Hi Matt! Happy New Year! I, for one, would rather get an email anytime you post a new article than as opposed to hearing about them after the fact or having to keep checking your Substack. I don't mind extra emails from *you.*
Hi Matt, food inflation is definitely going to be a big topic this year. Our shipping line reps are telling us that our contract will be renewed only with lower allocations for 2022/23. This means that we have to resort to higher spot market rates. Given the fact that shipping lines are having record profit years, why would they want to shoot themselves in the foot by adding too much capacity to their fleet? Let the importers and shipper suffer. Many importers in our industry are barely able to have inventory to sell. Less competition will lead to higher prices as people are not shy about maximizing their profit. Everything is pointing to significantly higher food prices for 2022/23. Keep up the good work!
Hi Matt, I work in construction and PVC is heavily dominated by 2 players and the pricing these past 2 years has absolutely been out of control. Construction materials in general have been in a death spiral upward throwing the whole industry for a loop.
Jan 6, 2022·edited Jan 6, 2022Liked by Matt Stoller
I think things are changing among "conservatives" who were traditionally loyal to crony capitalism. Things like censorship, outsourcing and bailouts have gone too far. Free-marketers are learning that monopolies are the opposite of what they want. Patriotic people are learning that a typical multi-national corporation has no loyalty to "freedom", in fact it prefers as much dictatorship and totalitarianism as it can get. The Republicans will win the midterms but unfortunately if they return a bunch of corrupt establishment types to power it won't help in the short term. They need to put populists in power, that will likely to tip the balance.
I love the work you're doing and am happy to count myself among your growing paid subscriber list. However, I'd like to be able to contribute something other than money, and the P.S. in this post got me thinking:
Do you know of any organizations in this space that might need the help of a software engineer?
Thanks so much for doing this. I am an avid reader. Here in the PNW (and elsewhere, I'm sure), we are dealing with the effects of consolidation in the ski industry. Vail bought Stevens Pass - a formerly locally owned ski resort - a few years ago and as usual, corporate consolidation brought with it lower wages, less employee power, and worse conditions. Staff have quit in droves and the resort is barely half open. Vail has no incentive to actually provide decent services because they are a monopoly and don't have to care about actually running a ski business.
Thank you for the work you do. I am always impressed by your objectivity & non- partisanship & I am a true Bernie Bro- so that is saying something.😊.
I have had quite a year - being laid off due to COVID19 from
an academia adjacent non-profit to getting a job in a Pharma CRO-getting fired 😀& then being hired at one of the largest Pharma CROs. I am a biostatistician with a doctoral degree - so am in a field with a lot of opportunities.
I wonder if you have investigated how the Pharma CROs work. I think there is a move towards consolidation there as well.
There is a part of me that hates being a part of the Pharmaceutical industry but also lives the actual work🤷🏽♀️.
Anyhoo- thanks again for all you are doing to change the world.
Whatever happens, keep up the great work of listening to and learning from real people, workers, and businesses. I don't always agree with your arguments, but I really admire how you always try to stay connected to reality in reporting on all these different industries.
This was great to read and excited for the potential of 2022, as this seems like an area where there is real wind in the sails of change. I wanted to speak a bit on the field I work in, which is music.
Last year, the UK Parliament did a full investigation of the digital music ecosystem and came out with a rather extensive set of policy suggestions and recommendations. Now that is being discussed a couple of industry working groups with the government to really weigh in on the potential reforms later this year. What's probably more interesting to readers here is the fact the UK already proposed a law that would help with increasing songwriter pay, the Competition and Markets Authority is right now in the second phase of investigating Sony's purchase of the music distributor AWAL for over $400 million, which would be a massive deal if they attempt to unwind it, AND right now the CMA is in the first stage of investigating the oligopoly power of the three major labels, which have dominated the industry for decades.
Much of these efforts have been lead by the UK Musicians' Union, the Music Managers Forum, and few other music organizations who've done a lotta strong work to make this level of progress. The United States music community is nowhere near as organized but there are some laws, again with bipartisan support, that could also go a decent way to helping average songwriters. I've covered this a bit in my own newsletter Penny Fractions the last year, cause reading most music business press basically asks like any of these reforms would destroy this industry. Would love more coverage and attention here, because music is an industry that's faced massive consolidation and layoffs going back to the 70s, which executives have often blamed on piracy and other technological changes, which is just nonsense when in the 90s they were closing down factories in the midwest while execs where getting $20 million pink slips before going to run another music company to layoff more workers and being rewarded handsomely for it.
Congrats on such an astonishing increase in your subscriber base....seems like you've experienced a strong jolt when you started charging. Exciting to see for anybody who works as a journalist. As a paid subscriber who works as a local business journalist in Pittsburgh (I actually quoted a colleague of yours at the AELP in a story last year), one suggestion for you to add to your substack might be the technical definitions of what a monopoly is, or what the FTC's definition is, as well as discussions of what maybe it should be for given industries. Seems like one of those things that we know it when we see it in terms of how concentrated corporate power behaves but I can't say I know exactly what it is. I think I'm talking mostly about hard market share percentages, and, of course, I don't pretend to know how accessible that kind of industry information is. I could see BIG presented that kind of data, though, almost like your version of a Harper's Index. Anyway, I've learned so much from your work and I look forward to keeping up with it in the new year. Thanks...
Hey! I'm a paid subscriber. I love the work you've been doing - really think there needs to be more detailed newsletters like this pushing for policy in other spaces too. I'd love to see more healthcare content this year as well; I think Optum/UHC is a really interesting example of massive consolidation in the healthcare space (people constantly joke that you'll always have an exit because Optum will buy you, which is a cultural signal). I also think the Oracle/Cerner acquisition is interesting in this context.
Also, how do we get access to the Discord if we're paid subscribers? I cannot seem to find a link. Thanks!
It would be interesting to see more focus and information on those Pharmacy Benefit Providers. At the start of Obamacare they received some attention. They seem to be an unnecessary middleman that provides no real benefit to either patients or doctors, but they're a key link in Obamacare.
Hi Matt! Happy New Year! I, for one, would rather get an email anytime you post a new article than as opposed to hearing about them after the fact or having to keep checking your Substack. I don't mind extra emails from *you.*
(I don’t always send out every issue over email)
Please do, I can always hit the delete button but I rarely go over to substack. Alternatively post those links in each email.
Hi Matt, food inflation is definitely going to be a big topic this year. Our shipping line reps are telling us that our contract will be renewed only with lower allocations for 2022/23. This means that we have to resort to higher spot market rates. Given the fact that shipping lines are having record profit years, why would they want to shoot themselves in the foot by adding too much capacity to their fleet? Let the importers and shipper suffer. Many importers in our industry are barely able to have inventory to sell. Less competition will lead to higher prices as people are not shy about maximizing their profit. Everything is pointing to significantly higher food prices for 2022/23. Keep up the good work!
Hi Matt, I work in construction and PVC is heavily dominated by 2 players and the pricing these past 2 years has absolutely been out of control. Construction materials in general have been in a death spiral upward throwing the whole industry for a loop.
I think things are changing among "conservatives" who were traditionally loyal to crony capitalism. Things like censorship, outsourcing and bailouts have gone too far. Free-marketers are learning that monopolies are the opposite of what they want. Patriotic people are learning that a typical multi-national corporation has no loyalty to "freedom", in fact it prefers as much dictatorship and totalitarianism as it can get. The Republicans will win the midterms but unfortunately if they return a bunch of corrupt establishment types to power it won't help in the short term. They need to put populists in power, that will likely to tip the balance.
I love the work you're doing and am happy to count myself among your growing paid subscriber list. However, I'd like to be able to contribute something other than money, and the P.S. in this post got me thinking:
Do you know of any organizations in this space that might need the help of a software engineer?
Where are the congressional races where the GOP Civil War will play out? Would be great to support in some way
Thanks so much for doing this. I am an avid reader. Here in the PNW (and elsewhere, I'm sure), we are dealing with the effects of consolidation in the ski industry. Vail bought Stevens Pass - a formerly locally owned ski resort - a few years ago and as usual, corporate consolidation brought with it lower wages, less employee power, and worse conditions. Staff have quit in droves and the resort is barely half open. Vail has no incentive to actually provide decent services because they are a monopoly and don't have to care about actually running a ski business.
https://www.theinertia.com/opinion/too-big-to-vail-the-downfall-of-the-north-american-mega-resort/
Thank you for the work you do. I am always impressed by your objectivity & non- partisanship & I am a true Bernie Bro- so that is saying something.😊.
I have had quite a year - being laid off due to COVID19 from
an academia adjacent non-profit to getting a job in a Pharma CRO-getting fired 😀& then being hired at one of the largest Pharma CROs. I am a biostatistician with a doctoral degree - so am in a field with a lot of opportunities.
I wonder if you have investigated how the Pharma CROs work. I think there is a move towards consolidation there as well.
There is a part of me that hates being a part of the Pharmaceutical industry but also lives the actual work🤷🏽♀️.
Anyhoo- thanks again for all you are doing to change the world.
Whatever happens, keep up the great work of listening to and learning from real people, workers, and businesses. I don't always agree with your arguments, but I really admire how you always try to stay connected to reality in reporting on all these different industries.
This was great to read and excited for the potential of 2022, as this seems like an area where there is real wind in the sails of change. I wanted to speak a bit on the field I work in, which is music.
Last year, the UK Parliament did a full investigation of the digital music ecosystem and came out with a rather extensive set of policy suggestions and recommendations. Now that is being discussed a couple of industry working groups with the government to really weigh in on the potential reforms later this year. What's probably more interesting to readers here is the fact the UK already proposed a law that would help with increasing songwriter pay, the Competition and Markets Authority is right now in the second phase of investigating Sony's purchase of the music distributor AWAL for over $400 million, which would be a massive deal if they attempt to unwind it, AND right now the CMA is in the first stage of investigating the oligopoly power of the three major labels, which have dominated the industry for decades.
Much of these efforts have been lead by the UK Musicians' Union, the Music Managers Forum, and few other music organizations who've done a lotta strong work to make this level of progress. The United States music community is nowhere near as organized but there are some laws, again with bipartisan support, that could also go a decent way to helping average songwriters. I've covered this a bit in my own newsletter Penny Fractions the last year, cause reading most music business press basically asks like any of these reforms would destroy this industry. Would love more coverage and attention here, because music is an industry that's faced massive consolidation and layoffs going back to the 70s, which executives have often blamed on piracy and other technological changes, which is just nonsense when in the 90s they were closing down factories in the midwest while execs where getting $20 million pink slips before going to run another music company to layoff more workers and being rewarded handsomely for it.
Congrats on such an astonishing increase in your subscriber base....seems like you've experienced a strong jolt when you started charging. Exciting to see for anybody who works as a journalist. As a paid subscriber who works as a local business journalist in Pittsburgh (I actually quoted a colleague of yours at the AELP in a story last year), one suggestion for you to add to your substack might be the technical definitions of what a monopoly is, or what the FTC's definition is, as well as discussions of what maybe it should be for given industries. Seems like one of those things that we know it when we see it in terms of how concentrated corporate power behaves but I can't say I know exactly what it is. I think I'm talking mostly about hard market share percentages, and, of course, I don't pretend to know how accessible that kind of industry information is. I could see BIG presented that kind of data, though, almost like your version of a Harper's Index. Anyway, I've learned so much from your work and I look forward to keeping up with it in the new year. Thanks...
So you and David Dayen know each other, right?
https://prospect.org/power/rollups-theres-a-hospital-bed-monopoly/
I always think of you two as having pioneered the modern "hey, waitaminute, is market power maybe not a relic of the 19th century?" beat.
Would you consider I.P. / patents forms of monopoly?
Hey! I'm a paid subscriber. I love the work you've been doing - really think there needs to be more detailed newsletters like this pushing for policy in other spaces too. I'd love to see more healthcare content this year as well; I think Optum/UHC is a really interesting example of massive consolidation in the healthcare space (people constantly joke that you'll always have an exit because Optum will buy you, which is a cultural signal). I also think the Oracle/Cerner acquisition is interesting in this context.
Also, how do we get access to the Discord if we're paid subscribers? I cannot seem to find a link. Thanks!
It would be interesting to see more focus and information on those Pharmacy Benefit Providers. At the start of Obamacare they received some attention. They seem to be an unnecessary middleman that provides no real benefit to either patients or doctors, but they're a key link in Obamacare.