Podcast appearances and mentions of jonathan kanter

Today we're talking about the very real possibility that Google might be broken up by the United States government. And to do that, I'm talking to Jonathan Kanter, the former assistant attorney general for antitrust under the Biden administration. Kanter left the DOJ after Trump was elected, but he was the architect of the major antitrust cases the Trump administration continues to pursue against Google. That means he's much more free to share his thoughts on what it took to build and win both of these cases and what should happen next. Links:  Google loses ad tech monopoly case | Verge Google is in more danger than ever of being broken up | Verge OpenAI tells judge it would buy Chrome from Google | Verge The high stakes of Google's monopoly trial | Verge DOJ says Google must sell Chrome to crack open search monopoly | Verge Google makes history with rapid-fire antitrust losses | NYT Read the antitrust ruling against Google | NYT Google ad monopoly ruling's surprise winner: OpenAI | Axios DOJ antitrust chief is ‘overjoyed' after Google monopoly verdict | Decoder DOJ's Kanter says the antitrust fight against Big Tech is just beginning | Decoder Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today in AI is a daily recap of the latest news and developments in the AI industry. See your story and want to be featured in an upcoming episode? Reach out at tonyphoang.com TSMC has refuted any claims of discussions with Intel regarding a joint venture, underscoring the difficulties Intel faces in rejuvenating its foundry business. The semiconductor industry is currently contending with geopolitical tensions, export controls, and a persistent global chip shortage, affecting key players like TSMC, Nvidia, and AMD. These issues add layers of complexity to maintaining a stable supply chain and pushing forward technological advancements within the sector. Jonathan Kanter, former chief of the DOJ's antitrust division, has highlighted the transformative changes in the advertising landscape due to Google's antitrust cases. He stresses the importance of finding new methods to monetize AI outside of Google's influence. Google's recent legal setbacks could pave the way for a more competitive digital advertising market, allowing smaller competitors to innovate and gain market share. This evolution may result in a more varied and dynamic market, encouraging advancements in AI-driven advertising solutions. Google is currently facing significant antitrust challenges, including rulings that it holds illegal monopolies in online advertising and search markets. Despite these legal obstacles, Google remains focused on advancing its artificial intelligence technologies to retain its competitive position. These legal decisions have the potential to reshape the ad-tech landscape, promoting increased competition and innovation. As Google maneuvers through the changing AI sector, it aims to stay ahead of competitors like Open AI, which are also making notable progress in the industry. Open AI is negotiating to acquire Windsurf for $3 billion, indicating its strategic emphasis on the AI coding assistance market. Concurrently, Anysphere's Cursor is experiencing rapid growth and attracting significant venture capital interest. The emergence of AI coding tools such as Cursor and GitHub Copilot is transforming software development, making developers more efficient. Nonetheless, issues like code quality and security vulnerabilities underscore the necessity for human oversight, ensuring that AI-driven tools enhance rather than replace human expertise in software development.

In this podcast episode, experts Hannah Garden-Monheit, formerly at the FTC, Jonathan Kanter, and Max Barangau from The Capitol Forum dissect the complexities of antitrust policy, price fixing, and their impact on inflation. Garden-Monheit reflects on her journey from DOJ trial attorney to the FTC and White House NEC, highlighting challenges in revitalizing antitrust enforcement amid corporate skepticism. The panel scrutinizes controversial price-fixing cases, including algorithm-driven collusion in housing markets and egg pricing schemes, and explores how data-driven monopolization amplifies economic power. A compelling analysis for anyone interested in the crossroads of policy, economics, and technology.

In this special episode, former FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and former U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai talk to Teddy and former Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter to discuss the recent upheaval at the FTC and its implications for market stability, antitrust enforcement, and the rule of law. Slaughter describes being abruptly fired from her FTC position, highlighting that this dismissal violates legal protections that prohibit FTC commissioners' removal without cause. She emphasizes that this unprecedented action introduces significant legal uncertainty, potentially undermining ongoing critical FTC cases, such as the lawsuit against pharmaceutical benefit managers accused of inflating insulin prices, and cases involving major corporations like Amazon. This instability challenges market predictability and may affect the enforcement of antitrust laws, consumer protection, and market fairness.Ambassador Tai reflects on the global perception of U.S. trade policy, particularly during the Trump administration, and stresses the importance of consistent policies for international trust and stability. Tai explains the complexity surrounding tariffs, underscoring the risks associated with unpredictability and disruptions in trade relationships with key partners like the EU, Canada, and Mexico. She points out that inconsistent U.S. actions erode its reputation as a reliable trading partner, thus pushing other nations to depend more heavily on China or each other.Both express concern over current policy chaos in Washington, implications for the rule of law, and democratic stability. They highlight that market actors like Wall Street typically prefer predictability and clear rules, now compromised by this governmental instability. We end with worries that politically driven decisions—such as Slaughter's firing—provide advantages to large corporations, including Big Tech, undermining fair competition and accountability.

I talk to Jonathan Kanter who served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2021 to 2024.Kanter discusses his experiences at the FTC and DOJ, emphasizing the need for rigorous antitrust enforcement, especially as modern markets have evolved and become dominated by Big Tech. He highlights the importance of confronting monopolies to protect economic fairness, innovation, democracy, and freedom, and explains how he prioritized impactful cases against major corporations like Google, Apple, Ticketmaster, and others. Reflecting on his tenure, he stresses adapting antitrust laws to current market realities, warns about the dangers of economic concentration, and expresses the need for support for robust antitrust enforcement to maintain healthy competition and democracy.

Why is reforming capitalism so essential? In the latest issue of Liberties Quarterly, Tim Wu argues that unregulated capitalism not only leads to economic monopolies, but also drives populist anger and authoritarian politics. In “The Real Road to Serfdom”, Wu advocates for "decentralized capitalism" with distributed economic power, citing examples from Scandinavia and East Asia. Drawing from his experience in the Biden administration's antitrust efforts, he emphasizes the importance of preventing industry concentration. Wu expresses concern about big tech's growing political influence and argues that challenging monopolies is critical for fostering innovation and maintaining economic progress in the United States.Here are the 5 KEEN ON AMERICA takeaways from our interview with Tim Wu:* Historical Parallels: Wu sees concerning parallels between our current era and the 1930s, characterized by concentrated economic power, fragile economic conditions, and the rise of populist leaders. He suggests we're in a period where leaders are moving beyond winning elections to attempting to alter constitutional frameworks.* The Monopoly-Autocracy Connection: Wu argues there's a dangerous cycle where monopolies create economic inequality, which generates populist anger, which then enables authoritarian leaders to rise to power. He cites Hugo Chavez as a pioneer of this modern autocratic model that leaders like Trump have followed.* Decentralized Capitalism: Wu advocates for an economic system with multiple centers of distributed economic power, rather than just a few giant companies accumulating wealth. He points to Denmark, Taiwan, and post-WWII East Asia as successful examples of more balanced economic structures.* Antitrust Legacy: Wu believes the Biden administration's antitrust enforcement efforts have created lasting changes in legal standards and public consciousness that won't be easily reversed. He emphasizes that challenging monopolies is crucial for maintaining innovation and preventing industry stagnation.* Big Tech and Power: Wu expresses concern about big tech companies' growing political influence, comparing it to historical examples like AT&T and IBM. He's particularly worried about AI potentially reinforcing existing power structures rather than democratizing opportunities.Complete Transcript: Tim Wu on The Real Road to SerfdomAndrew Keen: Hello, everybody. We live in very strange times. That's no exaggeration. Yesterday, we had Nick Bryant on the show, the author of The Forever War. He was the BBC's man in Washington, DC for a long time. In our conversation, Nick suggested that we're living in really historic times, equivalent to the fall of the Berlin Wall, 9/11, perhaps even the beginnings of the Second World War.My guest today, like Nick, is a deep thinker. Tim Wu will be very well known to you for many things, including his book, The Attention Merchants. He was involved in the Biden White House, teaches law at Columbia University, and much more. He has a new book coming out later in the year on November 4th, The Age of Extraction. He has a very interesting essay in this issue of Liberties, the quarterly magazine of ideas, called "The Real Road to Serfdom."Tim had a couple of interesting tweets in the last couple of days, one comparing the behavior of President Trump to Germany's 1933 enabling act. And when it comes to Ukraine, Tim wrote, "How does the GOP feel about their president's evident plan to forfeit the Cold War?" Tim Wu is joining us from his home in the village of Manhattan. Tim, welcome. Before we get to your excellent essay in Liberties, how would you historicize what we're living through at the moment?Tim Wu: I think the 1930s are not the wrong way to look at it. Prior to that period, you had this extraordinary concentration of economic power in a very fragile environment. A lot of countries had experienced an enormous crash and you had the rise of populist leaders, with Mussolini being the pioneer of the model. This has been going on for at least 5 or 6 years now. We're in that middle period where it's moving away from people just winning elections to trying to really alter the constitution of their country. So I think the mid-30s is probably about right.Andrew Keen: You were involved in the Biden administration. You were one of the major thinkers when it came to antitrust. Have you been surprised with what's happened since Biden left office? The speed, the radicalness of this Trump administration?Tim Wu: Yes, because I expected something more like the first Trump administration, which was more of a show with a lot of flash but poor execution. This time around, the execution is also poor but more effective. I didn't fully expect that Elon Musk would actually be a government official at this point and that he'd have this sort of vandalism project going on. The fact they won all of the houses of Congress was part of the problem and has made the effort go faster.Andrew Keen: You talk about Musk. We've done many shows on Musk's role in all this and the seeming arrival of Silicon Valley or a certain version of Silicon Valley in Washington, DC. You're familiar with both worlds, the world of big tech and Silicon Valley and Washington. Is that your historical reading that these two worlds are coming together in this second Trump administration?Tim Wu: It's very natural for economic power to start to seek political power. It follows from the basic view of monopoly as a creature that wants to defend itself, and the second observation that the most effective means of self-defense is control of government. If you follow that very simple logic, it stands to reason that the most powerful economic entities would try to gain control of government.I want to talk about the next five years. The tech industry is following the lead of Palantir and Peter Thiel, who were pioneers in thinking that instead of trying to avoid government, they should try to control it. I think that is the obvious move over the next four years.Andrew Keen: I've been reading your excellent essay in Liberties, "The Real Road to Serfdom." When did you write it? It seems particularly pertinent this week, although of course you didn't write it knowing exactly what was going to be happening with Musk and Washington DC and Trump and Ukraine.Tim Wu: I wrote it about two years ago when I got out of the White House. The themes are trying to get at eternal issues about the dangers of economic power and concentrated economic power and its unaccountability. If it made predictions that are starting to come true, I don't know if that's good or bad.Andrew Keen: "The Real Road to Serfdom" is, of course, a reference to the Hayek book "The Road to Serfdom." Did you consciously use that title with reference to Hayek, or was that a Liberties decision?Tim Wu: That was my decision. At that point, and I may still write this, I was thinking of writing a book just called "The Real Road to Serfdom." I am both fascinated and a fan of Hayek in certain ways. I think he nailed certain things exactly right but makes big errors at the same time.To his credit, Hayek was very critical of monopoly and very critical of the role of the state in reinforcing monopoly. But he had an almost naivete about what powerful, unaccountable private economic entities would do with their power. That's essentially my criticism.Andrew Keen: In 2018, you wrote a book, "The Curse of Bigness." And in a way, this is an essay against bigness, but it's written—please correct me if I'm wrong—I read it as a critique of the left, suggesting that there were times in the essay, if you're reading it blind, you could have been reading Hayek in its critique of Marx and centralization and Lenin and Stalin and the Ukrainian famines. Is the message in the book, Tim—is your audience a progressive audience? Are you saying that it's a mistake to rely on bigness, so to speak, the state as a redistributive platform?Tim Wu: Not entirely. I'm very critical of communist planned economies, and that's part of it. But it's mainly a critique of libertarian faith in private economic power or sort of the blindness to the dangers of it.My basic thesis in "The Real Road to Serfdom" is that free market economies will tend to monopolize. Once monopoly power is achieved, it tends to set off a strong desire to extract as much wealth from the rest of the economy as it can, creating something closer to a feudal-type economy with an underclass. That tends to create a huge amount of resentment and populist anger, and democracies have to respond to that anger.The libertarian answer of saying that's fine, this problem will go away, is a terrible answer. History suggests that what happens instead is if democracy doesn't do anything, the state takes over, usually on the back of a populist strongman. It could be a communist, could be fascist, could be just a random authoritarian like in South America.I guess I'd say it's a critique of both the right and the left—the right for being blind to the dangers of concentrated economic power, and the left, especially the communist left, for idolizing the takeover of vital functions by a giant state, which has a track record as bad, if not worse, than purely private power.Andrew Keen: You bring up Hugo Chavez in the essay, the now departed Venezuelan strongman. You're obviously no great fan of his, but you do seem to suggest that Chavez, like so many other authoritarians, built his popularity on the truth of people's suffering. Is that fair?Tim Wu: That is very fair. In the 90s, when Chavez first came to power through popular election, everyone was mystified and thought he was some throwback to the dictators of the 60s and 70s. But he turned out to be a pioneer of our future, of the new form of autocrat, who appealed to the unfairness of the economy post-globalization.Leaders like Hungary's Viktor Orbán, and certainly Donald Trump, are direct descendants of Hugo Chavez in their approach. They follow the same playbook, appealing to the same kind of pain and suffering, promising to act for the people as opposed to the elites, the foreigners, and the immigrants. Chavez is also a cautionary lesson. He started in a way which the population liked—he lowered gas prices, gave away money, nationalized industry. He was very popular. But then like most autocrats, he eventually turned the money to himself and destroyed his own country.Andrew Keen: Why are autocrats like Chavez and perhaps Trump so much better at capturing that anger than Democrats like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris?Tim Wu: People who are outside the system like Chavez are able to tap into resentment and anger in a way which is less diluted by their direct information environment and their colleagues. Anyone who hangs around Washington, DC for a long time becomes more muted and careful. They lose credibility.That said, the fact that populist strongmen take over countries in distress suggests we need to avoid that level of economic distress in the first place and protect the middle class. Happy, contented middle-class countries don't tend to see the rise of authoritarian dictators. There isn't some Danish version of Hugo Chavez in the running right now.Andrew Keen: You bring up Denmark. Denmark always comes up in these kinds of conversations. What's admirable about your essay is you mostly don't fall into the Denmark trap of simply saying, "Why don't we all become like Denmark?" But at the same time, you acknowledge that the Danish model is attractive, suggesting we've misunderstood it or treated it superficially. What can and can't we learn from the Danish model?Tim Wu: American liberals often misunderstand the lesson of Scandinavia and other countries that have strong, prosperous middle classes like Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. In Scandinavia's case, the go-to explanation is that it's just the liberals' favorite set of policies—high taxation, strong social support systems. But I think the structure of those economies is much more important.They have what Jacob Hacker calls very strong "pre-distribution." They've avoided just having a small set of monopolists who make all the money and then hopefully hand it out to other people. It goes back to their land reform in the early 19th century, where they set up a very different kind of economy with a broad distribution of productive assets.If I'm trying to promote a philosophy in this book, it's for people who are fed up with the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism and think it leads to autocracy, but who are also no fans of communism or socialism. Just saying "let people pile up money and we'll tax it later" is not going to work. What you need is an economy structured with multiple centers of distributed economic power.Andrew Keen: The term that seems to summarize that in the essay is "architecture of parity." It's a bit clunky, but is that the best way to sum up your thinking?Tim Wu: I'm working on the terminology. Architecture of equality, parity, decentralized capitalism, distribution—these are all terms trying to capture it. It's more of a 19th century form of Christian or Catholic economics. People are grasping for the right word for an economic system that doesn't rely on just a few giant companies taking money from everybody and hopefully redistributing it. That model is broken and has a dangerous tendency to lead to toxicity. We need a better capitalism. An alternative title for this piece could have been "Saving Capitalism from Itself."Andrew Keen: Your name is most associated with tech and your critique of big tech. Does this get beyond big tech? Are there other sectors of the economy you're interested in fixing and reforming?Tim Wu: Absolutely. Silicon Valley is the most obvious and easiest entry point to talk about concentrated economic power. You can see the dependence on a small number of platforms that have earnings and profits far beyond what anyone imagined possible. But we're talking about an economy-wide, almost global set of problems.Some industries are worse. The meat processing industry in the United States is horrendously concentrated—it takes all the money from farmers, charges us too much for meat, and keeps it for itself. There are many industries where people are looking for something to understand or believe in that's different than socialism but different than this libertarian capitalism that ends up bankrupting people. Tech is the easiest way to talk about it, but not the be-all and end-all of my interest.Andrew Keen: Are there other examples where we're beginning to see decentralized capitalism? The essay was very strong on the critique, but I found fewer examples of decentralized capitalism in practice outside maybe Denmark in the 2020s.Tim Wu: East Asia post-World War II is a strong example of success. While no economy is purely small businesses, although Taiwan comes close, if you look at the East Asian story after World War II, one of the big features was an effort to reform land, give land to peasants, and create a landowning class to replace the feudal system. They had huge entrepreneurism, especially in Korea and Taiwan, less in Japan. This built a strong and prosperous middle and upper middle class.Japan has gone through hard times—they let their companies get too big and they stagnated. But Korea and Taiwan have gone from being third world economies to Taiwan now being wealthier per capita than Japan. The United States is another strong example, vacillating between being very big and very small. Even at its biggest, it still has a strong entrepreneurial culture and sectors with many small entities. Germany is another good example. There's no perfect version, but what I'm saying is that the model of monopolized economies and just having a few winners and hoping that anybody else can get tax payments is really a losing proposition.Andrew Keen: You were on Chris Hayes recently talking about antitrust. You're one of America's leading thinkers on antitrust and were brought into the Biden administration on the antitrust front. Is antitrust then the heart of the matter? Is this really the key to decentralizing capitalism?Tim Wu: I think it's a big tool, one of the tools of managing the economy. It works by preventing industries from merging their way into monopoly and keeps a careful eye on structure. In the same way that no one would say interest rates are the be-all and end-all of monetary policy, when we're talking about structural policy, having antitrust law actively preventing overconcentration is important.In the White House itself, we spent a lot of time trying to get other agencies to prevent their sectors, whether healthcare or transportation, from becoming overly monopolized and extractive. You can have many parts of the government involved—the antitrust agencies are key, but they're not the only solution.Andrew Keen: You wrote an interesting piece for The Atlantic about Biden's antitrust initiatives. You said the outgoing president's legacy of revived antitrust enforcement won't be easy to undo. Trump is very good at breaking things. Why is it going to be hard to undo? Lina Khan's gone—the woman who seems to unite all of Silicon Valley in their dislike of her. What did Biden do to protect antitrust legislation?Tim Wu: The legal patterns have changed and the cases are ongoing. But I think more important is a change of consciousness and ideology and change in popular support. I don't think there is great support for letting big tech do whatever they want without oversight. There are people who believe in that and some of them have influence in this administration, but there's been a real change in consciousness.I note that the Federal Trade Commission has already announced that it's going to stick with the Biden administration's merger rules, and my strong sense is the Department of Justice will do the same. There are certain things that Trump did that we stuck with in the Biden administration because they were popular—the most obvious being the turn toward China. Going back to the Bush era approach of never bothering any monopolies, I just don't think there's an appetite for it.Andrew Keen: Why is Lina Khan so unpopular in Silicon Valley?Tim Wu: It's interesting. I'm not usually one to attribute things to sexism, but the Justice Department brought more cases against big tech than she did. Jonathan Kanter, who ran antitrust at Justice, won the case against Google. His firm was trying to break up Google. They may still do it, but somehow Lina Khan became the face of it. I think because she's young and a woman—I don't know why Jonathan Kanter didn't become the symbol in the same way.Andrew Keen: You bring up the AT&T and IBM cases in the US tech narrative in the essay, suggesting that we can learn a great deal from them. What can we learn from those cases?Tim Wu: The United States from the 70s through the 2010s was an extraordinarily innovative place and did amazing things in the tech industry. An important part of that was challenging the big IBM and AT&T monopolies. AT&T was broken into eight pieces. IBM was forced to begin selling its software separately and opened up the software markets to what became a new software industry.AT&T earlier had been forced to license the transistor, which opened up the semiconductor industry and to some degree the computing industry, and had to stay out of computing. The government intervened pretty forcefully—a form of industrial policy to weaken its tech monopolies. The lesson is that we need to do the same thing right now.Some people will ask about China, but I think the United States has always done best when it constantly challenges established power and creates room for entrepreneurs to take their shot. I want very much for the new AI companies to challenge the main tech platforms and see what comes of that, as opposed to becoming a stagnant industry. Everyone says nothing can become stagnant, but the aerospace industry was pretty quick-moving in the 60s, and now you have Boeing and Airbus sitting there. It's very easy for a tech industry to stagnate, and attacking monopolists is the best way to prevent that.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Google earlier. You had an interesting op-ed in The New York Times last year about what we should do about Google. My wife is head of litigation at Google, so I'm not entirely disinterested. I also have a career as a critic of Google. If Kent Walker was here, he would acknowledge some of the things he was saying. But he would say Google still innovates—Google hasn't become Boeing. It's innovating in AI, in self-driving cars, it's shifting search. Would he be entirely wrong?Tim Wu: No, he wouldn't be entirely wrong. In the same way that IBM kept going, AT&T kept going. What you want in tech industries is a fair fight. The problem with Google isn't that they're investing in AI or trying to build self-driving cars—that's great. The problem is that they were paying over $20 billion a year to Apple for a promise not to compete in search. Through control of the browsers and many other things, they were trying to make sure they could never be dislodged.My view of the economics is monopolists need to always be a little insecure. They need to be in a position where they can be challenged. That happens—there are companies who, like AT&T in the 70s or 60s, felt they were immune. It took the government to make space. I think it's very important for there to be opportunities to challenge the big guys and try to seize the pie.Andrew Keen: I'm curious where you are on Section 230. Google won their Supreme Court case when it came to Section 230. In this sense, I'm guessing you view Google as being on the side of the good guys.Tim Wu: Section 230 is interesting. In the early days of the Internet, it was an important infant industry protection. It was an insulation that was vital to get those little companies at the time to give them an opportunity to grow and build business models, because if you're being sued by billions of people, you can't really do too much.Section 230 was originally designed to protect people like AOL, who ran user forums and had millions of people discussing—kind of like Reddit. I think as Google and companies like Facebook became active in promoting materials and became more like media companies, the case for an absolutist Section 230 became a lot weaker. The law didn't really change but the companies did.Andrew Keen: You wrote the essay "The Real Road to Serfdom" a couple of years ago. You also talked earlier about AI. There's not a lot of AI in this, but 50% of all the investment in technology over the last year was in AI, and most of that has gone into these huge platforms—OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini. Is AI now the central theater, both in the Road to Serfdom and in liberating ourselves from big tech?Tim Wu: Two years ago when I was writing this, I was determined not to say anything that would look stupid about AI later. There's a lot more on what I think about AI in my new book coming in November.I see AI as a classic potential successor technology. It obviously is the most significant successor to the web and the mass Internet of 20 years ago in terms of having potential to displace things like search and change the way people do various forms of productivity. How technology plays out depends a lot on the economic structure. If you think about a technology like the cotton gin, it didn't automatically lead to broad flourishing, but reinforced plantation slavery.What I hope happens with AI is that it sets off more competition and destabilization for some of the tech platforms as opposed to reinforcing their advantage and locking them in forever. I don't know if we know what's going to happen right now. I think it's extremely important that OpenAI stays separate from the existing tech companies, because if this just becomes the same players absorbing technology, that sounds a lot like the darker chapters in US tech history.Andrew Keen: And what about the power of AI to liberate ourselves from our brain power as the next industrial revolution? When I was reading the essay, I thought it would be a very good model, both as a warning and in terms of offering potential for us to create this new architecture of parity. Because the technology in itself, in theory at least, is one of parity—one of democratizing brainpower.Tim Wu: Yes, I agree it has extraordinary potential. Things can go in two directions. The Industrial Revolution is one example where you had more of a top-down centralization of the means of production that was very bad for many people initially, though there were longer-term gains.I would hope AI would be something more like the PC revolution in the 80s and 90s, which did augment individual humanity as opposed to collective enterprise. It allowed people to do things like start their own travel agency or accounting firm with just a computer. I am interested and bullish on the potential of AI to empower smaller units, but I'm concerned it will be used to reinforce existing economic structures. The jury's out—the future will tell us. Just hoping it's going to make humanity better is not going to be the best answer.Andrew Keen: When you were writing this essay, Web3 was still in vogue then—the idea of blockchain and crypto decentralizing the economy. But I didn't see any references to Web3 and the role of technology in democratizing capitalism in terms of the architecture of corporations. Are you skeptical of the Web3 ideology?Tim Wu: The essay had its limits since I was also talking about 18th century Denmark. I have a lot more on blockchain and Web3 in the book. The challenge with crypto and Bitcoin is that it both over-promises and delivers something. I've been very interested in crypto and blockchain for a long time. The challenge it's had is constantly promising to decentralize great systems and failing, then people stealing billions of dollars and ending up in prison.It has a dubious track record, but it does have this core potential for a certain class of people to earn money. I'm always in favor of anything that is an alternative means of earning money. There are people who made money on it. I just think it's failed to execute on its promises. Blockchain in particular has failed to be a real challenge to web technologies.Andrew Keen: As you say, Hayek inspired the book and in some sense this is intellectual. The father of decentralization in ideological terms was E.F. Schumacher. I don't think you reference him, but do you think there has been much thinking since Schumacher on the value of smallness and decentralized architectures? What do people like yourself add to what Schumacher missed in his critique of bigness?Tim Wu: Schumacher is a good example. Rawls is actually under-recognized as being interested in these things. I see myself as writing in the tradition of those figures and trying to pursue a political economy that values a more balanced economy and small production.Hopefully what I add is a level of institutional experience and practicality that was missing. Rawls is slightly unfair because he's a philosopher, but his model doesn't include firms—it's just individuals. So it's all about balancing between poor people and rich people when obviously economic power is also held by corporations.I'm trying to create more flesh on the bones of the "small is beautiful" philosophy and political economy that is less starry-eyed and more realistic. I'm putting forward the point that you're not sacrificing growth and you're taking less political risk with a more balanced economy. There's an adulation of bigness in our time—exciting big companies are glamorous. But long-term prosperity does better when you have more centers, a more balanced system. I'm not an ultra-centralist suggesting we should live in mud huts, but I do think the worship of monopoly is very similar to the worship of autocracy and is dangerous.Andrew Keen: Much to discuss. Tim Wu, thank you so much. The author of "The Real Road to Serfdom," fascinating essay in this month's issue of Liberties. I know "The Age of Extraction" will be coming out on November 10th.Tim Wu: In England and US at the same time.Andrew Keen: We'll get you back on the show. Fascinating conversation, Tim. Thank you so much.Hailed as the “architect” of the Biden administration's competition and antitrust policies, Tim Wu writes and teaches about private power and related topics. First known for coining the term “net neutrality” in 2002, in recent years Wu has been a leader in the revitalization of American antitrust and has taken a particular focus on the growing power of the big tech platforms. In 2021, he was appointed to serve in the White House as special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy. A professor at Columbia Law School since 2006, Wu has also held posts in public service. He was enforcement counsel in the New York Attorney General's Office, worked on competition policy for the National Economic Council during the Barack Obama administration, and worked in antitrust enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission. In 2014, Wu was a Democratic primary candidate for lieutenant governor of New York. In his most recent book, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age (2018), he argues that corporate and industrial concentration can lead to the rise of populism, nationalism, and extremist politicians. His previous books include The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads (2016), The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (2010), and Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World (2006), which he co-authored with Jack Goldsmith. Wu was a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and also has written for Slate, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post. He once explained the concept of net neutrality to late-night host Stephen Colbert while he rode a rollercoaster. He has been named one of America's 100 most influential lawyers by the National Law Journal; has made Politico's list of 50 most influential figures in American politics (more than once); and has been included in the Scientific American 50 of policy leadership. Wu is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as a law clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

JONATHAN KANTER This episode was recorded on November 18, 2024,  the day when it was reported that Senior antitrust officials at the Justice Department plan to ask a judge to order Google to divest its Chrome web browser, Bloomberg reported citing anonymous sources. The department also intends to ask federal judge Amit Mehta, who declared Google's search engine a monopoly in August, to mandate actions concerning artificial intelligence and the Android mobile operating system. The enforcement actions are the product of the Justice Department's multiyear case against Google which sought to prove that the tech giant has a web search monopoly in the U.S. The Justice Department won its case  federal judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google broke antitrust laws in both online search and search text ads markets. The remedies are yet to be decided and will likely be fought in federal courts. Many parallels exist between this case and  US v Standard Oil in the early 20th century and US v Microsoft in the early 21st century. The remarkable person leading this effort which at its root goes to the heart of free markets, power and competition is Assistant Attorney General of the United States' Department of Justice Antitrust Division. He is deeply thoughtful and his mind is expansive, especially at the intersection of the law, free markets. Prior to this, Kanter worked as an antitrust attorney at the FTC and in private practice. AAG Kanter is considered a critic of “big tech” and DOJ has worked to block  a record number of mergers on antitrust  grounds. During his tenure, the DOJ won its first conviction in a criminal monopolization suit in four decades Jonathan has a very humble beginning in a working class neighborhood of Queens and  graduated from SUNY Albany and Washington University School of Law.  After graduating from law school, Kanter first worked as an antitrust lawyer at the FTC. He later worked in private practice, where he represented clients including Microsoft and Yelp as an  associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. Kanter was later a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft followed by  Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.  Two other notable cases he has led include an antitrust suit related to JetBlue's attempted acquisition of Spirit, and one against Ticketmaster's parent company Live Nation Entertainment. Upon filing the lawsuit, Kanter stated that "Live music should not be available only to those who can afford to pay the Ticketmaster tax". Much of his work, as was his confirmation by the United States Senate, has broad support across party lines, a rare thing in today's Washington.  RELATED LINKS NYT Article CNBC Segment Wikipedia Bloomberg Article Stanford Graduate School of Business Talk GENERAL INFO| TOP OF THE GAME: Official website: https://topofthegame-thepod.com/ RSS Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/topofthegame-thepod/feed.xml Hosting service show website: https://topofthegame-thepod.podbean.com/ Javier's LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/javiersaade  SUPPORT & CONNECT: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/96934564 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551086203755 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOPOFGAMEpod Subscribe on Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/site/podcatcher/index/blog/vLKLE1SKjf6G Email us: info@topofthegame-thepod.com   THANK YOU FOR LISTENING – AVAILABLE ON ALL MAJOR PLATFORMS

Leah, Melissa, and Kate kick off with a look at Jack Smith's unsealed brief on Trump's election interference case before digging into some cases the court is hearing this week, including one centered around ghost guns–unserialized guns that can be put together from component parts. Then, Melissa and Leah speak with Doha Mekki and Jonathan Kanter of the DOJ's Antitrust Division about how antitrust law can be a vehicle for progressive social change.Listen back to our 2023 interview with one of Richard Glossip's lawyers Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Threads, and Bluesky

Today, I'm talking to Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general for antitrust at the United States Department of Justice. This is Jonathan's second time on the show, and it's a bit of an emergency podcast situation. On Monday, a federal court issued a monumental decision in the DOJ's case against Google, holding that Google Search and the text ads in search are monopolies.  The court hasn't decided on the penalties for all this yet — that process is scheduled to start next month. But it's the biggest antitrust win against a tech company since the Microsoft case from two decades ago. I wanted to know what Jonathan thought of the ruling, what it means for the law, and most importantly, what remedies he's going to seek to try and restore competition in search.  Links:  Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist' in US antitrust case | The Verge All the spiciest parts of the Google antitrust ruling | The Verge Now that Google is a monopolist, what's next? | The Verge DOJ's Kanter says the antitrust fight against Big Tech is just beginning | Decoder The DOJ Antitrust Division isn't afraid to go to court | The Verge The US government is gearing up for an AI antitrust fight | The Verge Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23979725 Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this edition of Parallax views, Emily Peterson-Cassin of the Demand Progress Education fund joins the program in the first segment to discuss the landmark decision made in the Google antitrust lawsuit that saw a judge declare that Google is a monopolist. This is a major win for the antitrust movement and those seeking to challenge monopoly capitalism in America. We'll discuss what this means as well as why anti-trust is important for consumers and workers as well as society as a whole. Additionally, we'll discuss the billionaire attacks on FTC chair Lina Khan by billionaires like Reid Hoffman who dislike her antitrust agenda. Recently, Hoffman donated millions to the Kamala Harris campaign and then went on TV to talk about how he'd like to see Khan sacked form the FTC. Supporters of Khan have accused using his status as a mega-donor to curry favor with the Harris campaign in the hopes that a Harris administration will repay him by removing Khan from her position. We'll discuss all of this as well as the work Khan and Jonathan Kanter of the DOJ's Antitrust Division have done over the past four years of President Joe Biden administration. We'll also discuss how Khan, Kanter, and others have inspired a new generation of antitrust enthusiasts that want to break up concentrated corporate power's grip on America. In the second segment of the show, The American Prospect's Macy Stacher joins the show to discuss his article, "Waffle House Workers Challenge the Southern Economy". Waffle House workers are fighting back against ridiculously low, non-livable wages as well as lack of safety at their jobs, wage theft, meal deductions policies, and, overall, labor policies of the Jim Crow-era that have persisted in today's American South. You may have heard about the phenomena of "Waffle House Fights" that go viral on Twitter and garner chuckles in social media, but what is happening to Waffle House workers who face safety risk and a lack of concern from corporate office in Atlanta when it comes to their needs and rights is no laughing matter. We'll discuss how the Union of Southern Service workers are changing all that and the struggles that Waffle House workers like Cindy Smith, who is prominently featured in Macy's article, face regularly. Macy will also explain how the Atlanta HQ of Waffle House locked out protesting workers and threw out their petition. But even with all the grimness of what these workers face, we'll also delve into the successes they've been able to achieve especially in regard to wages recently. All that and more on this edition of Parallax Views.

Kara and Scott discuss the global stock market sell-off, and why people shouldn't panic. Then, Berkshire Hathaway unloads nearly half of its stake in Apple as the company's cash stockpile increases, and what's behind the reported growing tensions between Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Plus, Donald Trump ditches the previously scheduled ABC debate, and insists on Fox News or nothing. Our Friend of Pivot is Jonathan Kanter, the Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. Jonathan gives his immediate reaction to the landmark Google antitrust ruling, and explains the repercussions for tech and beyond. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this edition of Parallax Views, another double feature with two guests. First up, if there's any interview you listen to on my show this week make it this one, folks. David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect and author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power, joins the show to discuss his important article "The Corporate Wishcasting Attack on Lina Khan". Lina Khan was apponted by President Joe Biden to chair the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In this role Khan, alongside the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department's Jonathan Kanter and others, has attempted to take on big tech, corporate power, and monopoly capitol in America. Billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is apparently not happy about this because after donating $8.6 million to Super PACs supporting Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has claimed Khan is “waging war on American business” and pushed for a Harris administration to dump her as FTC chair. Dayen and I will discuss why billionaires like Hoffman are so opposed to Harris and those who support strengthening antitrust laws and their enforcement in the U.S. We'll also discuss what Dayen argues the billionaire anti-antitrust crowd are leaving out about how Khan's agenda benefits working people over corporate profits. Although some reports indicate that Harris is skeptical of Khan's antitrust agenda and may as a result remove her, Dayen cautions that we don't know what a Harris administration will do with the antitrust agenda that has been ushered in by the Biden administration in recent years. Nonetheless, he argues that supporters of the antitrust movement should mobilize in support of Lina Khan now. Recently, a number of organizations, including the AFL-CIO and NAACP, signed a letter in support of Khan. At the end of the conversation we also discuss Dayen's latest article in "The Only Member of Congress Who Has Worked for Kamala Harris" in which he interviewed former Rep. Katie Porter who worked with Kamala Harris about her thoughts on how Harris will deal with big business and corporate interests. In the second segment of the show, the Revolving Door Project's Chris Lewis joins the show to discuss his American Prospect article, "The Dangerous Authoritarian Gunning to Serve as Trump's Grand Vizier". Chris and I take a closer looks at the figure of Trump loyalist and Christian nationalist Russ Vought, founder of the Center for Renewing America. Vought worked for the Trump administration from the director of the Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 to January 2021. Since then, he has become involved in the saga of the controversial Project 2025. Chris explains Vought's beliefs and rather authoritarian, even anti-constitutional or post-constitutional views on America. Additionally, Chris and I delve into the Project 2025 Schedule F scheme that would allow the President to sack numerous civil servants in various federal agencies to replace them with loyalists. Theoretically, this could lead to cranks with no knowledge in an agency's expertise in key positions they are not equipped to be in. In other words, imagine Infowars' Alex Jones, who has promoted using colloidal silver as supplement to counter coronavirus (despite the dangers of colloidal silver consumption), in a key position at the FDA.

The cloud security startup Wiz is now walking away from a monster $23B deal to be bought by Google, telling employees it'll opt instead to pursue an IPO. Anti-trust and investor concerns also reportedly played a factor, which could signal a win for Jonathan Kanter, Lina Khan and even JD Vance.

This bonus episode of Squawk Pod, from our partners at “The Keynote,” features the two most important players in the Biden Administration's comprehensive reshaping of antitrust law. Federal Trade Commission Chairperson Lina Khan, and U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division Jonathan Kanter joined Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC CEO Council Summit on June 4th 2024. They spoke about how they have reinvigorated antitrust enforcement, the challenges and opportunities of the digital age and why they feel empowered to act. Plus, one reveals their “Swiftie” status. To listen to other interviews from events check out “The Keynote by CNBC Events” here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keynote-by-cnbc-events/id1493248246. For information on upcoming events visit: CNBCevents.com. In this episode:Lina Khan, @linakhanFTCJonathan Kanter, @JusticeATRAndrew Ross Sorkin,@andrewrsorkinKatie Kramer,@Kramer_Katie

US antitrust enforcer Jonathan Kanter is launching a thorough examination of the artificial intelligence sector to prevent potential monopolies. Kanter's concerns center on a few companies holding too much control over the industry, stifling innovation and limiting access to AI technology. His office is investigating areas such as computing power, data, and hardware, particularly the scarcity of graphics processing units essential for training large language models. The government has already taken steps to address this issue, including providing subsidies for chip manufacturing. Kanter's efforts aim to ensure fair competition and prevent a dystopic future where AI benefits only a select few. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tonyphoang/message

Mike Santoli and Contessa Brewer tackle today's biggest Money Movers including reports Elon Musk ordered Nvidia to ship thousands of AI chips reserved for Tesla to X and xAI. The CNBC reporter who broke the story joins the show and we get a response from Musk. Then the CEO of BXP, formerly Boston Properties, addresses record high office vacancy rates and the outlook for real estate. Finally we hear from FTC Chair Lina Khan and the DOJ's antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter, live from CNBC's CEO Council Summit.

This Day in Legal History: Act of Toleration EnactedOn May 24, 1689, the Parliament of England enacted the Act of Toleration, a pivotal law that granted religious freedom to English Protestants. This legislation marked a significant shift in England's religious landscape, as it allowed non-Anglican Protestants, such as Baptists and Congregationalists, to practice their faith without fear of persecution. However, this tolerance came with limitations: it excluded Roman Catholics and non-Trinitarian Protestants, leaving them outside the protection of the Act.The Act of Toleration emerged in the context of the Glorious Revolution, which saw William of Orange and his wife Mary ascend to the English throne. Their reign, beginning in 1688, was characterized by a move towards greater religious and political stability. The Act was a response to the religious strife that had plagued England for decades, providing a framework for more inclusive, albeit limited, religious coexistence.Despite its exclusions, the Act of Toleration laid the groundwork for future expansions of religious freedom. It required dissenting Protestants to pledge allegiance to the Crown and reject the authority of the Pope, thus maintaining a degree of control over the newly tolerated groups. This compromise allowed for religious diversity while ensuring loyalty to the monarchy.The Act's passage was a milestone in the evolution of religious liberty in England, reflecting the changing attitudes towards religious pluralism. While it did not end all religious discrimination, it represented a step towards a more tolerant society. Over time, the principles enshrined in the Act influenced broader movements for religious freedom and civil rights, both in England and beyond.The significance of the Act of Toleration lies not only in its immediate effects but also in its lasting impact on the development of religious tolerance as a fundamental value in democratic societies.A Democratic operative, Steve Kramer, faces state criminal charges and a federal fine for using AI to fake President Joe Biden's voice in robocalls aimed at discouraging Democratic voters in the New Hampshire primary. Kramer, working for Biden's primary challenger Dean Phillips, was charged with 13 felony counts of voter suppression and 13 misdemeanors for impersonating a candidate. The FCC proposed a $6 million fine for the robocalls, which spoofed a local political consultant's number.New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella emphasized that these actions aim to deter election interference using AI. The incident has heightened concerns about AI's potential misuse in elections. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel proposed a rule requiring political advertisers to disclose AI use in ads, while the FCC also proposed a $2 million fine against Lingo Telecom for transmitting the calls.The AI-generated robocall, circulated just before the primary, used Biden's catchphrase and urged voters to stay home. Despite this, Democratic leaders encouraged a write-in campaign for Biden, leading to high voter turnout in his favor.Faked Biden Robocall Results in Charges for Democratic OperativeThe US Supreme Court has made it more challenging for Black and minority voters to contest the use of race in legislative redistricting, according to civil rights advocates. In a 6-3 ruling, the conservative majority determined that South Carolina voters failed to prove that race, rather than partisanship, influenced Republican legislators when drawing district lines. This decision raises the bar for proving racial gerrymandering and could impact redistricting cases nationwide, not just in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District.Leah Aden of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund expressed concern that it is becoming increasingly difficult for plaintiffs to demonstrate racial discrimination. The ruling, which precedes the upcoming November election, could affect similar challenges in states like North Carolina and Tennessee.Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, emphasized a presumption that legislatures act in good faith, making it harder to prove racial intent without blatant evidence. Critics argue this standard allows legislators to use partisan motives as a defense against claims of racial gerrymandering.The decision follows the Supreme Court's 2019 ruling that federal courts cannot oversee partisan gerrymandering claims, further complicating challenges to discriminatory redistricting. Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissent, criticized the majority for favoring state arguments and making it tougher for challengers to succeed. This case underscores the evolving legal landscape surrounding voting rights and redistricting in the US.Supreme Court Conservatives Add New Minority Voter RoadblocksA Jackson Walker partner alleged that former Texas bankruptcy judge David R. Jones requested the firm to file a potentially false disclosure about his relationship with attorney Elizabeth Freeman. This disclosure came amidst ongoing litigation involving Jones, Freeman, and Jackson Walker, who are accused of concealing their relationship. The scandal follows Jones' resignation after admitting to the romance.In late 2022, Jones wanted the relationship kept secret as Jackson Walker negotiated with Freeman regarding its disclosure. Despite Freeman's earlier claims that the relationship had ended, the firm discovered in February 2022 that it was ongoing. After confronting Freeman, she admitted the relationship had been rekindled.Jackson Walker's recent filings argue they shouldn't be held liable for Jones' misconduct and urge rejection of the US Trustee's efforts to reclaim $13 million in fees. Jones allegedly provided a misleading proposed disclosure that omitted the romantic aspect of his relationship with Freeman and insisted the firm use it in future cases. Jackson Walker refused and proceeded to separate from Freeman.The firm claims it acted reasonably and didn't breach any ethical rules, pointing out that the US Trustee hasn't penalized Jones or Freeman. The Justice Department's bankruptcy monitor seeks to recover fees from cases where Jackson Walker failed to disclose the relationship. The case highlights the complex ethical and legal issues surrounding judicial conduct and professional responsibilities.Jackson Walker Says Judge Tried to Mislead Court on Romance (2)The U.S. Justice Department, along with 30 states, has filed a lawsuit against Live Nation and its Ticketmaster unit, accusing them of monopolizing concert tickets and promotions. The case, filed in Manhattan federal court, aims to break up Live Nation. Leading the legal team is Jonathan Kanter, head of the DOJ's antitrust division, with Bonny Sweeney as the lead attorney. Sweeney, a veteran antitrust litigator, previously co-headed the antitrust group at Hausfeld and has extensive experience in high-profile cases against companies like Google, Apple, and major credit card firms.Live Nation and Ticketmaster are defended by teams from Latham & Watkins and Cravath, Swaine & Moore, which have deep experience in antitrust defense. The companies deny the allegations and plan to fight the lawsuit. Latham & Watkins, which has long defended Live Nation in private consumer lawsuits and was involved in the 2010 merger approval, has Daniel Wall, a seasoned antitrust defender, as their executive vice president for corporate and regulatory affairs. Cravath's team, led by Christine Varney, former head of the DOJ's antitrust division, also represents major clients like Epic Games in similar high-stakes litigation.US legal team in Live Nation lawsuit includes veteran plaintiffs' attorney | ReutersThis week's closing theme is by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. This week's closing theme takes us back to the 18th century, honoring a pivotal figure in the transition from the Baroque to the Classical era: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Born in 1714, C.P.E. Bach was the second surviving son of prolific composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Despite his illustrious lineage, C.P.E. Bach carved out his own distinct legacy, becoming one of the most influential composers of his time in his own right.Today, we commemorate his contributions to classical music as we mark the anniversary of his death on May 24, 1788. Known for his expressive and innovative style, C.P.E. Bach's music bridges the complexity of Baroque counterpoint with the emerging Classical clarity and form. His works had a profound impact on later composers, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.One of his most celebrated pieces is the "Solfeggietto in C minor," H. 220, Wq. 117/2. This energetic and technically demanding keyboard composition remains a favorite among pianists and continues to captivate audiences with its vibrant character and virtuosic passages. The "Solfeggietto" exemplifies C.P.E. Bach's mastery of the empfindsamer Stil, or 'sensitive style,' characterized by its emotional expressiveness and dynamic contrasts.As we listen to the "Solfeggietto," let us reflect on the enduring legacy of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, whose music continues to inspire and delight over two centuries after his passing. Join us in celebrating his remarkable contributions as we close this week with the lively and spirited sounds of his timeless composition.Without further ado, “Solfeggietto in C minor” by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, enjoy.  Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Air Date 5/11/2024 The effort to turn theory into practice that will open up new ways of thinking about antitrust lawsuits attempting to rein in big tech and other mega-corporations, which are operating in a new phase of capitalism. Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Transcript BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Clips and Shows + No Ads!) Join our Discord community! SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: FTC Chair Lina Khan on Antitrust in the age of Amazon - Planet Money - Air Date 11-3-23 On today's show, a conversation with FTC Chair Lina Khan on what it's like to try to turn audacious theory into bureaucratic practice, the FTC's new lawsuit against Amazon, and what it all means for business as usual. Ch. 2: Apple's Antitrust Problem - Professor Talha Syed - The BTLJ Podcast - Air Date 3-10-24 Professor Syed reveals his thoughts and assessment of the new Brandeis movement, headed by Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter of the FTC and DOJ. Ch. 3: FTC Chair Lina Khan on Antitrust in the age of Amazon Part 2 - Planet Money - Air Date 11-3-23 Ch. 4: How to Fight Monopoly Power with FTC Chair Lina Khan - Factually! - Air Date 11-8-23 Lina Khan, appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission by President Biden, has become the foremost voice of this movement and has engaged in high-profile battles to reshape how America deals with monopolies.   SEE FULL SHOW NOTES MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S) Ch. 8: Real Estate Fees Crushed By Anti-Trust w David Dayen - The Majority Report - Air Date 3-26-24 FINAL COMMENTS Ch. 12: Final comments on the new show format tried out in the campus protesters episode as well as a retraction MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions) SHOW IMAGE:  Description: A court document with “Antitrust” at the top sits on a desk with a gavel and block on top. Credit: “Antitrust” by Nick Youngson via Pix4free | License: CC BY-SA 3.0 | Changes: Added solid background   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com

Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's antitrust division, discusses the unveiling of the department's new "healthcare monopolies and collision" task force which aims to counteract the concentration of power within healthcare and why he believes we're at a "turning point in antitrust enforcement." Conversation recorded on Thursday, May 9, 2024.

Welcome to the Mixtape with Scott! We are getting closer to the hundredth episode! This is our 91st interview if I include Adam Smith (played by ChatGPT-4), which I absolutely will be counting. And the guest is someone I have admired for a long time — Martin Gaynor, or “Marty”. Marty is the J. Barone University Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon both in the economics department and their policy school, Heinz College. But he is also special adviser to Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division at the federal Department of Justice, and it is not the first time that Marty has served in government as a public servant. He is also a former Director of the Bureau of Economics at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. You can read some about his new position in the Department of Justice here. Marty works on the supply side of health, you might say, as opposed to the demand side. He studies markets and concentration, hospitals, firm competition, pricing — not just our health behaviors, but also the supply of healthcare through a mixture of market and non-market processes. If you go through his vita, you can see he's racked up a lot of awards and publications over the years. There are many things you can say about Marty, and after this interview, two came to mind — resilient and kind. It was actually almost not the case that he would become as successful as an economist as he became, as he will share in this interview. He struggled initially to get a tenure track job, and even left academia briefly as a result. He is remarkably upbeat and realistic about the good fortune that he has had, though. And as you will see in this interview, it is very clear that he is a genuinely kind and warm hearted person.Marty also is a survivor in a more literal sense. He was nearly murdered in the antisemitic terrorist attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. That is his story to tell in this interview, not mine, but I will leave it at that. All of our stories matter. No matter who is listening or reading this, their personal story matters, and I hope that this interview is interesting and that you enjoy getting to know Marty a bit better. Thank you for all your support!Scott's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Scott's Substack at causalinf.substack.com/subscribe

PREVIEW: #APPLE: #DOJ: Conversation with colleague Professor Richard Epstein of the Hoover Institution re the assertion by Assistant US Attorney General Jonathan Kanter that the anti-trust case against Apple is in the league of the DOJ cases aganst Standard Oil, AT&T and Microsoft.  More later. 1904 Standard Oil of New Jersey

The American Dialect Society's 2023 word of the year? Enshittification. And our guest on this edition of Chicago Public Square Podcasts, Cory Doctorow, is the guy who coined it.Hear him define it—and his harrowing explanation of how he, one of the world's most tech-savvy authors and journalists, got scammed out of $8,000 before he could figure out what was going on. Also: The one “ironclad” rule you should follow to avoid a similar fate.And then, in this—our first conversation since this podcast from 2019—you'll learn, among many other things, why he thinks Amazon embodies enshittification and why so many major publishers refused to consider one of his books.Listen here, or on Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon's Alexa-powered speakers or Apple Podcasts. Or if you prefer to read your podcasts, check out the transcript below.And if you're a completist, here's the original, mostly unedited, behind-the-scenes raw audio and video from the recording of this podcast via Zoom on YouTube.■ Enjoying these podcasts? Help keep them coming by joining The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.■ And consider subscribing—free—to the daily Chicago Public Square email newsletter.Now, here's a roughly edited transcript of the interview, recorded March 7, 2024:[00:00:00] Charlie Meyerson: The American Dialect Society's 2023 Word of the Year? Enshittification. And our guest is the guy who coined it:[00:00:10] Cory Doctorow: What I think is going on is that this bad idea, right?—“Let's make things worse for our customers and our suppliers and better for ourselves”—is omnipresent in every firm.[00:00:21] CM: Cory Doctorow's a science fiction author, activist, and oh, I'd say a very active journalist with an email newsletter he publishes daily. His new book is The Bezzle, a high-tech thriller whose protagonist is … an accountant. More on that to come. I'm Charlie Meyerson with ChicagoPublicSquare.com, which, yes, is also an email newsletter. And this is a Chicago Public Square Podcast. Cory, it's great to see you again. What's new since the last time you and I recorded a podcast—almost exactly five years ago this month, back in 2019?[00:00:55] CD: Well, there was a pandemic, and you know, lucky for me the way that I cope with anxiety and stress is by writing. And so I wrote nine books, which are all coming out in a string, which has left me pretty busy—but in a good way. My friend Joey Dilla says, when life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla. So that's definitely where I'm at now.[00:01:18] CM: You have a daily email newsletter, you have a podcast, and you're on this nationwide book tour now, although you're home now in California. When do you rest, huh?[00:01:27] CD: Well, when I rest, I think about how terrible everything is, and so I try to do as little of that as possible. I mean, my family and I go off and do things from time to time. But, yeah, I have always written as a way of processing the world, and the world needs a lot of processing, so I'm doing a lot of writing.[00:01:48] CM: Did your, uh, restlessness contribute to an unfortunate happening that I think shocked a lot of readers on February 5, 2024, when it was the most-tapped item in Chicago Public Square? And I'm gonna quote you here, “I was robbed $8,000-plus worth of fraud before I figured out what happened, and then he tried to do it again a week later.” What happened?[00:02:11] CD: Yeah, that was while I was taking a rest as it happened. So for Christmas break, my wife and I, and then my daughter and my parents joined us, went to one of my favorite places in the world, New Orleans. So, we landed and needed cash. So I went to an ATM in the French Quarter, was like a, a chase ATM, and the whole transaction ran and then it threw an error and said, we can't give you your money. I was like, Ugh, what a pain. And later on, we were walking through town and we passed a credit union's ATM branch.I bank with a one-branch credit union. And most credit unions don't charge fees to each other. So I was like, oh, we'll just use this one. So I got some money up. A couple of days go by, it's time to leave, my folks have already gone, my wife and daughter are at the hotel, and I've gone out to get my very favorite sandwich just before we go. And my phone rings and it's the caller ID for my bank.And they say, “Mr. Doctorow, this is your bank calling. Uh, did you just try and spend a thousand dollars, uh, at an Apple store in New York?” And I was like, Ugh. One of those ATMs turned out to be dodgy. Either was the one that threw that error. And the reason was that it had, like, a skimmer mounted on it and they captured my card number.Or maybe it was that cheap Chinese ATM that the one-branch credit union I went to was using one or the other. I was definitely skimmed. So, you know, I make my peace with it and I start talking with this guy and you know, when you bank with a little one-branch credit union, they don't have their own after-hours fraud unit. They just contract out. And so these guys, you know, they're a little clumsy. They're a little amateurish. They ask you a bunch of questions your bank should know the answer to because they're not really your bank, they're their fraud center partner.I'm just going through this whole thing and it's going on and on, and I can see the store that sells my sandwich, and I can see the time ticking down.And finally, I said like, “Look, fella, you've already frozen the card, you've gotten most of the recent transaction data. I'm gonna go. When I get to the airport after I clear security, I'll call the bank's after-hours number,” and he got really surety and I was like, you're just gonna have to suck it up.This is how it goes. You know, whatever losses you're experiencing have nothing compared to the losses of me missing my flight with my wife and daughter. So go back and go to the, go to the airport and on the way I look at my phone and I find out that DC-737 Max Boeing Aircraft has just lost its door plug and all the 737 Maxes in the U.S., they've just been grounded. And we get to the airport and it's a zoo. Everyone's trying to rebook. By the time we get to the gate, we've got five minutes. 'Cause there's just the lines, you know. Massive.So I call the bank's after-hours number and they say, “Sorry, sir, you pressed the wrong button. This is lost cards. Fraud's a different number, but it sounds like you told the guy to freeze your cards. So it should be fine. Just come in on Monday and get your new card.”So, uh, Monday morning I print out the list of all the fraudulent transactions, about $8,000 worth, and I go into the bank. And the cool thing about the one-branch credit union is that the person who helped me out was a vice president there and she was pissed about this $8,000 fraud. 'Cause if Visa wouldn't cover it, then we'd have to eat it. You know—not me, but the credit union and, and so she's pissed. I'm pissed. And I say, “Look, you know, some of this has to do with that crummy after-hours fraud center you guys use. 'Cause I told them to freeze my card on Saturday and all this fraud took place on Sunday.”And she said, “Ugh, that's no good. I'm gonna call them up now and find out what's going on.” She comes back five minutes later and says, “They never called you on Saturday. That was the fraudster.”My card hadn't been skimmed at all. So it turns out that guy—I'm like thinking about all the information I gave him: “Well, I gave him my name, but that's in my Wikipedia entry. Gave him my date of birth; that's in my Wikipedia entry. I gave him where I live; that's in my Wikipedia entry. I gave him the last four digits of my credit card, and that's not an—and then I was like, “Wait a second. He didn't ask for the last four digits. He asked for the last seven digits”And I said to the vice president of the bank, “You guys only have a single VISA prefix, right? The first nine digits are the same for every card you issue?”She's like, yep.And I'm like, “OK. So I gave him the last seven digits and that was enough. Then he had the whole card number. And that's how they robbed me.”And he did it again the following Friday just before MLK weekend. And he called at 5:30 just before the bank's closed for a three-day weekend or just after the bank's closed for a three-day weekend, which is like the fraud golden hour.And, you know, I recognized who it was and, and he said, “You know, your car's been compromised. It's so and so.” And I'm like, “No, it hasn't. Card's still in my wallet. Hasn't left my wallet since I picked it up on Monday. Why don't you tell me what the after-hours number on my card is? 'Cause I'm looking at it now. You tell me what number I call back to speak to you.” And he is like, “Mr. Doctorow, this is not a game. I have told you that there is active fraud on your card. If you don't complete the anti-fraud protocol with me right now, then any losses will be yours to bear. The bank will not identify you.”I'm like, “That's adorable.” So I hang up on him and he calls me back and I'm like, oh, this guy is like definitely a fraud, right? Any doubt I had is immediately dispelled. So I just hung up with him and blocked his number. And then I called the risk management person at the bank when they reopened on Tuesday—'cause again, small bank, you get to talk to the person, and it turns out that there's some a leak somewhere in America's credit union supply chain. And somehow fraudsters are calling people knowing what bank they bank at, and knowing their phone number, neither of which is a matter of public record for me.And that was the convincer for me. So even though I go to Defcon, the big hacker conference every year, and I go to those social engineering competitions where people get in a little soundproof booth in front of an audience and try to trick store clerks into giving them sensitive information, usually the store management has given them permission to try this out.And I'm an expert on this stuff and I've written multiple novels about it. I got fooled. I got fooled using Swiss cheese security, which is where you have all these different layers of security. They've all got their little holes in them, like slices of Swiss cheese. Most of the time the holes don't overlap and there's no way to go all the way through the defenses.But I was on vacation on the day the DC-737 Max, you know, had its door plug fall outta the sky. An hour before I was leaving, right after I used not one but two dodgy ATMs in one of the property crime centers of the world. You know, as all of these things all lined up, all the holes of the Swiss cheese lined up, I got fooled.You know, there are lots of lessons here, but one of them is if you think you can't get fooled, that's the guarantee that someday you're gonna get fooled.[00:08:35] CM: Well, you're certainly one of the most tech-savvy humans I'm aware of in this world. Is there any lesson that you gather from this? For the rest of us?[00:08:43] CD: So the ironclad rule should be, and the rule that I normally follow is when your bank calls you, you say “Thank you very much. Do you have an operator number or anything so I can speak to you? 'Cause I'm gonna call back the number on my card.” That is complete proof against the fraud.Now, the banks could do something about this 'cause the reason that I didn't do it that day is 'cause I wanted to get that goddamn sandwich and calling and speaking to someone like a rando in their voicemail tree and trying to tell them, you know, like, give them all my account information, a lot of which I didn't even have 'cause it's just, it's in my laptop back in the hotel—going through all of that with a stranger would've eaten up all the time I had. So I was like, “Oh, I'll just deal with this guy. He knows my number, he knows my name, and he knows where I bank. It's clearly from my bank.”But if they were to call you up and say, “Mr. Doctorow, this is your bank, this is my operator number, or a unique five-digit code, or whatever, write it down. Call the number on your card. And give that number to the interactive voice response system. The bank is gonna pay me to sit here idle for 15 minutes waiting for you so you can find a quiet place to sit down and call, and you will speak directly to me. We won't have to go through a long process where you have to get me up to speed on the thing I'm getting you up to speed on, and we'll just, we'll just make it work.”You know, we haven't found out yet whether or not Visa's gonna honor this claim. But if my bank loses $8,000 this year because of me—and it's a credit union, so I'm a member of it, right? I'm co-owner of this bank, as are all the other customers of it—that's all the money they're gonna make for me this year, including the interest on my mortgage, right?Like they've just zeroed out one of their most valuable customers. Paying the after-hours fraud center or an in-house fraud center to have a little bit more idle time at the margin so that you can have a higher fidelity of anti-fraud is something absolutely worth it. And you know, this is emblematic in some ways of what happens when you squeeze all the slack out of the system—is that you kind of groom people to cut corners because they know the process sucks.So I think that it could be improved, and you know, clearly a lot of the blame here is on me, but not all of it.[00:11:01] CM: You're generous to accept even some of the responsibility.[00:11:04] CD: Well, I should have known to call them back. But I didn't.You know, I spoke with that risk management officer, and I was like, “Let's go through the way your interactive voice response system characterizes each of the options when you call after hours,” because I had missed the anti-fraud. 'Cause it's not called “anti-fraud.” Like “If you suspect fraud on your card, press 2.” It was something else. Right? It was like, “If you have a problem with your account,” and I was like, “That's something else.” I didn't even press it.So we discussed new wording and they're gonna put new wording in. Also, I'm speaking at DEFCON this year again. This year's theme is “Enshittification,” and so they're giving me a keynote slot, and that always comes with a bunch of free speaker's badges. What I usually do when I speak there is I go to the people in line waiting to buy a badge and I just pick five people and give them badges. But I'm saving one for my bank's risk management officer, and she's gonna get in for free and she can go to those social engineering competitions.[00:12:00] CM: Well, I've fallen in love with this word that you coined, enshittification, and I need to note for our listeners that there are two T's in the middle of enshittification.CD: Mm-hmm.CM: How did you decide on two T's?[00:12:13] CD: You know, the first time I used it, I only put in one. CM: Did you? Okay. CD: Two T's is better. CM: You think so?CD: It makes shit an infix and it makes -tification the suffix instead of -ification.CM: OK. CD: So en is the prefix, shit is the infix, -tification is the suffix, and that second T is doing some work there. The American Dialect Society, when they gave the word the honor—and it's not just their word of the year, it's like their digital word of the year, and, I don't know, like their sweary word of the year; it, like, took top honors in a bunch of categories—they are actual cunning linguists, and they went ahead and dissected the word and figured out what all the things meant. I couldn't diagram a sentence if you paid me.[00:13:01] CM: I knew you'd have a reason for the double-T, and thank you for fulfilling my expectations. Yeah. But let's back up for people. I imagine there are a few who do not yet know about enshittification.CD: Sure.CM: What is it? [00:13:15] CD: It's a term I coined to describe a specific pathology of late-stage internet platforms. Platforms are the unlikely endemic form of the internet. You know, for a medium that was supposed to disintermediate everything, the fact that the biggest form of business on the internet is intermediaries is pretty wild. And—if you wanna think of it as, like, a pathology—it describes the natural history, like what happens when a platform unifies and it has a very specific kind of decaying model where first it allocates value to end-users; those end-users flock in and get locked in somehow, so that when the company then starts to take away some of that value to give it to business customers, the users don't leave, can't leave. Then those business customers come in because of the attractive proposition that's being made to them. And then they get locked in because they're there for the end users who are also locked in. And then once everyone's locked in, all the value is drawn out and given to the firm, the platform. And then the whole thing turns into a pile of shit, hence enshittification.Um, but it also describes like the underlying mechanism, like what's going on inside the firm? Why are digital firms so able to enshittify? And it's because digital is very flexible. I had someone email me this morning and say, well, Panera Bread is steaming towards, its IPO and there's this investigative report that says that they've cut back on their ingredients, their ingredients aren't very good anymore.That's enshittification too, and it's not quite. Because enshittification involves this process I call twiddling. It's when the platform can change the business rules from moment to moment. So a really good example is an Uber driver who's the business customer in that two-sided market riders and drivers.So Uber practices this thing called algorithmic wage discrimination, which is a violation of labor law that they say doesn't violate labor law. 'Cause they do it with an app. And what they do is if you are a driver who's selective about which rides you take, if you only take the highest dollar value rides, then each ride that's offered to you comes at a higher dollar value than it would if you were less selective.The less selective you become, the lower the return per mile and minute becomes in small increments that are very hard to notice, and if you become more selective, they toggle back up again. And so the rate is going up and down and up and down in response to your perceived selectivity in a fully automated way.And this is a kind of game of exhaustion because at a certain point, you take your eye off the ball and you start taking rides that are worse and then the rides get worse and worse and worse. Meanwhile, you're jettisoning those things that you used to do as side hustles that let you be more selective.That's what it means when you're taking worse rides as you're taking more rides. And at a certain point, you're just like fully locked in. You have a car lease to meet because you've bought a car just to drive for Uber. You've got some other overheads that you're trying to meet, and your wages sunk to the very bottom that algorithmic wage discrimination is a term vena dubo coined is a thing that Panera Bread would love to do.It's a thing that like. You know, the black-hearted coal bosses of Tennessee Ernie Ford songs would love to do. But you know, like doing that manually with an army of guys in green eyeshades is not practical. And digital firms can alter the business logic from second to second in ways that offline firms or firms that have some physical component struggle to do.And so that's the underlying mechanism. And then the next question is, why is it happening to everyone all at once? Why are all these platforms enshittifying now? That's kind of the epidemiological question, right? Where's the contagion coming from? Because when a lot of firms start doing something all at once.In the same way, it's unlikely to be related to something endogenous to the firm. It's not just that like a bunch of people had the same bad idea at the same time in all these companies, right? What I think is going on is that this bad idea, right? “Let's make things worse for our customers and our suppliers and better for ourselves” is omnipresent—in every firm, right? Every firm is trying to find the equilibrium between apportioning value to say employees or suppliers and to customers and to themselves. And there are some constraints, right? One is competition. If you know, if you offer a substandard product and there's somewhere else your customers can go, they'll go there.If you pay substandard wages and there's somewhere else your employees can go, they'll go there. You know, all of this stuff about “Nobody wants to work” is hilarious because I guarantee you they'll work if you offer double the wage, right? “Nobody wants to work at the wage you're offering” is like, “Nobody wants to sell me a plane ticket at what I think it's worth.”That sounds like a me problem, not like an American Airlines problem. Right. So, you know, the competition acts as this check on firms, but competition has been in free fall for 40 years. And I think that across the threshold, right? We allow companies to buy their major rivals. We allow them to engage in predatory pricing, to exclude new market entrants.We allow them to buy nascent competitors before they can grow to be threats and then extinguish them. We allow them to do all the above, right? You have Amazon, which tried to buy Diapers.com—Diapers.com, which, you know, as is implied by the name, was an e-commerce platform that sold diapers. They were doing a really good business and they didn't wanna sell to Amazon.So Amazon first tried to do an anti-competitive acquisition, right? To take a firm that was its rival in a certain vertical and, and buy it. So the firm wouldn't do that. So then they did predatory pricing. And buying the nascent rival and predatory pricing would've been illegal until the Carter administration. Carter removed some Jenga blocks from the antitrust tower. Reagan started pulling them out by the fistful, and every administration since has lowered the amount of antitrust enforcement we do—to the point where now companies can just get away with murder. And so Amazon said, all right, we're gonna start selling diapers below cost. They sold diapers below cost to the tune of a hundred million dollars in losses—which, put Diapers.com outta business. Right? So that's predatory pricing. Then they acquired Diapers.com at pennies in the dollar. So that's the anti-competitive acquisition, and then they shut them down. That's, a catch and kill, right? All of this was, is illegal under the black letter of competition law.None of it was enforced against. Amazon also derived a secondary benefit from this. And that secondary benefit was informing every other source of capital that if you invest in a company that competes with Amazon, the best you can hope for is an acquisition. But what's probably gonna happen is you're just gonna get driven outta business.It's what venture capitalists called the kill Zone, and it's why people don't compete with Amazon. And so we lost the constraint of competition and we lost the constraint of regulation. Because when a sector dwindles to a handful of firms, they find it very easy to agree on a single lobbying position, and they can make their will felt in Congress, in the expert agencies and in court, and they can get away with whatever they want.[00:20:25] CM: What is your cure for enshittification?[00:20:27] CD: So if you take each of these constraints, right—the first one being competition—restoring that constraint will reduce the power of firms to enshittify, right? If they have to worry about you quitting or leaving as a customer, then they have to treat you better. And if they don't get the message, then you can go somewhere that treats you better.So we are in a historic moment for antitrust enforcement. As we record this today, the European Union has just started enforcing the Digital Markets Act. Here in the United States, we have generationally significant leaders at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division—with Jonathan Kanter at the Federal Trade Commission with Chair Lina Khan, and at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau with Rohit Chopra.No coincidence that there is a bipartisan effort to slash all of their budgets working their way through the mini budget right now. Right? But reinvigorating antitrust is a way to restore the disciplinary power of competition. It also restores the power of regulators because it's not just antitrust that regulators do—it's everything.And if you want a company not to rip you off, say the way Amazon does. So if you go to Amazon, you click the first link on an Amazon search, on average, you pay a 29% premium relative to the best item. 'Cause Amazon makes $38 billion a year selling payola the right to make the top search result.If you walked into a Corner store or Target and said, “Sell me your cheapest batteries,” and they sold you batteries that were 30% more expensive than their cheapest batteries, That would be fraud. Amazon's regulatory capture allows it to say, “It's not fraud when we do it with an app,” just like Uber says, “It's not a labor violation when we do it with an app” or Google says “It's not a privacy violation when we do it with an app.” Make those companies more fragmented and you starve them of the capital they need to suborn their regulators, and you also introduce a collective action problem where they just become too many companies to agree on what it is they're gonna tell their regulators.CM: Are you available for federal office?CD: Uh, no. I wrote nine books during lockdown and I just agreed to write a 10th one about unification. I'm busy till 2027.[00:22:35] CM: Cory and I have something else in common—decades apart from one another. We've both been contributors to the Venerable Journal of Science Fiction Locusts, although my main contribution consisted of a series of cartoons I drew as a teenager. What do you make of the state of science fiction these days? Text, TV, motion pictures.[00:22:53] CD: Well, it's certainly at an interesting moment. I mean, there's one way in which the most salient fact is that it's dominated by five companies—five major publishers that sell to one national brick-and-mortar chain owned by a private equity fund, Barnes and Noble; and one rapacious monopolist e-commerce platform, Amazon.Ninety percent of the audiobooks are controlled by Amazon subsidiary Audible. There's a single national distributor, which is Ingram. All the other distributors are owned by the Big Five publishers. So I published a book in 2020 with my colleague Rebecca Giblin about how monopolists rip off creative workers.None of the Big Five publishers wanted to publish it 'cause it was really critical of them. So we published with a wonderful independent press called Beacon that's 150 years old, owned by the Unitarian Universalists. Albert Einstein once very famously said, “If there is hope in this world, it the Unitarian-Universalists and Beacon Press” (Editor's note: Not quite, but not far off in spirit.) Beacon is distributed by Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the world who got a dollar every time we sold a book explaining why they were an evil monopolist.Right? So. That's one way in which science fiction is just on the ropes, right? You have four major studios, thankfully, uh, thanks to our friends in the federal government, Paramount did not just sell to Disney, but they're looking for another suitor. And so, you know, in every way we are struggling.You have HBO Warner, which is cutting shows they have—and not because no one wants to see them, but because David Zaslav—the villain from central casting who runs that business—has figured out that he can get more in a tax credit for writing off a show than he can for releasing it—taking stuff that people, like, miss their parents' funeral to work on and just flushing it down the toilet. So in those ways it's very bad. In terms of the work being produced, it's never been better. I mean, we're in an amazing moment for the field. People are writing incredible things—notwithstanding the massive scandal at the Hugo Awards last year, which is a whole different story about the difficulties of hosting the Hugos in China and the mistakes that the non-Chinese Hugo administrators made.[00:25:07] CM: I missed that. Give us the short version of that.[00:25:09] CD: Oh my gosh. So after the Hugo Awards are awarded as you leave, they're handing out sheets of photocopied paper with all the vote tallies and nomination tallies—that didn't happen at the WorldCon China, which was the first ever held in China, which has more science fiction fans than all the rest of the world combined, and, you know, more than deserves a world con. Instead, the committee that oversaw the Hugos waited until the very last minute permitted by the bylaws to release the numbers, whereupon everyone realized that something was up. And it turns out that they had unilaterally disqualified innumerable works both Chinese and also a number of works by American and European Chinese writers of Chinese descent. And they had done this—it transpired after lots of memos leaked and so on 'cause they stonewalled when people asked about this—they'd done this not because anyone in China had asked them to, but because they thought that the Chinese government would get upset if they didn't.And they went so far as to assemble dossiers on people nominated for awards and disqualify them if they thought they had been to Tibet. It turns out the person that they disqualified for having traveled to Tibet, had traveled to Nepal, which is not Tibet …CM: Easy mistake to make.CD: These were Americans and Canadians, not Chinese fans. And they disgrace themselves. They disgrace the award. The people who won the award now have an asterisk next to their name. When they were fighting for their reputations and stonewalling, they were gratuitously insulting to these writers, most of them of Chinese descent. You know, Chinese Americans primarily when they question this and they are fans of very longstanding people who have volunteered to run this award for decades.And this is the way they're going to end their careers in fandom. It's quite sad.[00:27:05] CM: One of the things Cory told me, back when we talked in a previous podcast in 2019, was that one way to spot terrible technology in our future would be to take a look at what the powers that be are foisting on prisoners. And now five years later, his new book The Bezzle offers a look at just that. But why did you set it to open in 2006?[00:27:28] CD: Well, for that you need to understand these nine books I wrote during lockdown. So one of them was a book called Red Team Blues, and the conceit behind Red Team Blues is, it's like a detective thriller about a hard-charging, two-fisted but lovable forensic accountant—67 years old, spent 40 years in Silicon Valley undoing every bit of mischief that a tech bro ever thought to do, finding all the money that people use spreadsheets to hide. And the conceit was, it's like the last volume of a beloved detective series you have read for 25 years and grown up with.Except I'm not gonna bother writing the other books; it's just the last one. And it was pretty successful. I sent it to my editor who I love dearly. I met him on a bulletin board system when I was 17 years old. He's edited all my novels, and he will not think that I am being overly critical of him when I tell you that he's not the world's most reliable email correspondent.And so when I sent him the manuscript after finishing the first draft, I finished it in six weeks from the first word to the last. In that first draft, I sent it to him and I expected months to go by. And instead the next morning there was an email waiting for me that was just, that was a fucking ride.Whoa. And he bought three of them. And there's a problem because this is the last adventure of Martin Hench forensic accountant. There is some precedent for bringing a detective out of retirement. Very famously, Conan Doyle brings Sherlock Holmes back over Rickenbacker Falls because Queen Victoria offered him a knighthood.My editor is a very powerful man in New York publishing. He is a vice president in the McMillan company, but he cannot knight me, so I was not gonna bring poor old Marty out of retirement. And so I had to come up with something else. And it occurred to me that I could write these books out of order. I could write them in any sequence.He's like the Zelig of high-tech finance fraud. He's been at every place where someone ripped someone else off with a computer. If I wrote them out of order, I wouldn't have any continuity problems 'cause when the series goes backwards, you're not foreshadowing—you're backshadowing. And the more detail you throw in, the more of like a, you know, absolutely premeditated motherfucker you appear to be—even if you're just winging it.So this is the second book. The first one is set in the 2020s. It's a cryptocurrency heist novel. This one is about the era where Yahoo is buying and destroying every successful Web 2.0 company. It's a time I know very well. I was there. I founded a startup that, you know, Microsoft tried to buy—that our investors then stole from the founders and then the deal fell through and the chaos that ensued.And so I've lived through it. And so it was a moment I really wanted to write about in particular because. It's the moment that represents the time between the dot-com bubble bursting and the subprime bubble bursting, and it's this period that you can think of as the bezzle. The bezzle, B-E-Z-Z-L-E, not B-E-Z-E-L.Not the rectangle around your phone screen, but this term that was coined by John Kenneth Galbraith to describe what he calls the magic interval. After the con artist has your money, but before you know it's a con. And in that moment, Galbraith says everybody feels richer, everybody is happier. The national stock of happiness goes up for so long as the bezzle is going.The longer the bezzle goes, the more unhappiness debt you accumulate because the more money gets pumped into the fraud. Right? And so the irony of the bezzle is that the people who are in it don't want you to rupture it, even if that will save them from losing everything, because it's when the unhappiness starts. It's like continuing to drink so that you don't get hungover.The more you do that, the worse the hangover becomes, and that moment, those charmed and difficult years from 2002 to 2006, are really an ideal time to tell a story that I think of as Panama Papers fanfic.[00:31:49] CM: The Bezzle has a few Chicago connections. One is a name well known to people in Chicago: Wrigley. Give our listeners a taste of how that comes into play.[00:31:59] CD: Yeah, so that same editor of mine, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who I love dearly but is not the world's most reliable email correspondent—when he edited my first novel, now almost 25 years ago, he gave me this piece of advice with his editorial note that I've never forgotten: He said a science fiction novel has the world and the character, and they're like a big gear and a little gear. And the point is to turn the world all the way around so the reader can see what's going on in the world.And the way you do that is by having the little gear, the character, turn around as many times as it takes to spin the world one complete revolution. And the teeth have to match for that to happen. The world has to be a macrocosm of the character. And the character has to be a microcosm of the world. And when the books don't work, check your micro-macro correspondences, see if they're, if the one is the miniature of the other.So one of the things that I do in these novels about scams is I try to start with a small scam that's a kind of microcosm of the big scams. So the big scam in this book is about prison tech, but the small scam in this book is a Ponzi scheme and it's set on Catalina Island, and Catalina is a place I've fallen in love with since I moved to Southern California.And it's for people who don't know, it's this kind of storybook island across the channel from Long Beach. It's the deepest channel in the world. And this island was owned by the Wrigley family. It's where the Cubs used to have their spring training.It's where Marilyn Monroe was a child bride. It's where the CIA was founded. It was home of the largest ballroom in America and every week the most popular dance music program in the world used to broadcast live from high atop Avalon on beautiful Catalina Island. It's home to—originally—13 male bison that got loose after shooting a Zane Gray movie. But then old man Wrigley decided it would be un-Christian to have 13 bachelors. So he imported 13 cows for them—not understanding that, uh, bison form harems. And they have ever since struggled with an out-of-control bison population.It's a remarkable place and one of its peccadillos leftover from Old Man Wrigley is that when he gave the island to a land trust, he decreed that there would never be a fast-food chain on the island, which, you know, whatever. In terms of folly pursued by billionaires, it barely registers. I'm not a big fast-food eater myself, but for the people on the island, fast food has become a kind of forbidden fruit.And if you go to the little K to 12 school and you go for an away game with your football team, everyone expects you to bring back a sack of sliders because everyone wants to try, you know, the fast food they can't get on the island. And so I made up a little Ponzi scheme involving hamburgers brought over from the mainland and flash-frozen … to be traded as futures in the same way that housing and luxury tower blocks—only incidentally, a place where someone might live—is primarily a source of leverage and a safe deposit box in the sky, which, you know, in the runup to the 2008 crisis was, you know, often bought and sold several times before it was built, had multiple, uh, collateralized debt obligations and synthetic collateralized debt obligations hanging off of it and could be inflated into paper worth 10 or 20 times its value, which is exactly what happens to these deep-frozen hamburgers on the island.Thanks to a wicked real estate baron, who it turns out is doing the same thing with real estate as he is with hamburgers and who becomes so enamored of his own cleverness that he begins to relish the moment when the whole thing bursts and the island's economy tanks. And that's where Marty Hench and his friend come in and they decide to do a controlled demolition of this Ponzi before it can take down the island.[00:36:16] CM: You know, as I read The Bezzle, I thought. Boy, there's a lot of food in this book. How important is food and cooking in your life? Or was that just you writing about people for whom it is a big deal?[00:36:28] CD: I mean, I love to cook, but Marty Hench is a better cook than I am. I love books that have delicious food in them. And I love books that have delicious food that's well appreciated. You know, the Hemingway hamburger of, you know beef, salt, pepper, turn it once, don't touch it again, is actually pretty goddamn good advice for making a hamburger. I put a little butter in the pan depending on the fat content in your ground beef, but it's not bad.I find these books to be a really fun way to kind of do the adult version of what I did in the Little Brother books. So in the Little Brother books, it's kind of like that cool uncle or your friend's older brother puts an arm around your shoulder and says, “Lemme tell you how the world really works, kid.”And just opens your eyes. And these books are more like, let me tell you how the worst things in the world are done. And counter sinking that with the great pleasures of life, I think makes these books more balanced.[00:37:41] CM: Your books were some of the first that I read on mobile devices—a Blackberry in my case—and I know you've continued to champion that technology. Digital rights management—DRM, the fences around the use of people's electronic content—has been a longstanding concern of Cory's. How're we doing?[00:38:01] CD: Well, again, back to that, you know, generational moment for tech and antitrust. There is, for the first time in the whole time that I've been working on this, some real energy to do something about it—some sense that it is iniquitous.So, to give you a sense of how screwed up this whole system is: In 1998, Bill Clinton signed this law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Section 1201 of that makes it a felony to traffic in, quote, a circumvention device for effective means of access controls to copyrighted work.So if there's a thing that stops you from accessing a copyrighted work and someone makes a tool that allows you to access it. That tool is illegal and the person who who gives it to you as a felon can go to prison for five years and pay a $500,000 fine for a first offense. So what that means, very practically speaking, is if I want my audiobook sold on Audible, which requires digital rights management—a lock on every book that ensures that it can only be played on a device that Amazon has approved of—then I can't leave Amazon and take you with me. If I decide that Amazon is abusing me, and they really do abuse their suppliers, especially in the audiobook world.There was a ghastly scandal last year called Audiblegate, which involved at least $100 million in wage theft from independent audiobook authors that Amazon did with a scummy accounting trick. So if I go, look, I'm gonna leave and I'm gonna take my readers with me, and I'm gonna give them a tool so they can unlock their books, take them to whatever app the next store I decide to sell on uses, I commit a felony. Not only do I commit that felony, but the felony carries a harsher penalty than you would pay if you were to go to a pirate website and download the book. But it's also like a higher penalty than you would pay if you were to go into a truck stop and shoplift the CD of the book, and it's probably a higher penalty than you would pay if you stuck up the truck that delivered the CDs and stole the truck.Right. So for me to allow you to access the book that I wrote maybe that I financed the audiobook for, that I read the audiobook for is a crime that exceeds the penalties then that you would pay for even really serious property crimes involving other people's property. And this just gives Amazon enormous leverage.People are getting sick of this in Oregon. They've just passed a right-to-repair bill. That prohibits companies from using this technology to lock parts to their devices. So if you take a screen outta one iPhone and put it in another iPhone, right? If you're an independent repair shop, and Apple won't sell you parts, but you're buying broken phones and harvesting dead parts out of them, you have to do something called parts pairing, where you enter an unlock key, and the same law—this law that prevents you from unlocking your audiobooks—also prevents someone from giving you a tool to do the parts pairing. And so the screen won't work on the phone. Oregon's just banned using that technology, so they can't overturn this law. It's a federal law, but they can ban you from using technology that implicates it.Um, I think that. You know, we are in a moment where enough is enough. People are getting really pissed off about it. They're no longer getting duped by the story that this stuff is anti-piracy technology that stops people from stealing from you. And they're realizing that the thing that you have to worry about is not that your readers might.Read or listen to your book the wrong way, but rather that the companies that distribute your books might rip you and your readers off that you are class allies in the fight against monopolies.[00:41:55] CM: Back to your daily newsletter, in which you deal with issues like this every day. It reads typographically like an email newsletter circa the turn of the century. You run full web addresses …CD: Mm-hmm.CM: … URLs. You don't hyperlink words or phrases. Why is that?[00:42:15] CD: So I want it to be future-proof. So I want you to take something out of your inbox from 20 years ago that I wrote and copy and paste it into some other format that doesn't exist yet. I. And for you to be able to know what all those links were.So there's no tracking redirect, you know, like the t.co redirect that Twitter uses or I think it's HREF that Tumblr uses, and so on. They all have their own little redirects. I want the link to be live. I want you to be able to see the semantics of the link before you copy it or before you click on it.I want you to be able to see whose link you're going to without having to sort of glance around somewhere on the screen for a link preview. And I want you to be able to copy and paste it between programs—even programs that don't carry over the style information or the link information—and have it all carry over.And so that's why putting it all in that plain text format is, is so important to me. I do every now and again, shorten a URL if it's very, very long. So sometimes I'll, I'll link a gift link from the New York Times, from my subscription to the New York Times in the thing. And those NYT gift links are obnoxiously long, like hundreds of characters.So I have my own URL shortener, and so I'll sometimes do a little URL shortener in there, but for the most part, I don't shorten URLs.CM: Closing thoughts, Cory?CD: We're emerging from a 40-year neoliberal period incubated at the University of Chicago—thank you very much— …CM: Yeah, sorry about that.CD: … Where we only talked about economics and never about power. I got an email from someone yesterday saying that it's not price gouging. If profits go up when gas price inputs go up at the pump, right? If the cost of oil goes up, then the cost of gas goes up because the investors, I.Want the same margin. So if gas is a dollar a gallon coming into the gas station and they're getting a 50% margin, then it'll be a dollar 50. If it's $2 a gallon, then they'll get $3 and so on. And that's not price gouging, that's just maintaining a constant a constant margin. The thing is no

Berkeley Law Professor, Talha Syed, discusses the impending antitrust lawsuit against Apple. Professor Syed, an expert in political economy, antitrust, and intellectual property, takes us on a journey through the history of antitrust and how we got to the current moment, one where the government is reevaluating antitrust law and its specific application to big tech. Professor Syed reveals his thoughts and assessment of the new Brandeis movement, headed by Lena Khan and Jonathan Kanter of the FTC and DOJ. He also shares his perception of the merits of an antitrust challenge to Apple and what the case could mean for the future of big tech. We hope you enjoyed the podcast.

Today, I'm talking with Jonathan Kanter, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. Alongside FTC chair Lina Khan, Jonathan is one of the most prominent figures in the big shift happening in competition and antitrust in the United States. This is a fun episode: we taped this conversation live on stage at the Digital Content Next conference in Charleston, South Carolina a few days ago, so you'll hear the audience, which was a group of fancy media company executives.  You'll also hear me joke about Google a few times; fancy media execs are very interested in the cases the DOJ has brought against Google for monopolizing search and advertising tech — and Jonathan was very good at not commenting about pending litigation. But he did have a lot to say about the state of tech regulation, he and Khan's track record so far, and why he thinks the concepts they're pushing forward are more accessible than they've ever been. Links:  The top Biden lawyer with his sights on Apple and Google — Politico Judge blocks a merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster — NYT FTC's Khan and DOJ's Kanter beat back deals at fastest clip in decades — Bloomberg Google will face another antitrust trial September 9th, this time over ad tech — The Verge In the Google antitrust trial, defaults are everything and nobody likes Bing — The Verge Google Search, Chrome, and Android are all changing thanks to EU antitrust law — The Verge Aggregation Theory — Stratechery Adobe explains why it abandoned the Figma deal — The Verge How the EU's DMA is changing Big Tech — The Verge Epic Games CEO calls out Apple's DMA rules as ‘malicious compliance' — TechCrunch Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23831914 Credits:  Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today's episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to the 35th episode of "This Week's Economy," where I briefly recap and share my insights on key economic and policy news. Please share this on social media and provide a rating and review. Also, subscribe and see show notes for this episode on Substack (www.vanceginn.substack.com) and visit my website for economic insights (www.vanceginn.com). Today, I cover: 1) National: New CPI report shows that inflation has moderated but the Fed must do more to cut its balance sheet, why American concern about China may be overblown, the DOJ's Jonathan Kanter pushes radical antitrust, and new findings about the costly Green Energy Agenda; 2) States: Texas continues its fourth special session of the year with School Choice for all in limbo, and a new report from the Tax Foundation reveals which states are thriving and others that have plummeted in business tax climate rankings; and 3) Other: A recap of my recent episode with President of the National Taxpayers Union Pete Sepp, sneak peek of an upcoming episode with President of the Libertarian Christian Insititute Dr. Norman Horn, and reflections from my 42nd birthday last week about letting people prosper.

President Biden signaled an aggressive new agenda to curb the power of companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta when he appointed Lina Khan, Jonathan Kanter, and Tim Wu – a trio of the toughest antitrust regulators to hold them accountable. Instead, two years in, big tech is bigger and more powerful than ever. This week on Tech Check, we dive into the toothless regulators and their upcoming showdowns that could be make-or-break for them, and for the dominance of big tech.  

Kara and Nayeema are back with a fresh episode, and this time they're tackling the DOJ's antitrust efforts. Our guests are Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ's Antitrust Division, and Principal Deputy AAG Doha Mekki. Alongside the FTC, this duo has helped craft new draft merger guidelines that put Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and every other big company, from supermarket chains to airlines, on notice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A key plank of the Biden administration's "Bidenomics" involves stronger antitrust enforcement and we've seen the White House empower agencies like the Department of Justice to step up actions on monopolies and other behaviors that reduce competition. But what exactly counts as anti-competitive nowadays? And how does promoting competition sit alongside the administration's more proactive public investment and industrial policies? In this episode, we speak with Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division at the DOJ, about how he's thinking about these issues. We also talk competition in banking after a wave of consolidation in the space, as well as new challenges posed by Big Tech and artificial intelligence.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a live Zoom event in conjunction with the American Museum of Tort Law, Ralph welcomes safety expert, Russell Kendzior, who runs the National Floor Safety Institute to discuss where, why, and how slip-and-falls happen, how to prevent them, the legitimacy of slip-and-fall lawsuits, and the role of the Consumer Product Safety Commission for a phenomenon that for older adults every year causes over 36,000 deaths and $50 billion in medical costs.Russell Kendzior is the President of Traction Experts, Inc. and founder of the National Floor Safety Institute. Mr. Kendzior is internationally recognized as the leading expert in slip and fall accident prevention and has been retained in more than 1,000 slip, trip, and fall lawsuits. He hosts the podcast The Safety Matters Show, and he is the author of several books, including Falls Aren't Funny: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Slip-And-Fall Crisis.This concept of simply testing to an internationally-recognized consensus standard and labeling the product is really what we're asking the government to do. We're not demanding any level of performance, but simply tell the consumer.Russell KendziorYou can participate in the public review process— the process whereby commissioners are asking members of the public for comments… It's important that the people of our country have a voice, and that they be represented, and that the safety of these products that are contributing to six million hospital emergency room visits a year need to be better managed.Russell KendziorWe should emphasize that all these situations [involving slips, trips, and falls] in the court of law are under tort law… It's good to talk about them as torts, because people often don't recognize how important tort law is to protect them, to help compensate them, to disclose to the larger audience the hazards for their own protection, and to engage in prevention.Ralph NaderIn Case You Haven't Heard with Francesco DeSantis1. In a major blow to Governor Greg Abbott, the Texas House of Representatives voted 86-52 in favor of an amendment to bar state funds from being used for private school vouchers, according to KXAN. This was achieved through a coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans in the Lone Star State, per NBC.2. The Washington Post reports that greater numbers of assisted-living facilities are rejecting Medicaid and evicting seniors from their homes. One particularly harrowing story involves Shirley Holtz, a 91 year old with mobility issues and dementia who was evicted from her hospice care because the facility decided to refuse Medicaid payments.3. In a statement responding to the ProPublica report on undisclosed gifts received by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin stressed that “Supreme Court Justices must be held to an enforceable code of conduct, just like every other federal judge. The ProPublica report is a call to action, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.” However, the Judiciary Committee has been hamstrung by Democratic absences, particularly that of California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who has missed nearly 60 votes since February, according to The San Francisco Chronice.4. Barak Ravid reports that the U.S. has blocked the release of a planned United Nations Security Council statement decrying the Israeli police raid at the al-Aqsa mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam, during Ramadan.5. More Perfect Union has issued a statement saying “Months after 440 Planned Parenthood nurses and staff in five Midwest states voted to unionize, management has fired 2 members of the union's bargaining team and issued ‘final written warnings' to all 11 other bargaining team members threatening immediate termination.”6. From Truthout, Rep. Pramila Jayapal has filed an official constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. A constitutional amendment is currently the only means available for reversing this catastrophic decision.7. In a video obtained by Gothamist, NYPD officers arresting a man wearing a Black Lives Matter sticker on his bike helmet were recorded bragging about “milking” overtime, referred to a female arrestee a "liberal [c word]," and joked about committing the arrestee to a mental hospital. This comes as Mayor Eric Adams announced that NYPD officers who work for five years will now make approximately $50K more per year than teachers with the same amount of time, an overall increase of $5.5 billion to the most expensive police department in the country, according to CBS.8. Robert Costa of CBS reports that former Rep. Dennis Kucinich is advising Robert F Kennedy Jr. on his presidential run. Costa went on to say that Kucinich could be the campaign manager or a top political adviser, and that Kucinich has urged Kennedy to focus more on the environment than his signature anti-vaccine message.9. Kansas Public Media KCUR reports that Republicans in that state overrode the Democratic Governor's veto and authorized genital inspections on minors in order for children to play sports. Somehow, the party advocating for adults to inspect children's genitals is calling the other party “groomers” with a straight face.10. From Deadline: Progressive lawmakers are calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the Warner Brothers merger with Discovery. In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter, the signatories allege that the merger “appears to have enabled” the company to “adopt potentially anticompetitive practices that reduce consumer choice and harm workers in affected labor markets.” They went on to argue that the merger has led to the “hollowing out” of an “iconic American studio,” and cited the cancellation of projects and the removal of content from the HBO Max platform.11. Dueling court orders have resulted in uncertainty about universal access to the abortion pill Mifepristone. Regarding the order to suspend the drug, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden issued a statement declaring “I believe the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to ignore this ruling.” The Senate Finance Committee oversees the FDA.12. The Austin American-Statesman reports that, less than 24 hours after Daniel Perry was convicted of murdering Garrett Foster, a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020, Governor Greg Abbott announced that he would pardon the convicted killer as soon as a request "hits my desk." While the killer claimed that he was acting in self defense, he had mused on social media that he might “kill a few people on my way to work.”13. From Bloomberg Law: The International Brotherhood of Teamsters reported gaining 206,000 members in 2022, an increase of 20% from the previous year. Many credit this growth to the new leadership in the union, which took power in 2022. Teamsters President Sean O'Brien responded to this news by tweeting “Just getting started.” Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Jonathan Kanter, who heads up the Justice Department's antitrust division, believes that antitrust laws are critical for innovation — from ad tech to A.I. The assistant attorney general is bringing a new philosophy to enforcing those laws. So, how is his new approach to protecting competition playing out?Plus: Can you guess whether that was a bot, or not?On today's episode:Jonathan Kanter is the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's antitrust division.Additional reading:Jonathan Kanter has long been a critic of big tech.The Justice Department has accused Google of abusing a monopoly over online advertising.

The Fed eases up on the brakes, Elon Musk looks for new ways to monetize Twitter, and Snap has another rough quarter. Also: Meta may have prevailed in a fight with the FTC. Today's Friend of Pivot is Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division at the DOJ. He stops by to discuss Google, antitrust, and his agency's fight against monopolies. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host David Dayen, executive editor at the American Prospect to round up the week in news. Then, they're joined by David Feldman of The David Feldman Show! First, Emma and Sam run through updates on the charging of five Memphis cops over the brutal murder of Tyre Nichols, the right bickering over the next RNC Chair, Adam Schiff entering the race for Feinstein's seat, and DeSantis bumping 1 million Floridians off of Medicaid, before watching Tyre Nichols' mother, RowVaugn Wells, reflect on the legacy of her son. Then, David Dayen joins as he dives right into the arrival of Jeffrey Zients as Biden's new Chief of Staff, parsing through his record as an “efficiency expert” and cost cutter, and his background in consulting as worrying features for the President's primary day-to-day filter, before reflecting on Democratic establishment media's defense of Zients as a “nice guy” whose past work you should somewhat ignore. Next, David walks Sam and Emma through Chuck Schumer cutting two massive bills that would have been a step towards breaking up Big Tech, including the American Innovation and Choice online Act – essentially preventing self-preferencing – and the Open Apps Market Act – which would take on the stipend that app monopolies (Google, Apple) take from in-app purchases – as well as exploring why Schumer has acted with such fealty to the Tech regime. Wrapping up, Dayen assesses Biden's massive 2021 executive order made up of 72 actions pushing government agencies to take on an understanding of economic competition beyond the impact on prices and consumers, discussing which agencies have actually seen the biggest shift in attitude, and the importance of these types of executive action in bolstering the programs of his anti-trust candidates like Lina Khan at the FTC and Jonathan Kanter at the DOJ, before briefly touching on Pete Buttigieg's floundering at the DOT and whether that will change. David Feldman also joins as he reflects on Sam's anti-cooperative work ethic, calls out the gated community that is the Majority Report, and check's in with Sam's child, Matt Lech. And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma discuss the politics behind the Memphis Police's quick charging of their fellow cops for the murder of Tyre Nichols, Ron DeSantis asks why the hell the RNC is in DC, the nation's capital, and Matt Gaetz and Geraldo Rivera bring a tepid fight to Hannity over the debt ceiling debate. They also discuss Project Veritas' honey potting of a no-nothing Pfizer worker, Adam from Virginia talks to this show (of all shows) about day trading, and Garret from Michigan recommends the work of Nick Turse and discusses giving history teachers the freedom to discuss America's violent past, plus, your calls and IMs! Check out David's work at the Prospect here: https://prospect.org/topics/david-dayen/ Check out The David Feldman Show here: https://www.youtube.com/c/DavidFeldman/featured Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com: https://fans.fm/majority/join Subscribe to the ESVN YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/esvnshow Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! http://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: http://majority.fm/app Check out today's sponsors: Sunset Lake CBD: Sunset Lake CBD is a majority employee-owned business that pays a minimum wage of $20/hour. Visit https://sunsetlakecbd.com and use code TINCTURE at checkout to save 35% on all tinctures. Also, Use code Leftisbest and get 20% off your purchases! Aura: Go to my sponsor https://aura.com/majority to try 14 days free and let Aura go to work protecting your private information online Manukora Honey: If you head to https://manukora.com/MAJORITY you'll automatically get a free pack of honey sticks with your order-a $15 value! ZBiotics: Go to https://thld.co/zbiotics_majority_0123 and get 15% off your first order of ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic by using my code MAJORITY at checkout. Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattBinder @MattLech @BF1nn @BradKAlsop Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on Youtube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Subscribe to Discourse Blog, a newsletter and website for progressive essays and related fun partly run by AM Quickie writer Jack Crosbie. https://discourseblog.com/ Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/ The Majority Report with Sam Seder - https://majorityreportradio.com/

The Biden administration has made aggressive antitrust enforcement a priority, and appointed Jonathan Kanter to be the nation’s chief antitrust law enforcer as the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Though Kanter’s background is in big law, he is a leading advocate of the neo-Brandeisian school […]

The Biden administration has made aggressive antitrust enforcement a priority, and appointed Jonathan Kanter to be the nation's chief antitrust law enforcer as the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Though Kanter's background is in big law, he is a leading advocate of the neo-Brandeisian school of antitrust that seeks to expand the scope and importance of antitrust. His aggressive agenda has yet to be fully revealed; however, the courts do not appear sympathetic and have handed the Division a series of defeats in recently-litigated merger challenges.At this luncheon event, Rick Rule, the head of the Antitrust Division under President Reagan (and a former partner of Kanter), probed Kanter on what he is hoping to achieve during his tenure and how he is going to deal with the skepticism of the courts.Featuring:- Hon. Jonathan S. Kanter, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice- Moderator: Hon. Charles "Rick" Rule, Partner, Rule Garza Howley LLP

Welcome back to Movers, Shakers & Rainmakers! This week, our hosts chat with Bridgeline Solutions CEO and a pioneer in the legal staffing industry, Craig Brown. Last week, Craig co-chaired the 2022 Milton Handler Lecture in New York, and he joined our hosts to discuss the history of the event and the newsworthy speech of the Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Jonathan Kanter. Also, our hosts break down the Winston and Kirkland office openings in Miami, as well as Covington's hiring of a former top official at the FTC. Tons to unpack! Be sure to tune in, rate, review, and subscribe.

All eyes were on top US competition regulators Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter at a recent conference in Berlin, with European officials keen to know how the relatively new heads of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice's antitrust division would manage what appears to be a remarkable overhaul in the US's regulatory landscape. MLex's Nicholas Hirst was at this year's ICN conference and was able to cover the comments by the heavy hitters of global antitrust. Also on this week's podcast: How the FTC and DOJ's revamp of antitrust reviews is likely to unfold in Washington, amid a growing consensus that past practices have been too lax.

A View of Antitrust with the FTC's Former Director of Competition, Bruce Hoffman: Bruce Hoffman, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb and the former Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition, joins host Richard Levick of LEVICK to discuss the world of antitrust. He shares his views on how businesses should think about antitrust, with Lina Khan leading the FTC and Jonathan Kanter at the helm of the DOJ; provides an overview of state and federal antitrust reform legislation proposals; and addresses the question posed by some critics, that antitrust enforcement needs to be radically changed due to U.S. market concentration. Among other responsibilities, Bruce spearheaded the creation of the Bureau of Competition's Technology Task Force (now known as the Technology Enforcement Division) to monitor competition in U.S. technology markets, investigate potential anticompetitive conduct in those markets and take enforcement actions when warranted.

Inflation! It's dominating all economic news. It's the main reason the stock market is going nuts. It's what Fed officials are discussing in today's meeting (they're expected to raise interest rates several times over the next twelve months). But in all of the inflated verbiage over inflation, there's been little or no discussion about the role that large, hugely-profitable corporations are playing. Yet inflation is intimately connected to corporate power (as I discussed on this page last month).Today I turn to the evidence, and then to what I believe should be done about corporate power and inflation. First, to recap: While most of the price increases now affecting the US and global economy have been the result of global supply chain problems limiting the availability of parts needed to make consumer goods, this doesn't explain why big and hugely- profitable corporations are passing these cost increases on to their customers in the form of higher prices. If corporations were competing vigorously against each other, they'd swallow these cost increases in order to keep their prices as low as possible — especially when they're making huge profits. Yet corporations have been raising prices even as they rake in record profits. That's because they face so little competition that they can easily coordinate price increases with the handful of other big companies in their industry. That way, all of them come out ahead — while consumers and workers lose. As to the evidence, it's all around us: 1.  EnergyOnly a few entities have access to the land and pipelines that control the oil and gas still powering most of the world. They took a hit during the pandemic as most people stayed home. But they are more than making up for it now, limiting supply and ratcheting up prices. As Chevron Corp.'s top executive Mike Wirth said in September, “we could afford to invest more” in production but “the equity market is not sending a signal that says they think we ought to be doing that.” Translated: Wall Street says the way to maximize profits is to limit supply and push up prices instead, and we do whatever the Street wants. 2.  Consumer staplesLast April, Procter & Gamble raised prices on consumer staples like diapers and toilet paper, citing increased costs in raw materials and transportation. But P&G has been making huge profits. After some of its price increases went into effect, it reported an almost 25 percent profit margin. Looking to buy your diapers elsewhere? Well, good luck. The market is dominated by P&G and Kimberly-Clark, which—not coincidentally—raised its prices at the same time. Another example: Last spring, PepsiCo raised its prices, blaming higher costs for ingredients, freight, and labor. It then recorded $3 billion in operating profits through September. How did it get away with this without losing customers? Simple. Pepsi has only one major competitor, Coca Cola, which promptly raised its own prices. Coca-Cola recorded $10 billion in revenues in the third quarter of 2021, up 16 percent from the previous year.3.  FoodFood prices are soaring. Half of those price increases are from meat. According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meat prices were up 16 percent in November compared with the same month last year. Why? Because the four giant meat processing corporations that dominate the industry are raising their prices and enjoying fat profits. A recent report from the White House's National Economic Council finds that the largest meat processing companies are “using their market power to extract bigger and bigger profit margins for themselves. Businesses that face meaningful competition can't do that, because they would lose business to a competitor that did not hike its margins.”4. Fast food Fast food giants like McDonald's and Chipotle — incessantly complaining about higher food and labor costs — have increased their prices to consumers to cover these added costs. But they're so profitable they could easily have absorbed these cost increases. (Wall Street analysts expect McDonald's revenues hit a five-year high in 2021 and Chipotle's revenues increased by over a third from two years before.) So why are they passing the cost increases on to their consumers? Because they have so much market power. (A few months ago, Chipotle's chief financial officer admitted “our ultimate goal … is to fully protect our margins.”)5.  Large retailersA handful of giant corporations — Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, Costco, and Target —dominate retail sales in America. On a recent survey, over 60 percent of large retailers say inflation has given them the ability to raise prices beyond what's required to offset higher costs.6.  Corporate concentration overallSince the mid-1980s (when the US government all but abandoned antitrust enforcement) two thirds of all American industries have become more concentrated. This includes banks, broadband, pharmaceutical companies, airlines, meatpackers, big tech, and consumer staples.Corporations in these industries could easily absorb higher costs – including wage increases – without passing them on to consumers in the form of higher prices. But they'd rather maintain or enlarge their record profits by coordinating with other big players in the same industry and raise prices together. As a result, their record profits are lining the pockets of major investors and corporate executives, while shafting consumers and workers (whose wage increases are being eroded by price increases). What to do? Don't slow the economy. Instead, reduce corporate concentration. As I mentioned at the outset, the Fed meets today. It's poised to try to control inflation by raising borrowing costs. This means the Fed will battle inflation the old way — drafting millions of workers into the inflation fight by slowing the economy and causing them to lose their jobs or wages, or both. This is the wrong medicine for the wrong disease. It will hurt millions of people who are among the most vulnerable in the economy. The correct medicine is to reduce corporate market power. Biden has started to try. He has prodded the Agriculture Department to investigate large meatpackers that are raising prices and underpaying farmers — while tripling their profit margins during the pandemic. He has encouraged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate accusations that large oil companies are artificially inflating prices, even after global oil prices began to fall in recent weeks.In late October, the FTC ordered nine large retailers, including Walmart, Amazon and Kroger, to turn over detailed information to help root out the sources of supply chain disruptions that were “harming competition in the U.S. economy.”Biden has urged the Federal Maritime Commission to root out price gouging by large shipping companies at the heart of supply chains. The Commission has investigated the handful of corporate shipping alliances that effectively control the flow of goods across the world's oceans and which have raised prices as much as ninefold during the pandemic, according to data from the freight-tracking firm Freightos. In addition, Biden has tapped antitrust crusaders for key roles, including Lina Khan to be chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, and Jonathan Kanter (a long-time adversary of Facebook and Google) to lead the antitrust division of the Justice Department. And he has brought Tim Wu (a proponent of breaking up Facebook and other large companies) into the White House as a special adviser on competition issues.All these initiatives are fine. But far more resources need to be aimed at the problem of corporate concentration. The Biden administration must declare economic war on monopolies and oligopolies. Make no mistake. Taking on concentrated industries and corporate market power will be difficult. Corporate America will do whatever it can to keep its record profits and reduce its costs. In addition, antitrust enforcement is extraordinarily complex and time consuming. I directed the policy planning staff at the Federal Trade Commission in the Carter Administration and saw this firsthand.But it's worth the effort. Corporate concentration harms workers and consumers while rewarding CEOs and investors. Unless capitalism is made to work for everyone – unless the concentration of the American economy in the hands of a few giant corporations is reduced – inequalities of income, wealth, and power will continue to widen. And at some point, the system will break. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Amazon, Facebook and Google are on a mission: to ensure that the United States Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and Department of Justice antitrust division head Jonathan Kanter recuse themselves from key decisions affecting the digital platforms. Why? Because, they argue, the two officials' past work and public utterances mean they're incapable of overseeing their agencies' investigations impartially. But a court ruling is suggesting the tech giants may be facing an uphill battle. Also on today's podcast: Facebook's 2019 settlement with the FTC included a commitment to make changes to its privacy compliance structure and carry out internal privacy assessments. But what's in those assessments? We may never know, with a US Supreme Court ruling on the US's Freedom of Information Act allowing Facebook — or Meta Platforms, as it's now known — to demand heavy-handed redactions of FTC documents.

Nuestra invitada para este episodio es María Marin Vila, Doctora en Psicología, Psicóloga Especialista en Psicología Clínica, Máster en Psicología de la Salud, Máster en Psicología General Sanitaria y Máster en Terapias Contextuales. Además, es profesional asociada en el Center for the Science of Social Connection de la Universidad de Washington (Seattle, EE.UU.), en la que realizó una estancia clínica-investigadora bajo la supervisión de Jonathan Kanter, Robert Kohlenberg y Mavis Tsai. La entrada La relación terapéutica en Psicosis con María Marín Vila – Episodio 137 se publicó primero en Psicoflix.

Nuestra invitada para este episodio es María Marin Vila, Doctora en Psicología, Psicóloga Especialista en Psicología Clínica, Máster en Psicología de la Salud, Máster en Psicología General Sanitaria y Máster en Terapias Contextuales. Además, es profesional asociada en el Center for the Science of Social Connection de la Universidad de Washington (Seattle, EE.UU.), en la que realizó una estancia clínica-investigadora bajo la supervisión de Jonathan Kanter, Robert Kohlenberg y Mavis Tsai. La entrada La relación terapéutica en Psicosis con María Marín Vila – Episodio 137 se publicó primero en Psicoflix.

On Sunday, a former Facebook data scientist went on 60 Minutes to accuse the company of defrauding its advertising customers and deliberately engineering social division and ethnic strife. Then on Monday, the entire Facebook product family went offline for six hours: Instagram, Whatsapp, and of course Facebook.com itself.Then on Wednesday, big tech critic and antitrust advocate Jonathan Kanter got a highly favorable reception from the Senate Commerce Subcommittee, suggesting that he will likely be confirmed as head of the antitrust division at the Justice Department. So where does all this leave Zuckerberg, Inc.? Conservative Partnership Institute Policy Director Rachel Bovard and economist and author Matt Stoller join Ryan Grim to discuss where big tech antitrust is headed.https://join.theintercept.com/donate/now See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sam and Emma host Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of the Substack newsletter Big, to discuss the state of antitrust reform in the U.S., as well as the Biden administration's recent antitrust-heavy appointments to the DOJ and FTC. They begin with the state of Biden's presidency and how he has shown his populist roots (outside of fundraising), appointing Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter to the FTC and DOJ, respectively, in an attempt to take on the concentrated power dominating – and hindering – our economy. They also touch on the importance of antitrust regulations in a self-sustaining economy, how our competition with China is used to prevent going after big tech in a wholesale manner, and the absurdity of considering supply chains and monopoly law as outside of the political realm. Stoller, Emma, and Sam then get into how the current state of leftist ideology doesn't consider trade as inherently political, ignoring reformation that can have material impact in governance, instead, digging their feet into an anti-government stance, before wrapping up the conversation on what to expect from Biden's Administration moving forwards, and why democrats should move towards anti-trust regulations as an easy (and impactful) win in the public eye. Sam and Emma wrap up the first half by exploring the developments in the Daniel Hale whistleblowing case, and checking in on the Jan. 6 select committee hearing's affirmation of the disgusting events of the insurrection attempt. And in the Fun Half: Zachary from Birmingham calls in to join continue the discussion Stoller started in the first half, which Bro Flamingo picks up on, touching on why he finds still the left as the more productive players in active governance, even if they could do more. They also touch on why the liberal superiority complex, while annoying, is not a primary issue in the discussion around masking, before Emma takes on the moral posturing of the classic “in this house” liberal platitudes sign, no matter how much they truly believe that immigrants are real and no science is illegal. The MR crew also looks into the continued chaos around conservatives coverage of the vaccine, and their refusal to let go of undermining public health before basking in the glory of Matt Gaetz being accosted during a press conference with MTG, and discussing the white supremacy ingrained in the mythos and policy that built America with Adam from Tiwa lands in NM. We say one more goodbye to Brendan, plus, your calls and IMs! Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com Join the Majority Report Discord! http://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ (Merch issues and concerns can be addressed here: majorityreportstore@mirrorimage.com) You can now watch the livestream on Twitch Check out today's sponsor: Podium makes doing business as easy as sending a text. All your employees can text from a single inbox, offering a smoother experience for your customers. Whether you're answering questions, collecting reviews, scheduling appointments and deliveries or dealing with payment collection – all you have to do is just send a text. Stay ahead of the competition with Podium – they have free plans for growing businesses, plus all the power growing businesses need to scale. Get started free today at Podium.com/MAJORITY Support the St. Vincent Nurses today as they continue to strike for a fair contract! https://action.massnurses.org/we-stand-with-st-vincents-nurses/ Subscribe to Discourse Blog, a newsletter and website for progressive essays and related fun partly run by AM Quickie writer Jack Crosbie. https://discourseblog.com/ Subscribe to AM Quickie writer Corey Pein's podcast News from Nowhere, at https://www.patreon.com/newsfromnowhere Check out The Letterhack's upcoming Kickstarter project for his new graphic novel! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/milagrocomic/milagro-heroe-de-las-calles Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel! Check out The Nomiki Show live at 3 pm ET on YouTube at patreon.com/thenomikishow Check out Matt's podcast, Literary Hangover, at Patreon.com/LiteraryHangover, or on iTunes. Check out Jamie's podcast, The Antifada, at patreon.com/theantifada, on iTunes, or at twitch.tv/theantifada (streaming every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7pm ET!) Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattBinder @MattLech @BF1nn @BradKAlsop

The Verge's Dieter Bohn and Alex Cranz discuss Verizon switching to Android Messages as default for RCS, as well as the many gadgets from this week. Verge policy editor Russell Brandom joins to talk about President Biden's criticism of Facebook's handling of misinformation on their platform and the nomination of Google critic Jonathan Kanter to lead the Department of Justice's antitrust division. The Verge's Liz Lopatto and Joey Roulette talk with Dieter about Jeff Bezos' space flight this week. Further reading: Biden says platforms like Facebook are ‘killing people' with COVID-19 misinformation Facebook pushes back against Biden remarks on COVID-19 misinformation Joe Biden says Facebook isn't ‘killing people,' but misinformation causes harm The Biden administration should take the First Amendment as seriously as Facebook misinformation FTC pledges to fight unlawful right to repair restrictions Biden to nominate Google critic Jonathan Kanter to lead DOJ antitrust division The space tourism industry is stuck in its billionaire phase  Blue Origin successfully sends Jeff Bezos and three others to space and back An on-the-ground look at Blue Origin's motley crew Jeff Bezos appreciates your efforts to get Jeff Bezos to space Verizon is also switching to Android Messages as default for RCS Pegasus spyware used to target phones of journalists and activists, investigation finds Dish cuts a 10-year, $5 billion deal to make AT&T the primary service provider for its MVNO The Dish ‘fix' for the T-Mobile-Sprint merger seems more shortsighted than ever Playdate hands-on: a Game Boy from a different dimension Apple AirPods update to arrive later this year with iPhone SE refresh coming 2022: report Apple releases iOS 14.7 just as MagSafe Battery Pack appears on shelves The first real photos of Apple's MagSafe Battery Pack are here OnePlus Buds Pro announced, coming September 1st for $150 OnePlus Nord 2 review: focused on the essentials OnePlus is merging OxygenOS with Oppo's ColorOS Leaked memo confirms OnePlus will become an Oppo sub-brand Amazon will let devs compete for your Echo Show's screen and everything else Alexa just added Alexa finally gets a masculine-sounding voice option Amazon promises most Echo speakers will get upgraded to Matter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kara and Scott discuss Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent Twitter ban, Jack Dorsey's hopes for a bitcoin "world peace," and the "joyless" Olympics. Kara has high hopes for Jonathan Kanter, Biden's pick for the Justice Department's anti-trust division. Things look a little more glum for privacy after the Pegasus Project revelations. And in listener mail, we get a question on every Zoomer's mind: Should I even bother planning for retirement? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kara and Scott discuss Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent Twitter ban, Jack Dorsey's hopes for a bitcoin "world peace," and the "joyless" Olympics. Kara has high hopes for Jonathan Kanter, Biden's pick for the Justice Department's anti-trust division. Things look a little more glum for privacy after the Pegasus Project revelations. And in listener mail, we get a question on every Zoomer's mind: Should I even bother planning for retirement? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kara and Scott discuss Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent Twitter ban, Jack Dorsey's hopes for a bitcoin "world peace," and the "joyless" Olympics. Kara has high hopes for Jonathan Kanter, Biden's pick for the Justice Department's anti-trust division. Things look a little more glum for privacy after the Pegasus Project revelations. And in listener mail, we get a question on every Zoomer's mind: Should I even bother planning for retirement? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kara and Scott discuss Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent Twitter ban, Jack Dorsey's hopes for a bitcoin "world peace," and the "joyless" Olympics. Kara has high hopes for Jonathan Kanter, Biden's pick for the Justice Department's anti-trust division. Things look a little more glum for privacy after the Pegasus Project revelations. And in listener mail, we get a question on every Zoomer's mind: Should I even bother planning for retirement? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Global News Watch-Britain to permanently deploy two warships in Asian waters -Biden to nominate Google critic Jonathan Kanter to the DOJ's Antitrust Division-12 found dead in Zhengzhou train accident and thousands evacuated in Henan due to floods-Norway faces 'bikini fine' at the European Beach Handball Championship -중국 견제 위해 인도태평양에 군함 2척 상시 배치키로한 영국-법무부 반독점 책임자에 조나단 칸터 지명한 미 바이든 대통령 -중국 정저우 홍수로 인한 사망자수 증가 및 댐 붕괴 위험 우려-유럽핸드볼연맹 복장 규정 위반으로 벌금형 받은 노르웨이 비치핸드볼 여자대표팀Guest: Nicholas Moore, ReporterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

OCC to propose rescission of 2020 CRA rulemaking, will collaborate with FRB and FDIC on new rule. FDIC proposes simplified, expanded deposit insurance for trusts and mortgage accounts. President's working group to issue stablecoin recommendations. NFA extends relief from on-site inspection requirements. Firm settles FINRA charges for AML program deficiencies. President Biden will nominate Jonathan Kanter to lead DOJ antitrust division.

Could Xandr attract the eye of InMobi as it prepares an IPO? We discuss AT&T's reported plans to sell Xandr and offer a primer on Big Tech's new foe, Jonathan Kanter, the nominee to lead antitrust actions at the Department of Justice.

Our anchors kick off the morning with all the details on Netflix's earnings released last night. Then, Protocol Reporter Ben Brody joins to speak about President Biden's nominee for Chief of the DOJ's Antitrust Division. Brody first reported that the Biden Administration was considering nominating Jonathan Kanter back in April. We also have CNBC's Dom Chu cover FANG stock valuations after Leon Cooperman stated he is still bullish on the names. Next, Evercore ISI's Mark Mahaney joins to further break down Netflix's earnings report. Plus, we cover digital collectible racehorses- the latest NFT trend. Later, we hear from Wall Street Journal Reporters and Authors of new book “The Cult of We,” which details Adam Neumann's WeWork and its fall from a $47 billion valuation. And also, we hear from Carbon Health CEO Eren Bali on the company's latest $350 million funding round.

David Chavern, the CEO of News Media Alliance, and antitrust attorney Jonathan Kanter, discuss Facebook's new posting policies.