{"id":17465,"date":"2025-04-21T13:59:24","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T13:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=17465"},"modified":"2025-04-21T13:59:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T13:59:24","slug":"what-antitrust-reformers-got-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=17465","title":{"rendered":"What Antitrust \u2018Reformers\u2019 Got Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“When the Justice Department successfully blocked a proposed merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines last year, the head of the antitrust division under President Joe Biden announced that it was \u201cyet another victory\u201d<\/a> for American consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The declaration may have been premature. After the deal fell apart, Spirit\u2019s stock price cratered<\/a>, and the company declared bankruptcy<\/a>, fired hundreds of people<\/a> and raised ticket prices<\/a>. The company recently received court approval for a reorganization plan that will wipe out the company\u2019s stockholders<\/a> and hand control over to large bondholders led by hedge funds and asset managers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“For decades, antitrust enforcement was guided by the notion that the effect on consumers should be regulators\u2019 top priority. Biden\u2019s antitrust enforcers rejected that approach \u2014 instead working from a relatively new, controversial and amorphous theory that, as Khan once described it<\/a>, argues that antitrust law should instead focus on \u201cworkers, suppliers, innovators, and independent entrepreneurs\u201d and try to dilute the economic and political power of large corporations. The unstated implication is that higher consumer prices may in fact be necessary and desirable to pursue these goals.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What the last four years show is that despite the best efforts of Khan, Kanter and their ideological allies, antitrust enforcement does not deliver broad, effective and durable economic policymaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Litigation is inherently fraught, and courts are not reliable or predictable enough for it to work. There can also be radical regulatory swings between administrations \u2014 like the one we are witnessing now \u2014 that can slow or even wipe out your work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A conceptually simpler way to improve things for working-class Americans from a liberal economic perspective is one of the oldest around \u2014 redistributive taxing and spending. The Democratic Party has for years avoided anything that might look like a tax hike for the middle class, but one of the most reliably well-polling ideas in American politics is raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy<\/a>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/03\/04\/trump-biden-reverse-antitrust-revolution-00208848<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“When the Justice Department successfully blocked a proposed merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines last year, the head of the antitrust division under President Joe Biden announced that it was \u201cyet another victory\u201d for American consumers.
\nThe declaration may have been premature. After the deal fell apart, Spirit\u2019s stock price cratered, and the company declared bankruptcy, fired hundreds of people and raised ticket prices. The company recently received court approval for a reorganization plan that will wipe out the company\u2019s stockholders and hand control over to large bondholders led by hedge funds and asset managers.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“For decades, antitrust enforcement was guided by the notion that the effect on consumers should be regulators\u2019 top priority. Biden\u2019s antitrust enforcers rejected that approach \u2014 instead working from a relatively new, controversial and amorphous theory that, as Khan once described it, argues that antitrust law should instead focus on \u201cworkers, suppliers, innovators, and independent entrepreneurs\u201d and try to dilute the economic and political power of large corporations. The unstated implication is that higher consumer prices may in fact be necessary and desirable to pursue these goals.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“What the last four years show is that despite the best efforts of Khan, Kanter and their ideological allies, antitrust enforcement does not deliver broad, effective and durable economic policymaking.<\/p>\n

Litigation is inherently fraught, and courts are not reliable or predictable enough for it to work. There can also be radical regulatory swings between administrations \u2014 like the one we are witnessing now \u2014 that can slow or even wipe out your work.<\/p>\n

A conceptually simpler way to improve things for working-class Americans from a liberal economic perspective is one of the oldest around \u2014 redistributive taxing and spending. The Democratic Party has for years avoided anything that might look like a tax hike for the middle class, but one of the most reliably well-polling ideas in American politics is raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/03\/04\/trump-biden-reverse-antitrust-revolution-00208848<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1079,1616,1166],"class_list":["post-17465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-antitrust","tag-mergers","tag-monopoly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17466,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17465\/revisions\/17466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}