U.S. monopolies vs. workers, consumers

**Brian Lehrer** (0:05)
From WNYC, I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my Daily Politics Podcast. It's Monday, June 22nd.
The deal to merge Paramount and Warner Brothers is now signed and on track to close this year. If it goes through, one company controlled by David Ellison and his family would own two of Hollywood's biggest studios, Paramount and Warner Brothers, two of the largest streaming services, Paramount Plus and HBO Max, and two major newsrooms, CBS News and CNN, along with cable brands from MTV and Comedy Central to TNT, HGTV and the Discovery Channels. Now, last week, former federal regulator Alvaro Bedoya came through New York on a three city tour sitting down with people in the business, writers, grips, costume designers, caterers and independent theater owners who say a merger this size is going to impact them. Bedoya spent three years as a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, serving alongside then chair Lena Cahn as the agency took on big tech and corporate consolidation in various ways until President Trump fired Bedoya in March of last year. He came into that job as an advocate for privacy and immigrant rights. He says he left it a populist. In an essay written for the New Republic, he argues the real fight in this country isn't left versus right, it's the money at the top against everyone underneath. He's now a senior advisor at a group called the American Economic Liberties Project and joins us now. Alvaro, welcome to WNYC.

**Alvaro Bedoya** (1:44)
Thank you for having me.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:45)
What is the American Economic Liberties Project?

**Alvaro Bedoya** (1:49)
It's an anti-monopoly think tank that, kind of like the, you know, my new way of thinking, looks at the world a little less in terms of, you know, left versus right and focuses on concentrated corporate power and how it affects working people and small business owners around the country. And we think that if we get that right, we can unite a lot of people in a way that they haven't been really united before.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:14)
What's your definition of a monopoly?

**Alvaro Bedoya** (2:18)
My definition of a monopoly? Well, let me put it in terms that people can feel, you know. Look, the Supreme Court says that they presume market power, which doesn't mean the same thing as a monopoly, around 30 percent, right? Other people will tell you, oh, you know, you need much more than that. But I think people feel monopoly every day when they have a service that, a streaming service that they used to pay, let's say, $12 a month for without ads and suddenly they pay $12 a month for and it has ads.
Or, you know, suddenly they find that they can, you know, their private doctor, their primary care doctor goes concierge and suddenly they can only go to this one doctor. And every time they visit that doctor, they are insured, nickel and dimes them with these follow on charges of $35 or $75 or $200. And so I would say that people feel the effects of corporate power every single day in their lives, in a way that the law sometimes captures and in a way that sometimes it doesn't capture.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:25)
Are there particular industries, before we get to the Paramount and Warner Brothers merger in particular, where you think monopolies have flourished the most in recent years in this country?

**Alvaro Bedoya** (3:38)
Sadly, I don't think that's a short list. I think that what you have across the country, whether it's in meatpacking or grocery or health insurance, you have a lot of, you know, what us boring lawyers would call oligopolies, where you have three or four key players who are either selling or buying. They would be oligopsines.
But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the beef that you get charged at an absurdly high rate at the grocery store, the fact your health insurance goes higher and higher, even though your health care doesn't get better. The fact that your local grocery, you're in New York, your local grocery is struggling to stay afloat, while these giants in Kroger and Albertsons are doing just great. Those are all areas that we feel every day. And sadly, I could go on and on and on with similar areas.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:35)
You mentioned the number three or four. Why isn't that enough to create competition? I think in a lot of people's lay understanding of the word monopoly, it's when one company basically controls the market. If there are three or four major health insurance companies, three or four major supermarket companies, presumably like the three or four gas stations that might be within a few blocks of each other, they're going to compete on the basis of price. Why would you say that's not the case?