As usual, today’s round-up will be the monopoly-themed news of the week, both good and bad, plus what the Presidential campaigns have been saying on market power questions. But first I want to announce a new project I’ve been building for the last six months, a spinoff of BIG. A lot of you have been asking for audio that you can listen to, as well as a way to expand the reach of the anti-monopoly movement. Well ask and ye shall receive. We now have a podcast.

But first, I want to say thank you. It’s been three years since we started asking for paid subscriptions, and when we sent the email asking for you to buy into this project, we didn’t know whether anyone would respond. But you did! As a result, we’re able to publish this newsletter, without advertiser or big money influence. We’ve hired free lancers, a copy-editor, insurance for libel, and we can buy legal documents and data. We’ve also been able to build out Big Tech on Trial and send reporters to the courtroom to cover the Google cases. And because of founder-level subscribers, students and government employees who ask get free subscriptions. So we’re even helping to build a new generation of antitrust lawyers!

This time, using your financing, I was able to hire a wonderful production company, Rock Creek Sound, and spend the time and effort to actually build something that I think is very cool. Six months ago, I started working on a podcast with Dave Dayen, the editor of The American Prospect. And it’s finally ready!

The podcast is titled Organized Money, and it’s a business show about monopolies and competition, a kind of anti-CNBC. On Organized Money, we talk to business people, journalists, policymakers, and advocates, all about the actual challenges and opportunities of commerce in modern America. The idea is to be real about business, and to situate power and politics as a central theme in how we organize markets, as opposed to holding up fables about heroic entrepreneurs or supply and demand curves. Here’s the logo, which I absolutely love.

This week we’ll be releasing two episodes. The first is about Google and antitrust. But it’s not about the current cases, it’s the inside story about why the government didn’t bring a case in 2012, despite ample evidence. The guests are Luke and Brody Mullins, two reporters, who wrote a book The Wolves of K Street, an excellent discussion of how D.C. policymaking works. The second is on how supermarkets price products, with a focus on the Kroger-Albertsons merger. The guest is antitrust attorney Laurel Kilgour. Then the following week we’re going to talk about why pharmacists are in revolt against monopolists, in a two part series talking to pharmacist Benjamin Jolley about protests outside of UnitedHealth Group headquarters, as well as Congressman Jake Auchincloss about how Congressional politics works around pharma.

Over the next two months, we’ll go into the baby formula market with an entrepreneur building out a new company, medical supply distribution and how to compete in that shortage-driven space, the business of gambling, and what it’s like on the campaign trail with candidates running on corporate power. So that’s the idea. These first slate of episodes are a test to find our voice and see what works and what doesn’t. So please listen, and tell us what you think.

You can get it wherever you listen to your podcast, or you can sign up for our Organized Money Substack here:

Organized Money Dave Dayen and Matt Stoller take you on a tour of how business really works. By Matt Stoller

Here is the Apple link:

Organized Money Rock Creek Sound 1 episode

Here is the Spotify link:

Organized Money Rock Creek Sound Podcast

And now, the monopoly related news of the week...