Matt Stoller
Washington Post
Washington, DC, United States
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Past articles by Matt:
Book review of Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age by Amy Klobuchar
Sen. Amy Klobuchar lays out history, policy proposals and a call to action. → Read More
States Are Right to Rebel Against Big Tech
Antitrust bills would dismantle Apple and Google’s monopoly over the distribution of smartphone apps and entice companies to relocate to those states. → Read More
GameStop, the Cantillon Effect, and America’s Corrupt Financial Plumbing
The GameStop frenzy, far from a morality tale of the people showing up Wall Street elites, shows that something is seriously off-kilter about our society. → Read More
The Death of Independent Podcasting: What Spotify Is Trying to Do With the Joe Rogan Deal
Spotify is gaining power over podcast distribution by either buying production directly or striking exclusive deals, as it did with Rogan. → Read More
Amazon-Owned Movie Theaters: the Next Step in Entertainment Industry Consolidation
Amazon is in talks to buy AMC Theaters, whose business model was jeopardized by the coronavirus pandemic. Other streaming companies, such as Disney and Netflix, are interested in controlling physical venues to expand their market share and limit competitors’ access to their potential audiences. Last weekend, the Daily Mail reported on rumors that Amazon is … → Read More
Here's How Covid-19 Is Boosting Monopolization and Market Power
Monopolization and consolidation can happen for what seem to be good, or least necessary, reasons. How we respond as a society depends on how we imagine these concentrations of power came to be. Here are four examples of the growth of market power during this pandemic and what they mean. Today I was on a … → Read More
How the Tension Between Big Business and Antitrust Will Reshape Post-Covid America
Big Business is going to be structuring the response to the pandemic, at least temporarily. A new generation of leaders and thinkers is not going to tolerate that kind of governance for long. So what are the policy levers to shape the world after we decide that we actually prefer our public democratic institutions to … → Read More
How the Tension Between Big Business and Antitrust Will Reshape Post-Covid America
What are the policy levers to shape the world after we decide that we actually prefer our public democratic institutions to govern? → Read More
The Coronavirus Crisis Has Exposed Private Equity’s Unsustainable Business Model
Private equity is undergoing what the great theorist Hyman Minsky pointed out is the Ponzi stage of the credit cycle in capitalist financial systems. → Read More
The Coronavirus Crisis Has Exposed Private Equity’s Unsustainable Business Model
Private equity is undergoing what the great theorist Hyman Minsky pointed out is the Ponzi stage of the credit cycle in capitalist financial systems. → Read More
The Cantillon Effect: Why Wall Street Gets a Bailout and You Don't
According to the 18th-century French banker and philosopher Richard Cantillon, who benefits when the state prints money is based on its institutional setup. In the 18th century, this meant that the closer you were to the king and the wealthy, the more you benefitted, and the further away you were, the more you were harmed. The same is true today, with the Fed’s anti-pandemic liquidity measures… → Read More
The Cantillon Effect: Why Wall Street Gets a Bailout and You Don't
According to the 18th-century French banker and philosopher Richard Cantillon, who benefits when the state prints money is based on its institutional setup. In the 18th century, this meant that the closer you were to the king and the wealthy, the more you benefitted, and the further away you were, the more you were harmed. … → Read More
The Populist Right Has a Plan to Take Power Away From Financiers and Challenge China
The nationalist rhetoric of the Trump administration can obscure a more sophisticated recognition by some people in the populist world that the core dynamic of the China-US relationship isn’t two nation-states opposed to one another. Rather, it is an authoritarian government in China that is deeply aligned with Wall Street against the public in both nations. Since 2016, the Republicans, long a… → Read More
How Private Equity Companies Are Lobbying to Profit from The Covid-19 Economic Fallout
Private equity funds aren’t just seeking to save the investments they already have, but to get access to more capital to invest in a period where asset prices are quite low → Read More
The Danger of No Antitrust Enforcement: How a Merger Led to the US Ventilator Shortage
In order to enhance its market power, a large medical device manufacturer and distributor named Covidien bought up the small and competitive Newport Medical in 2012, canceled its federal contract to manufacture 40,000 ventilators, and shut down its ventilator business. That acquisition was part of longstanding consolidation in the medical industry that left the United States unprepared to face… → Read More
This Is Not a Financial Crisis, So Why Should We Bailout Wall Street (Again)?
Republican and Democratic Senators reached a deal on a $2 trillion bill to help businesses and people hit by the coronavirus outbreak. But the bill also includes slush funds to bail out market funds and guarantee trillions of dollars of risky bank debt. At the same time, millions of small and medium-sized businesses are going to have no access to cash and revenue freezes, because of the pandemic… → Read More
The Covid-19 Bailout That Big Business Is Lobbying for Could Make America Unrecognizable
Supporting industries is necessary to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic. But using the coronavirus as an excuse, Boeing and other companies are trying to get taxpayers to foot the bill for their managerial errors. It is not too late to put a limit on corporate subsidies. Here’s the situation: Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, and the Trump administration are negotiating a bailout… → Read More
Five Conditions for Corporations About to Receive Coronavirus Bailouts
Wall Street and the Federal Reserve are getting ready for massive bailouts, so here are the conditions to put on large corporations who need cash from the government: 1) No bailouts for shareholders; 2) No more buybacks ever and no more dividends for five years; 3) Strict executive compensation limits; 4) No more lobbying and limits on public relations spending; 5) No more mergers and… → Read More
Why Depending on China for US Health Needs Is Dangerous
n 2018 the Health Industry Distributor’s Association opposed Trumps' tariffs on China with the argument that dependence on China was good because it increased efficiency. → Read More
How to Save American Middle-Sized Businesses from Coronavirus Supply-Chain Crisis
Congress passed an $8.3 billion spending bill to address the coronavirus epidemic, but the bill will not protect small companies. Republican Senator Marco Rubio put forward the idea of mass direct government lending to American small and medium-sized businesses. But Democrats, who have traditionally advocated for such a policy, now oppose it. Last week, Congress passed an $8.3 billion… → Read More