Welcome to You’re Probably Getting Screwed, a weekly newsletter and video series from J.D. Scholten and Justin Stofferahn about the Second Gilded Age and the ways economic concentration is putting politics and profits over working people.
Welcome to You’re Probably Getting Screwed, a weekly newsletter and video series from J.D. Scholten and Justin Stofferahn about the Second Gilded Age and the ways economic concentration is putting politics and profits over working people. Sorry for the hiatus in posting, but we are excited to get back in the swing of things! It has been a pretty good couple of weeks for the country’s monopolists. Meta (owner of Facebook) beat back an FTC challenge, Google received approval to acquire a cybersecurity firm, President Trump is reviving an effort to restrict state-level AI regulations, the DOJ is allowing RealPage to continue to price-fix rents, and Tyson is laying off over 3,000 workers in Nebraska. The nation’s oligarchs are having a time, but these various events hold lessons for future policy fights and the antimonopoly movement more broadly. Let’s start with the antitrust cases. Last week the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta (parent company of Facebook) ended with a thud. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg sided with Meta in a case that centered on the companies acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp over a decade ago, which helped cement Facebook’s longstanding social media monopoly. Despite troves of evidence Mark Zuckerberg intended to eliminate competition, along with the company continuing to reap monopoly profits ($87.1 billion operating profit on $164.5 billion in revenue in 2024), Boasberg ruled that the emergence of TikTok had created a healthy enough competitor for Facebook. This reasoning is as tortured as that in the Google antitrust case where Judge Amit Mehta ruled the company was an illegal monopoly yet turned around and chose to do nothing about it. It is another reminder of the decidedly pro-corporate judiciary we have.
At least the FTC was disappointed by the loss. That was in contrast to the Department of Justice’s approach to a rent-fixing conspiracy. During the Biden Administration the DOJ sued RealPage for using the troves of data it collects from its landlord clients (including many of the largest landlords in the country) to coordinate widespread price hikes on apartment rents. This week the DOJ settled that lawsuit and while it prohibits RealPage from using nonpublic data in its pricing algorithm (although you can still price fix with public data), RealPage will not pay any financial penalties, fees or admit any wrongdoing. In response RealPage’s attorney said DOJ had come to “bless the legality of RealPage’s prior and planned product changes.” While RealPage is a driving force in the rental market, its use of “algorithmic price fixing” is a practice growing across the economy, and now the DOJ has essentially signed off on this type of conduct. This all comes as President Trump is calling on Congress to revive efforts to prohibit states from regulating artificial intelligence, which would put state-level prohibitions on algorithmic price-fixing in jeopardy. DOJ also recently signed off on Google’s $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity firm Wiz, the largest acquisition in the company’s history. As a reminder, this is from a company that a judge determined was an illegal monopoly! Silicon Valley is far from the only place corporate monopolies are launching attacks on working families. Tyson, one of the nation’s major meatpackers, announced it is closing its plant in Lexington, Nebraska. The move, which will leave over 3,000 workers in a town of 10,000 without jobs, comes less than a year after the top five executives at Tyson received $14 million in bonuses! As this rancher explains, workers are not the only ones impacted by this closure, it is a raw deal for producers and consumers as well. These actions all seem to underscore something Tim Wu wrote about in response to the Facebook ruling. “[The Google and Meta decisions] signal to companies that spending millions of dollars on lawyers will be repaid with billions of dollars in profit.” This cynicism is something I run into often. People recognize who is screwing them, but they either have little faith anyone will do anything about it or have seen such little action to do something about it during their lives, they just assume that the many ways corporate monopolies are making our lives miserable is inevitable. This is not true though, as Cory Doctorow both beautifully and hilariously wrote recently, we have stared down this challenge before and won.
This is true of any of the problems above. We can appoint judges that better understand antitrust and corporate power, pass new laws at a state and federal level that reign in Big Tech, AI-fueled price-fixing and the meatpacking giants, and appoint antitrust enforcers that actually want to enforce the law. Doing so will require a true grassroots movement though. For all the incredible books, newsletters, research papers and other resources the antimonopoly movement has produced over the past 5-10 years, it is lacking the local focus and infrastructure necessary to build a sustained movement that can challenge the oligarchs. As JD wrote after attending the Antimonopoly Summit in DC a couple months ago: “How does the Anti-Monopoly movement move from the Westin conference rooms in downtown Washington DC to Main Streets across our country!”
Cory’s quote above mentions the “hard yards” and while I’m biased, this past weekend offered a vision for what that could look like. My employer, the Minnesota Farmers Union, held its annual state convention this last weekend. Hundreds of farmers from across the state gathered to discuss and debate the policy issues of the day and hear from state and national leaders. Democracy in action! Amidst debates on how to improve our monopolized healthcare system and ensure small farmers get a fair shake, attendees heard from former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya and Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self Reliance Stacy Mitchell about the interconnectedness of these fights. While it is admittedly moving from one hotel ballroom to another, MFU’s convention was an opportunity to connect the ideas discussed in DC with people that left Minneapolis to return to main streets across Minnesota. I want to write more about this at some point, but we need more organizations across the country connecting the conversations amongst academics and policy experts with everyday people. Workers, farmers, small businesses and consumers are all getting screwed by corporate monopolies, but they need a movement that reflects that. They also need a movement that realizes the power that rests in our own backyards to challenge our corporate overlords and helps create an army of policymakers, from city councilmembers to state legislators, equipped to confront this challenge. We cannot out-lobby the corporate lobby, but we can beat them. YOU’RE PROBABLY (ALSO) GETTING SCREWED BY:Inequality A new report from Oxfam shows the stunning increase in wealth for the very richest Americans over the past several decades. During the last 45 years, U.S. households at the top 1% gained 101 times more wealth than the median household!
Subprime Loans Remember subprime mortgages? Car repossessions are skyrocketing as more and more Americans default on their car loans, particularly households with subprime auto loans. Not only are these predatory loans an issue, it could be a warning sign for the overall weakness of the current economy.
Rail Merger We have mentioned before the mega merger proposed between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern. The merger would give the new combined rail company control of over half the freight market and establish the first transcontinental rail company in US history. More Perfect Union has a new video detailing how the merger will impact workers, farmers and consumers.  Big Ag This headline from National Farmers Union says it all. “Thanksgiving by the Numbers: Families Pay More While Farmers Earn Less.” As middlemen continue to dominate agriculture consumers are paying more while farmers and ranchers earn less.
Private Equity Destroying famous retailers, gutting healthcare and rolling up main street small businesses is clearly not enough for the vultures of the private equity industry. Luke Goldstein at The Lever has a phenomenal piece detailing private equity’s entry into youth sports with Black Bear Sports Group, a particularly egregious villain in youth hockey, sitting front and center.  SOME GOOD NEWSLina Khan & Jon Stewart Former FTC Chair Lina Khan, who is now co-chairing New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team, stopped by Jon Stewart’s podcast to discuss Mamdani, corporate power and how to build a fairer economy. Check it out!  The Fair Fight Pod Former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya and antitrust attorney Max Miller are starting a podcast called the Fair Fight Pod. You can sign up at the thefairfightpod.com to be kept in the loop as they look to launch the program in 2026. In preparation for the launch of the show Bedoya and Miller will be trying out some different things via YouTube live and other places. Unfair Pricing Webinar A shameless plug, but join Minnesota Farmers Union, the American Economic Liberties Project and the Institute for Local Self Reliance for a webinar on the ways corporations are using unfair pricing practices to raise costs and what we can do to address it. You can register at this link.
Solutions for Unfair Pricing Speaking of addressing unfair pricing practices both the Open Markets Institute and the American Economic Liberties Project have new resources on how policymakers at all levels can address some of the root causes for our affordability crisis. Claire Kelloway wrote this brief for Open Markets and AELP has launched The Fair Price Fight campaign. Check them out! BEFORE YOU GOBefore you go, I need two things from you: 1) if you like something, please share it on social media or the next time you have coffee with a friend. 2) Ideas, if you have any ideas for future newsletter content please comment below. Thank you. Break Em Up, Justin Stofferahn
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