricing consultant makes it even worse. My latest here:
thesling.org/deltas-ai-based…
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Cutting the funding of an agency (the NLRB) because you disagree with the mission of the agency, as expressed by the will of Congress, does not count as an “efficiency.” Indeed, too many anti-worker decisions have been done in the name of “efficiency.”
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If I had a dollar for every time a neoliberal misdiagnosed the exercise of market power (high prices, low output) as a “shortage,” I’d have like thousands of dollars.
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Ok I read the piece, and Levitz’s sole basis for the claim that patients wouldn’t bear any burden of the policy (not to pay for anesthesia beyond a limit) is an interpretation of a contract provision by an economist who works as a consultant in healthcare.
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The number of billionaires in the United States per Altrata increased from 927 in 2020 to 1,135 in 2024–an increase of 22 percent in just a few years. Collectively, billionaires are now worth $5.7 trillion. That’s a good way to track the growing concentration of wealth and economic inequality, which leads to all sorts of civil strife. (And could explain the election of Trump.)
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Huh I wonder how many U.S. companies are going to exploit the Trump tariffs—just as they exploited the COVID cost shock—to raise their prices *by more* than any cost increase, thereby padding their margins.
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Assuming New Jersey and Virginia elect Democratic governors, and assuming New York elects a Democratic Socialist mayor, a reasonable inference is that the electorate has rejected Trumpism 2.0, which is really libertarianism--tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, spending cuts for the poor, and deregulation--in the guise of economic populism. Despite what he campaigned on, Trump has done nothing to address affordability, while corporate profits--a significant contributor to inflation--remain at an all-time high.
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AAG Kanter gave the perfect answer to this @dealbook question on Wendy’s dynamic pricing. The sole purpose of the technology is to extract consumer surplus. It’s a one-way ratchet upwards. Ignore the corporatists who claim otherwise.
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The @WSJopinion runs a piece claiming falsely that @BedoyaUSA and @SenWarren were wrong to blame anticompetitive conduct for higher egg prices. The author puts the onus instead on the avian flu--a factor conveniently beyond the control of egg sellers. Before publishing this PR job, the editors should have checked whether news of the DOJ's investigation of the egg industry immediately preceded a large drop in egg prices. Oops.
thesling.org/did-dojs-invest…
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