The Capitol Forum

Latest Episodes:

Stop Bank Mergers to Help Rural America, Says Basel Musharbash May 12, 2022

Show notes

His recent report, “To Stem the Tide of Rural Decline, Stop the Bank Merger Wave” is making its own waves in the antitrust community as regulators look to revamp the banking merger guidelines.

Basel shares with us how big the merger wave has been since the 1980s, why it happened, the effect it’s had on farmers, entrepreneurs, and rural communities, and his solution for fixing the problem.

Private Equity is Killing the American Economy, with Josh Kosman Apr 28, 2022

Show notes

Josh Kosman has been covering the financial industry for twenty-five years. He is a reporter for the New York Post, a former editor at Mergermarket.com and a former senior writer for The Deal and Buyouts Newsletter.

Josh also literally wrote the book on private equity – his The Buyout of America: How Private Equity is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy, published in 2009, made a big political impact at the time, with Obama advisor David Axelrod reportedly using it as the basis for his attacks on Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign.

Private equity and mergers. The FTC and DOJ are, according to Capitol Forum reporting, taking a harder stance on private equity firms as potential divestiture buyers for assets companies are proposing to sell in their attempts to cure anticompetitive mergers.

Private equity and rising interest rates. Josh’s website details how “Moody’s in May 2020 reported that two-thirds of the companies with the lowest debt ratings” were private equity-owned. “Standard & Poor’s in February 2020 reported $1.5 trillion in speculative-grade US corporate debt matures through 2024…Roughly 60 percent of the money has been borrowed by private equity firm-owned companies. With interest rates rising this poses a big risk.” Josh adds.

Private equity’s political power. Josh is also expert on private equity’s political influence, and has written about Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-AZ) support for the industry and President Joe Biden’s ties to Carlyle Group Co-Founder David Rubenstein.

Antitrust Super Influencers with Baron Public Affairs Apr 21, 2022

Show notes

Baron Public Affairs recently issued a report naming the top 10 antitrust super influencers, and they share their findings in this episode.

Baron Public Affairs is a unique firm that “combines objective strategy development with groundbreaking research platforms” to help corporate clients “identify, understand and surmount” regulatory threats. They developed their list of antitrust super influencers by sifting through “approximately 27,000 references made by members of Congress, executive branch officials, and others.”

Baron’s top 5 antitrust super influencers are:

1) William Kovacic, George Washington University

2) Sarah Miller, American Economic Liberties Project

3) Charlotte Slaiman, Public Knowledge

4) Adam Kovacevich, Chamber of Progress

5) Matt Stoller, American Economic Liberties Project

See Baron’s full report for the top 10.

The report is full of insights, and worth noting in particular are Baron’s conclusions that “antitrust super influencers prioritize practical achievements over intellectual purity” and that “economics is losing authority in the political arena.”

Block the Spirit/Frontier Airlines Merger Argues Shahid Naeem Mar 31, 2022

Show notes

Shahid Naeem is a policy analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project and the author of a memo calling for the Department of Justice and Department of Transportation to block the merger between Spirit and Frontier.

Fixing Pharma With Tahir Amin Mar 17, 2022

Show notes

Tahir Amin is an attorney with more than 25 years of experience in intellectual property law and the co-founder of I-Mak, which seeks to build a more just and equitable medicine system for all via patent reform.

Big Tech Litigation Outlook, with Jason Kint Mar 10, 2022

Show notes

Jason Kint is CEO of Digital Content Next, the only trade association to exclusively serve the unique and diverse needs of high-quality digital content companies that manage trusted, direct relationships with consumers and marketers. Jason guides DCN’s diverse and powerful group of members — established brands such as The New York Times, Conde Nast and ESPN, and digital natives, such as Vox, Politico and Insider — into the future, setting the agenda on a range of issues.

Jason produces must-read analysis of ongoing litigation against the big tech platforms, primarily Google and Facebook. In this episode, Jason tells us what he’s focused on in the tech platform battles in the courts, and what we can expect to see going forward.

Amazon Vs. The U.S. Postal Service, a Ted Tatos Talk Mar 03, 2022

Show notes

Ted Tatos is Managing Director of EconOne and co-author of the recent report, “Protecting the U.S. Postal Service from Amazon’s Anticompetitive Assault.” In the conversation, we get into a lot of different aspects of Amazon’s ongoing effort to dominate the postal service.

A quick note: Ted’s report was funded by a conservative group called The Family Business Coalition, which includes small family-owned businesses that ship parcels. For the report, Ted also interviewed a couple of prominent voices in the antimonopoly movement whom we’ve had on the show before—Matt Stoller from the American economic liberties project and Stacy Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self Reliance.

Matthew Buck Explains How America’s Supply Chains Got Railroaded Feb 17, 2022

Show notes

Matthew Jinoo Buck is a fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project and a first-year student at Yale Law School.

His article in the American Prospect, “How America’s Supply Chains Got Railroaded” tells the history of how deregulation and consolidation gave us a railroad industry that is now a weak link in our supply chain. He also tells how the industry is more dangerous for workers and less reliable for customers even as it produces outsized profits for investors.

Jeff Horwitz on The Facebook Files Feb 10, 2022

Show notes

Jeff Horwitz is a Wall Street Journal technology reporter who covers Facebook. He is the lead reporter on the groundbreaking series of articles titled The Facebook Files. The conversation covers myriad issues facing Facebook and we ask Jeff why, when facing choices between the public interest and growth on the platform, Mark Zuckerberg always chooses growth.

Evan Starr on The Economic Benefits of Banning Non-competes Feb 03, 2022

Show notes

Evan Starr, Associate Professor of Management & Organization at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, discusses the likely economic benefits of the FTC banning non-compete agreements, including a boost to wages and worker mobility.

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