#gilded blackstone you are cool

[splatattackz]

The Federation and their use of Warped Wood items

and other Nether items in general.

An analysis.

This is a topic that has interested me for a long while. The Federation has a singular thing they love to use in buildings: Nether items. Most commonly, quartz. As you may know, currently the players can not access the Nether - and while they can get nether related items by doing Lucky Ducks or stealing them from dungeons it is far from easy to do so as that creates a limited supply. The Federation uses Nether blocks to display power. While the players have to struggle to get these blocks, the Federation can just snap their fingers or clap their hands, and they'll have it. It's a power the players don't have. It's to show that, no matter what, where the players stand currently is below the Federation (or so they believe). A small detail I really enjoy showing this is how, during the Elections Dinner, you could see the Federations symbol outlined in gilded blackstone on the floor- another example to them using Nether blocks in relation to themselves.

Subset of this fact is the Federations use of warped wood items in particular. No matter what, items from the Warped Forest biome are constantly used. No matter where you look for federation furniture, there is warped wood - chairs, tables, etc.. It's all Cucurucho places down and gives out. Even Walter Bob, when they talked on signs, used only warped signs (as well as Elisangela, the capybara, for that matter). You can also see warped stems be used to mark things or to symbolize Federation presence. When Quackity was being kidnapped, Cucurucho used a warped stem to mark where the warp plate was. In the tunnel to Cucuruchos office, there are warped stems. In the most recent lore, there were warped stems all outside Cellbits office. And theres probably more instances I'm probably not thinking of! This is all to say that the federation loves warped wood. I don't think I've seen them use crimson wood much (if at all).

Now, why is that important, you may ask? Well, Warped Wood biomes are the most unique biome in the game. It's the only Nether biome that can't have any hostile mobs spawn in it (only striders and endermen). It's also the only biome in the game that does not have music play when you're in it. And for most people, this creates a very eerie feeling. It's a safe haven, but it doesn't feel safe because of the deafening silence. The lack of soundtrack compared to the rest of the game is sudden and tense and wrong-feeling. This is just like the Federation, I think. They pose themselves as a "safe haven", or those wanting to create one, when they very much don't feel safe.

As a smaller sidenote, the Federation also enjoys using end blocks as well but not nearly as much as nether items. But, you can see this use in the Election Dinner area where when it was the black dome, you can see end rods be used behind the glass (possibly to create the stars effect or just for lighting or just to look cool). Another instance is in the Federation Offices you can see 4 end crystals proudly displayed on pedestals in the middle. These are both items either hard to obtain or impossible to obtain. I think that, once the players gain access to the Nether, we'll see the federation start to use end items more frequently to keep that display of power.

TL;DR: The Federation uses Nether items to display power, and their use of warped wood items adds to the eeriness of them as its the only biome in the game with no music but no hostile mobs can spawn there either.

Hope you guys enjoyed my little rambling ^^ please feel free to add on in the tags/reblogs!

[daily-mc-block]

Hi! Your blog is very cool, thank you for creating it.

Can I have Gilded Blackstone (the Blackstone with gold that grows on bastions)? If that is already on your queue, then Crying Obsidian will do. If both are queued, then Yellow Glazed Terracotta.

You can also post all three but that might be cheating. I just really like these blocks.

Thank you! Have a great time.

Hello! I'm really glad you're enjoying this blog!

Crying Obsidian has already been requested by someone else, and is queued up for February 8th!

The Gilded Blackstone is coming on February 10th!

And I have already done the Yellow Glazed Terracota, which you can find here!

Also, there is no limit to how many you can request :) I really like seeing you all happy and sharing all of the wonderful blocks Minecraft has to offer! Hope you have a good day.

[biscgutz]

I think you give off a combination of Nether (Warped forest to be more specific) and the end

Also a cool combo would be Enderman, End dragon, Gilded Blackstone, and crying Obsidian.

Also I'm kinda curious, do you have a favorite minecraft block or item?

I love warped forests and i love the end aesthetic. I think both fit pretty well.

As for blocks or items

I FUCKING LOVE SHROOMLIGHTS!

As for the creature i love this design I made, I think I may create a species around this design!

[blockbenching]

HELLLOOOOOO THOSE GOLD TEXTURES ARE SO SO GOOD and I'm so curious what all it changes?? it's. so pretty. omg,. it would work excellent for piglin/blazeborn/nether based modpacks and im just. zoo wee mama this is excellent. thank you so much. (it would be super cool to see some netherite tweaks that add this kinda shiny gold to the armor; not a request as much as like, i love this so much it kinda makes me wanna try retexturing netherite??)

hello!! the pack changes the gold block, gold ores, raw gold block, gilded blackstone, gold tools, gold armor model and item textures, raw gold, gold ingots, gold nuggets, gold food (except the melon rip), and the totem of undying :D the pack also changes the heart, armor, and xp bar as well as the crosshair

i actually meant to make a netherite pack at some point! i'd probably make several different netherite packs, one with shiny gold like you said

[overmorrowpine]

colors (look up complimentary colors! good combinations are similar blocks (diorite & calcite & white concrete powder, prismarine bricks & oxidized copper & stripped warped stem, etc) and mismatching blocks for aesthetics (deepslate & oxidized copper like mumbo's s9 base, birch & cyan concrete & stone brick)).

for blackstone, block palates i'd use are blackstone (bricks or cracked bricks)/honey block/calcite with a little gilded blackstone or deepslate gold ore if you can get it (lanterns as preferred light source), blackstone (polished or bricks)/warped stem/quartz or white concrete with a few sea lanterns if you can get them (sea lanterns or soul lanterns as preferred light source), blackstone (polished or bricks)/mangrove planks/red terracotta with deepslate redstone ore for accents if you can get it (lanterns for preferred light source).

shapes (don't just do rectangles and flat walls. you know those worksheets in early geometry that's like "here's three shapes put together"? make builds shaped like that. put flower boxes on your windowsills. make pillars running up the sides of your houses with wall blocks. add trapdoors for foundation layer or above your door. have the roof overhang so it shelters a block or two away from your house. add buttons in rows along the walls. add banners or trapdoors for shutters.)

shapes i'd recommend are rectangles that have smaller rectangles sticking off (think entrance hall sticking out of the main building), two rectangles connecting slightly offset at a corner, or a large rectangle with a circular tower, but even a simple square house can look great with an entrance hall and a balcony.

texturing. if you want a larger build to look good from far away, texturing is your new best friend. remember the calcite/diorite/white concrete powder from the first example? you can get an AMAZING white wall by mixing those three together randomly. stone/andesite/gravel, prismarine/copper/warped stem, blackstone/coal block/black concrete powder, just get three blocks of the same ish color and go ham.

interior. good things to fill a space with are bookshelves, flowerpots (the little ones), looms, crafting tables, "couches" (stairs), and tables (slabs). kitchen-specific means go ham on the furnaces; they look like ovens, and with a blackstone pressure plate on top it like like stoves. add barrels, a (waterlogging optional) quartz stair facing the wall for a sink, trapdoors for shelves. if you have pets, place them around the house decoratively. if you have two floors, make the ceiling of the first have "rafters" of logs, and top-slabs for the second story's floor. carpets are a way to make a space look more colorful without doing much at all. barrels are a much nicer looking alternative to chests. hang cool banners from the walls, add paintings, add flowers in pots on shelves. go into a creative world, look at the decoration blocks, and try to match them to a real world thing you'd see in a house.

also, pillars of support-beams go a LONG way. outline the corners of your house in logs, then fill in everything else. the lowest block of your first floor walls being a different block, stone or brick or stripped logs, means it looks like a foundation of the house.

and also, just,, remember You Will Get Better. i used to only be able to build with stone bricks and spruce, and now i'm giving building advice hslfhdkfhsjd. the ability to see blocks for their texture and color, not their purpose, is a skill and one that takes a LONG time to get. you know floors of smithing tables or bee nests? that sort of thinking will come eventually. i've been building stuff in minecraft for maybe four years now and i'm still not that good. so. just keep going i prommy you'll get there

blackstone is such a pretty block it makes me wish i knew how to build

[sweetsmalldog]

I think one of the reasons I like to headcanon magic scars so much beyond the fact that magic scars are a really cool concept is that (at least mine) all revolve around how even if you escaped it death has marked you.

Tommy and Wilbur having lapis blue scars that are reminiscent of runny water color, covering more skin then the wound did due to the volatility of the revive book. 

Jack not technically having a scar because he’s cursed to just have a forever festering black wound that he can’t escape, just like he can’t escape the memories of hell. 

Techno having gold scars that cross his face and body like gilded blackstone, the totem’s magic having brought him back from death immediately. A physical reminder that he did die even if the universe doesn’t technically count it.

[datapacks]

Reflecting on One year of ONE, our server's vanilla End update.

Odds n Ends birthday was yesterday!!!! I'll be trying to set up an anniversary event for it, but the server is offline right now to update us to 1.17.

After said anniversary event, we will officially be moving into development of our next major update. The next phase of the @archhivist "ArchHive" server.

Odds N Ends was ONE, archhive content update 1.0. After this, we will officially be working on 2.0, or TWo.

For Odds N Ends, I had to develop the entire thing on my old PC, where even reloading textures would take about 30 minutes, and would eventually slow down my computer to the point of crashing.

It took months, and I'm really proud of how it turned out, and really happy that my staff and patrons supported its development so intensely. There were so many little bits that were cut from development, some of which are being repurposed in future content, but I have to say, personally, that I'm just... I'm really proud of how it turned out, and how much love and support our community has given, how much excitement we saw over my content... that directly drove my own excitement to create more things for the update.

We've talked about it a lot before in the server, but we've considered releasing merch for some of the stuff. At the very least, I'd love to make (and release) a sewing pattern for Lurkers, given how absolutely and ludicrously popular their design is with our players.

ONE was the first major success I've seen for a completely independent project I've worked on, and it will always hold a super special place in my heart because of that. However, moving forward, I hope our second update, the TWo following our ONE, will meet everyone's expectations, and then absolutely surpass them. The amount of things I am capable of now, especially thanks to developments with plug-ins (even a plug-in coded specifically at my request by a friend).

The name for the 2.0 / TWo update, as I've talked about before, is Tide Worn.

The Tide Worn update will focus on Winds and Oceans, updating the mountains with features inspired by Minecraft Dungeons, including a new beacon-like block that will allow players to throw ender pearls with no gravity, and some pretty cool other little things, such as goat villagers, wind temples, and a few new blocks and items to accommodate them.

The Ocean, however, is and will be the main focus. Players will be able to find a new Elder Monument, deactivate the Elder Conduit, learn more about the history of the world of minecraft (though in true minecraft fashion, indirectly), and make their way to a new dimension: The Abyss.

To compliment this, we will be reworking the minecraft brewing system to the best of our ability, and I even bought a premium plug-in to add entirely new enchantments to the game.

One example of this will be the Breathtaker enchantment, which will restore oxygen on attacking mobs.

As for potions, we'll be introducing a few new ones (haste, anyone?), antidotes using warped nether sprouts that can be used to remove singular potion effects, super-long and super-strong Elixirs and Droughts, and more.

There is also a focus on making Lapis Lazuli much more important in the game-play loop, although we are still HEAVILY working on ideas for this feature. As of right now, we would like players to be able to acquire Lapis Tomes, and enchant them, being able to Choose what enchantment you would like.

Beyond that, we are trying to allow players to use these tomes to even enchant their gear Beyond the normal, such as Sharpness 6- though these enchantments will come with some drawbacks to balance them out, such as potentially not being able to have mending applied.

Other focuses will be on making Gold a better block to build with (we already have textures for chiseled gold and gold bricks), making lapis better to build with (we have smooth lapis and lapis bricks done), and we even already have an equivalent to gilded blackstone in our gilded lapis.

A few other sneak peaks of upcoming blocks we're working on introducing, by name: shale, soap, salt, shell, and two new variant groups of prismarine, elder and ancient prismarine.

The Abyss will be, hopefully, a terrifying dimension to explore. Players will be underwater constantly, and have blindness applied to them if they are ever out of range of a conduit. We are trying to make it feel VERY claustrophobic, and very vertically oriented. With 1.17, we're hoping to try to make it 512 blocks tall, from Y=-512 to Y=0.

The idea behind the Abyss is that it is effectively a Water counterpart to the Nether, adjacent to the overworld in an entirely different way.

Of course, we're also still working on our core updates (fixing worldgen to make it more interesting for instance), and on our community updates (see: the guild system). These updates don't have official versions associated with them just yet, but the Guilds will launch 1.0 of our community update pipeline.

Anyway, stay tuned, and please before 1.17 drops on the server later today, wish Odds N Ends a happy birthday!

Here's to ONE year of lurker festivals 🤍

[piranya]

slaps table. 22; 40, fill in the blank with "minecraft block" sil vous plait

22. do you have a collection of cool rocks? i DO!! well, they're cool to me but really they're mostly just regular rocks that i've stolen from the beach :^/

40. what’s your favorite [MINECRAFT BLOCK]? this is SO HARD :^(( the "warped" blocks have such a nice color palette i'm tempted to say those but also have u HEARD the cool noise those goth ass deepslate blocks make when u place them,,, (also crying obsidian & gilded blackstone are Pretty)

[infinitethree]

Hey, I was sort of wondering about first impressions and later if that impression changed. What was Daz’s first impression of Daydream, Theo, and Vio and did that impression change later on?

And what about Aver and Karl Prime? I’m a little curious about Daz’s first impression of them. Did your thoughts change after learning about Karl Prime’s time traveling?

Daz is back in the main Council rooms, with their quartz pillars and walls with irregular patterns of gilded blackstone dotted among regular blackstone.

Specifically, he’s laying down on the light grey couch, idly inspecting a magic 8 ball. He appears to be alone. “A deal’s a deal, Scribe. Keep your end and I’ll keep mine.”

The display of the toy changes, the answer now reading You may rely on it. Daz gives a soft huff at it, more tired than actually amused. He sets it down on the coffee table, then he turns to look at the ceiling. As he laces his hands together over his stomach he says, “Congratulations, Observers. I’ve negotiated a second deal that lets you ask questions to Khons and Aleph again. Try not to fuck it up this time.” While it’s not the most threatening he’s sounded when speaking to them, there’s a certain venom to his words that puts it up there.

The next part is not one he looks forward to, but…he has no choice. Not only is it important that he uses every advantage he has, it was part of the bargain he made.

His eyes drift closed and he lets himself sink into his own mind.

When his eyes open, he stands at a familiar oak door. It's been barred shut with thick iron chains and there are claw marks at the base of it.

An echoing laugh sounds out as Daz reaches out to touch the chains. They vanish like they were never there and the door swings open.

It had once been a small but cozy room stitched together from memories and things he liked. A table from his time with Phil, made of sturdy oak and carved with mementos of the past. Now it’s little more than splinters and sawdust. A long dead fireplace of once-cheerful red bricks like the one in the Dream Team base, a witness to countless arguments about cheating in assorted games. Two comfortable chairs mangled almost beyond recognition. Flowers from an old friend, shriveled and sure to vanish into dust were they touched at all.

Plastered across the walls are countless pictures that shifted through scenes and memories at a dizzying speed. Some he can’t bear to watch, while others draw his attention despite himself.

In the middle of the ruined room with its cold fireplace, sat Daz.

Or, rather, his reflection. The entity mirrors his appearance, down to nicks and scrapes, but the details are different. The hoodie, though the same style as Daz's, is solid red. Not bright red, but a deeper version closer to the color of cooling blood from a fatal wound. The earrings in its ears are almost all the same shapes, but in a silver tone so bright it's nearly white. 

The largest difference, bar the colors, is where the Shield earcuff should have been. Instead, it has a chunk of faceted malachite.

The thing smiles at him. "Isn't it funny how you shove me in a box when you think I won’t be useful? How you get to decide when I have value, and when I deserve freedom–"

Daz cuts the other-him off. "You tried to convince me to take over the server. I would be dead or, worse, back there if I let you stay free. I did what I had to do.” He sighs and adds reluctantly, “...I can't imagine you gave up your name, monster mine."

The other Daz grins, just a little too wide with teeth just a little too sharp. "Of course not. You may have abandoned the name Tommy, but Innit is mine."

Daz scoffs softly. "You've been watching. How much do you know?" Innit’s smile only grows. It mockingly coos, "I know plenty. I won’t let you chain me a third time. You made me and yet went right back to trying to deny me. I am you. Such terror for your admin-self…I’d be insulted if it wasn't warranted."

It gets to its feet, brushes off the mimicry of dust from its clothes, and walks past Daz out the door. "Come along now, my petulant host. You were asked a question. Our mysterious benefactor wanted me free, so let's show the Observers what they’ve been missing out on."

Daz watches as Innit dissolves into a fine mist, its grin and not-quite-right eyes the last things to fade. The mist sinks down and Daz can feel the thing settling under his skin. (Where it belongs. Where it always belonged.) Then he steps back and rises back into his body.

Only a minute or two has passed and nothing is notably different about him when he opens his eyes.

"The T3 were my salvation. They arrived aware enough to help but uninformed enough to fool. That was all that mattered--that I was able to trick them to escape my original server so I could cause as much damage to Dream as possible." The words border on robotic, detached in a rather eerie way. A whisper hisses through his mind. Traitor-danger-enemy. Dream got what he deserves–to rot in the ruins of what could have been paradise.

Prime, it was going to be weird to readjust to a second voice in his head. Go fuck yourself, you weren’t the one shoved in a box again– And it had tried to bring their precarious house of cards crashing down. A Dream is a Dream is a Dream. Dangerous and waiting for a chance to strangle the happiness of everyone around him–

Daz has more important things to do than have this argument again. If the fucking Scribe wanted Innit free, fine. Whatever. It was a price worth paying for Lee. That child again, his monster snarls. You do so much for him…only for him to be like us. Glowing with an admin-spark and soon placed under the thumb of an admin-Dream so he can learn how to destroy everything he touches.

Only years of practice keep Daz’s expression blank despite the utter rage those words inspire in the wreckage that was once his heart. He’s not going to rise to that bait, nor entertain the road it wants him to go down. Not in words and certainly not action.

His tone hasn’t changed at all as he continues out loud, “Day is a good dad, despite being a Dream. He’s more perceptive than he lets on. Theo is…weird, but in a mostly good way. He truly wants to help others, though his first and strongest loyalty is to his family. Vio is even weirder and more unsettling than I first realized. Anything I learn about him raises more questions than it answers.”

Three threats. They would get in the way. They would destroy the two of them without hesitation if they tried anything stupid. Like, say, trying to usurp Lucid. He’s not fucking trustworthy, sure, but acting rashly has fucked the two of them over in the past. It’s better to be patient.

Fury that isn’t his bubbles in his veins. Patient?! PATIENT?! I was shoved back in a box after I helped you orchestrate our swan song! After everything that was ours shattered like fucking glass! I was trying to protect us, but you developed a bleeding heart for a Trojan horse– And he had been right to put it back in there. Innit was a monster, and Daz had been a fool to ever think otherwise. You got attached. That’s dangerous. He’s so fucking vulnerable! If anyone knew, they would use him to cripple this entire place. We can’t afford that. Congratulations, it has eyes and half a brain! No fucking shit Lee is critical to the server. The scariest people on the server would crumble like sand if he was hurt.

Laughter like knives meets that as the thing mocks, You consider yourself one of those people. But you aren’t. You’re a coward hiding behind a mask so you don’t have to face the truth. Your friends are just allies whose interests currently align with yours, the only reason you have to keep going has no idea how vital he is, and everyone thinks you a fool. Better a fool than a target.

Shockingly, it doesn’t have a witty retort for that.

"Aver was startling. Theo was one thing, but…I was like Aver, at one point." And then you took the hand of a jealous monster who wrapped a noose of false moonlight around our throat– Fucking bold to lay all the blame for that at his feet! Innit was the one who saw Dream bare his throat for them and decided to make him care.

I wasn't the one who was real. You could have refused him– And what? Please, enlighten him what other path there could have been, how he could have possibly foreseen any of this. Especially as a stupid, blind child who was offered his heart’s desire on a silver platter.

Infuriatingly, it falls silent again. "Now I see the similarities between Aver and myself. He’s lucky there aren't more."

Daz waits a beat to see if his admin-self would offer more snide comments. Aside from an indignant scoff, it doesn’t.

Thus he continues. "Lore, Karl Prime, is…fine, I guess. Not really any special feelings. I disliked my Karl, but this one I don't bear any particular ill will towards. He has a nice store."

Karl had been the brightly colored harbinger of the end of his joy. One tiny stone that resulted in multiple deaths, both of people and his happiness.

A bloodied crown. Pointed fingers. Sugar and rot on his tongue. Familiar eyes shining in betrayal before they turned sightless. A grave no one would find. Words meant to be read in the aftermath, left for the only one who had bothered to ask questions. Too little, too late. I hope he punched Dream, though. That thought kept me warm in that wretched little box. I'll make you regret doing that. You should know by now not to cross me.

And Innit should know by now that he doesn’t give a shit. Daz is the one in control and he’ll block his miserable, petty little monster at every turn. Promises, promises. You know what they say about making ones you can’t keep.

Well wasn’t that ominous. “Learning about his time travel explained a few things about my Karl. Sometimes I wonder what future he prevented by doing what he did.” Sometimes he wondered why Karl didn’t stop him. It should have been easy–there were countless times when everything could have been fixed.

Instead, Daz was left with the wrong blood on his hands and a void where his heart should have been.

It’s long since passed unsettling and gone right into eerie, the way Daz remains motionless and expressionless on the couch. If you couldn’t see his chest rising, mouth moving, or his occasional blinking, he could pass for a corpse. His monotone voice isn’t helping that at all. “You aren’t Break or Chime; the phrasing is different from theirs. You must be one of the ones who is supposed to learn from us. I’d tell you to find a better teacher, but if I need to tell you that you’re already a lost cause.”

Maybe not entirely. What Daz doesn’t appreciate, his monster very well would.

…Oh?

From somewhere intangible inside of Daz’s mind, Innit cocks its head to the side in curiosity.

It knows when Daz is ignoring him. That isn’t the case now. Whatever is happening, Daz is none the wiser.

“Oh, this is rich,” Innit laughs, slowly bringing its hands together in a few slow claps. “The fucking bastard can’t hear me, but I can still be heard. You’ve been listening this whole time, haven’t you? More than just one of you…ha! He’s in for a rude awakening, because he pissed off the wrong…mm. Person isn’t quite right for what I am, but close enough.”

Its arms spread wide and its grin turns too-wide and too-sharp again. A reflection of fire and blood shines in its eyes as it says, “You can imagine how fucking miserable it’s been, locked in his head for three years. It inspires a certain, special kind of hate. He has plenty of secrets tucked away that I know aaaaall about. So go ahead–ask away. I’ll tell you most of what you want to know. After all–I have whatever is going on with all of you, and whatever the hell the Scribe is, to thank for my freedom. I’m happy to repay that debt.”

If that meant that Innit suffered too, then, well…that was fine. Daz stood to lose so much more. Just like Dream had.

Nothing like an encore to make everyone remember the singer, eh?

[mythrilhusk]

Why Can’t You Trust Your Own Eyes: Part 3/?

Part 1 | Part 4

Technoblade takes both regen pots from Hannah and breaks them over Dream. Some of the mist curls around his own wounds, but the smaller, broken man gets the brunt of the healing. Techno's kindness seems almost paradoxical with the brutal ease with which he fought her and her friends during the Banquet. If Bad hadn't dragged her away, he would've killed her, or she might've managed to kill him after a harrowing battle. 

"Thanks," Techno chuffs warmly, eyes twinkling. "We appreciate this." 

Hannah nods, a smile quirking at her lips. "You can't stay here long. Sam will want to search everywhere." 

"Yep." Techno slurps his bowl of mushroom soup. "We've got a destination in mind." 

"We do?" Dream perks up. 

"Yep." Techno doesn't elaborate. "We'll pay you back for this, by the way." 

Hannah hums, considering her options. There's one in particular that's looking more and more appealing. "How much?" 

Technoblade shrugs, smiling. "You wanna negotiate right now?" 

"I've got an offer for you," She replies. "You're pretty stacked, after all, I think you could afford my services." 

"Alright, let's hear it." 

Hannah smiles haughtily. "You first. What are you willing to pay me?" 

Dream tugs quietly on Techno's cape, glaring warily at Hannah. Technoblade unhooks his cape and casually wraps Dream into a burrito before turning back to the bartering. "I've got several villagers. I can give you permanent trading access to them." 

Villagers would be useful. She hasn't exactly captured any of her own yet, after all. "Hmm, tempting. And that would be for?" 

"That would be for the hospitality you've given us," Techno says, crossing his arms. 

"Hm, alright. I want to sweeten the deal for both of us, though." Hannah grins. Dream huddles in his cape-burrito and remains silent. Techno nods for her to continue. 

So she spreads her arms and offers, "I'll go with you, and give you weapons, armor, and food for the journey. I'll protect you, both of you, and I won't betray you to any of your hunters." 

"K, and what's the price?" Technoblade picks at his tusk, seeming bored, but Hannah can tell he's at least somewhat interested. 

"Six netherite blocks." 

"That's a bit steep for what you're offerin', not gonna lie," Techno laughs, then sobers. "But I'd say it's doable, perhaps, if we add on one more little perk. Help us with our goals, and it's a done deal." 

"What kind of goals?" Hannah Rose tries to hide her intrigue. 

"Oh, you know, mercenary stuff. Killing people, dismantling certain builds. Vengeance." 

Hannah pulls a book and quill from her inventory. "Three. Three missions each, and you give me one netherite block per completed mission." 

She nibbles on the feather quill, musing over words. When she finally glances up, Technoblade holds out his paw for it. 

He reads through it, humming thoughtfully. "Alright, this works for me. Dream?" He gives the book to his companion. 

Dream reads through it and confirms his acceptance with a silent, sullen nod. Technoblade takes it, signs it, and hands it back to Hannah. 

After storing the book in an ender chest, Hannah sorts through her chests, looking for her spare sets of armor and weapons. Technoblade grabs a diamond sword, tutting at the lack of netherite. 

Dream flinches back when Technoblade turns around. "Please, sir, I'm sorry!" He whimpers, curling deeper into his cape-burrito. Anger stabs Hannah's heart at the sheer terror in his quavering voice. 

Techno immediately sheathes the sword and kneels before Dream's bed. He directs Dream's attention to the wall. "Hey, hey, look at this. Cool, right? The gold melts at a lower temperature and seeps into the blackstone." 

Hannah watches, concerned and bemused, as Dream claws petulantly at the gilded blackstone. "Shiny," He mutters. 

"Yeah, uh, wanna use a tool for that?" Techno jerks his head at Hannah. 

Sighing, she tosses an iron pickaxe over. "Technoblade, a word, please?" 

"Yeah?" Techno smiles innocently at her as he assists Dream in digging up the gilded blackstone on the wall of her not-so-secret-anymore base. 

"How am I supposed to protect him if he's triggered by fucking swords?" She crosses her arms, trying to hide her concern. 

Techno's eyes darken and he glances away. "Don't worry about it. Do what you need to, and I'll take care of him." 

"Right," Hannah sighs. "Okay." She watches Dream as he cradles the gilded blackstone with an expression of innocent delight. He's been hurt far, far more horribly than any person deserves to be hurt. 

"Okay, I think you should put it back, now," Techno gestures to the hole in the wall. Dream snarls and curls protectively around the block in his hands. 

"It's fine. I have plenty," Hannah reassures. "Keep it." 

"It's mine," Dream states, and that's that. 

Techno shrugs, patting Dream's shoulder gently. "So, you got a plan?" 

"I've got a nether portal," Hannah starts, but Techno shakes his head. 

"I think we should avoid the Nether if at all possible." 

"Alright. We've got two options for escaping without being noticed." Hannah takes a deep breath and lets it out in a huff. This is it. "Either we go underground, or we disguise you both. Sam will be watching all inter-aether communications, so even if you have other allies, you can't tell them where we are." 

"Disguises?" Technoblade raises an eyebrow. "How exactly are you gonna disguise this?" He gestures to his sturdy piggy self. 

Hannah smirks and reaches into her ender chest. "Don't fucking doubt my methods." 

Several misses and two successes later, Hannah steps back from her handiwork. "Perfect." This'll be the easiest six netherite blocks she's ever earned.  

Technoblade frowns behind his mask of makeup. "All this stuff on my face is irritatin'," He deadpans. 

"Shut up, I'm committing this to memory." Hannah grins, then gestures for Dream to come out of hiding. "Come on, it's not that bad." 

"I like the floofy robes," Techno says cheerfully, swirling his dress around. He's actually rather wiry beneath all the shaved-off fluff, and his mane has been braided into a fetching crown, complete with flowers. His old crown has been stored in the ender chest. "But I fail to see how this helps us. They'll recognize me, at least, I'm kinda the only pig person on this server." 

Dream sulks behind Techno, draped in his cape and dressed up in a sparkly leotard and cargo pants. His broken mask has been replaced with a beaked masquerade mask. His green, fluffy feelers peek out from the sides. "I want my mask," He growls. 

Hannah hands it over, and he slips the cracked ivory mask on underneath the more colorful one. "This won't fool Sam, yeah. But if we're lucky, anybody who encounters us will be confused, and we can strike first, leave no witnesses." 

A splash sounds from the entrance. Hannah whirls around, drawing her sword and ignoring Dream's whimper. 

Bad's voice echoes through the unsecret base. "Hannah? Sam sent me to check on you. Are you okay?" 

Hannah takes a step forward. But Bad is her friend. He let her-- made her-- join the Eggpire. She can't- she can't betray the Eggpire like this. She can't kill him. 

Besides, the Egg wouldn't let her. 

++++

AN: I’ve put the first three parts up on AO3 as one chapter ;p 

Part 1 | Part 4

[sebastianshaw]

@sammysdewysensitiveeyes - I felt bad you weren’t getting a lot of Pyro content in canon, so I wrote you some!

The next member of their team was meant to be arriving today. She was going to be a...most unusual addition. She was human. Pyro didn’t like it. The entire POINT of Krakoa was to keep away from humans who would hurt them. And sure this human allegedly very much did NOT want that, it was why Xavier handpicked her to be involved, and Xavier could vet a person inside and out...but Pyro couldn’t help WORRYING. Maybe she wasn’t a conscious plant, but what if someone was using her without her knowing? How was Xavier checking for THAT? Maybe the rest of Krakoa was happy to put their fate in the hands of men like him and Magneto and Sebastian Shaw, but Pyro was of the firm opinion that the guys on top never really had the best interest of the bottom at heart. But that didn’t mean he’d pass up a chance to roast some Verendi pigs, which was what had just been provided---the ship of their new ally had been attacked en route, big surprise, and thus the current crew of the Marauder---Sebastian, Shinobi, and Pyro---had been deployed to intervene. Shinobi kept their own boat safe while Pyro and Sebastian boarded the other---just in time to witness one of the Verendi hurling a sari-clad woman off the deck by her throat. “Allerdyce, take care of the rest,” said Shaw, tearing his shirt and jacket off with his bear---er, bare---hands. Not taking it off, literally TEARING. “Are you kidding?!” Pyro asked, shocked both at Shaw’s apparent intentions and at how beefed up the old bastard was under those tailored suits. Like he had eyes, he could tell the guy was huge, but JEEZUS. “I’m not having my team fail this early,” Shaw said, “And besides--” The rest came out mid-air as he dove into the drink, “--you’re hardly in swimming shape.” Secretly hoping he ‘teammate’ drowned, Pyro returned to the fray, gleefully keeping the Verendi at bay with his flames. That was the easy part. The hard part was not blowing them up in their stupid suits, or boiling them alive, or--- “ALLERDYCE!” he heard the oh-so-charming shout of his new ‘boss’ barking for him, just as the fun was over. “What, did you--” Pyro started to ask as he hustled over, admittedly not as fast as he could have. “Do the damn chest compressions!” Shaw cut him off. The woman, soaking wet and unconscious--or worse--was laid out on the deck. “Why--” “Because at my current strength I will pulverize her bones!” Shaw bellowed. Pyro didn’t like taking orders from Shaw, but he wasn’t about to let this lady die right in front of him either if half of what he’d heard about her was true, no matter what his misgivings might be about involving her in the Marauders. So he duly obeyed with the compressions, as well as mouth to mouth just so Shaw couldn’t. Because f this woman was an ally to mutantkind she deserved better than that. It worked. She gasped, her body jolting. “Alright, there she is” said Shaw, “You keep her conscious, Allerdyce---someone has to steer this ship.” With that, he departed to find the helm and radio Shinobi to let him know all was well, and knock out any remaining hostiles. Pyro glared at his back as he went, but then quickly turned his attention back to the semi-conscious woman, who was moving slightly now, her eyes glazed. She said something unsteadily in a foreign language. Well, in a language that wasn’t English; Pyro had been a foreigner in Southeast Asia and learned it really a matter of perspective. Speaking of that... “That Gujarati, love?” he asked gently. He couldn’t speak it nor understand it, but he thought he recognized it. He’d never got as far as India in his travels as a journalist, but he’d encountered this language in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malayasia. Sounded a bit different from her though, maybe because she was from India directly. Or just because she was terribly waterlogged. She mumbled something else weakly in the same tongue, putting one of her hands to her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak it,” he said, truly apologetic. The was woman silent for a moment, and her eyes closed. Oh no. Had he lost her? God, Shaw was never going to let him hear the end of it! Then she opened them, and said, “I apologize, I do speak English, I just...needed a moment.” ��Take two, you earned ‘em,” Pyro smiled relieved. She began sitting up slowly, and Pyro helped her. “I...assume you saved me?” “Well, I helped,” he said, then amended, “Someone else go you out from the drink but I did the rest, getting you breathing again and all.” “Thank you, so much, I really have no idea what to say,” she sounded rather awed. Oh man, he’d forgotten what it was like to be a superhero! He’d never much cared for that life in general, the idea of just DOING things for people for nothing in return, especially people who HATED you for EXISTING as a mutant, but there had been a few times in Freedom Force like this where he felt really GOOD when people were actually grateful. “Aw it’s---it’s nothing, all in a day’s work really,” he said, puffing his chest as best he could, which was nigh-imperceptible given how skinny he was. “You have my deepest gratitude all the same. You also have a good ear---that was indeed Parsi Gujarati. “Ohhh!” Pyro was pleased he’d been right, “Is that why it sounded a bit off from what I heard ‘round Jakarta?” “You do indeed have a good ear! Yes, it’s very distinct. For instance, we use much softer consonants-- They were interrupted by Shaw’s sardonic tone over the intercom, “ I can see our guest is conscious, Mr. Allerdyce, so if you’re quite done flirting, send her to the helm for briefing before we get to the portal. At your leisure, of course.” Pyro did not say ass aloud but it was very, very much written on his face. *** Pyro was waking up waaay to early at Blackstone, specifically in Shinobi’s ridiculously oversized bed, Shinobi himself beside him. Pyro could tell his companion was going to be out cold for a long time yet, and probably wish he’d slept longer when he did wake up. Pyro would have preferred to just stay in bed himself, but nature called. And after a good long piss into the en suite bathroom---kind of surprised that the toilet wasn’t solid gold, although it did have more features than Shinobi’s phone---Pyro himself had yet to adjust to fancy celluars---found himself restless, and undergoing his typical post-drinking cravings for something salty. Kind of weird since wasn’t booze supposed to dehydrate you, but whatever, old man Shaw surely had some kind of super-fancy dried unicorn meat from a lost continent or whatever hanging around somewhere. He just needed to find it. But the place was a maze. Gilded maze, he made a mental note of that for one of his novels as he wandered the huge halls, intending to use it in the internal monologue of the heroine lost in the Marquis’s opulent mansion that nonetheless held an overbearing evil in its walls as potent and palpable in the air as that in his black heart. Actually shit, some of the decor in this place would make for great--- “Wider than a highway, huh?” Pyro had been so lost in cataloguing the fancy bric-a-brac along the way that he’d not noticed it had been joined by a flesh and blood person. Well, maybe flesh and blood, they looked silver. Certainly all the skin he could see was, which was a lot given their short little black robe, though he in his boxers certainly wasn’t about to be scandalized. Wait, silver skin? “Mindmeld, right?” “Shinobi tell you about me?” she was smirking a little. “Yeah, something like that,” he replied. It was suddenly really hard not to say something rude, given WHAT Shinobi had told him, but reminded himself if this woman was fucking Shaw, she deserved PITY more than anything. Plus it wouldn’t do to piss off her off before she told him where she got that coffee cup in her hand. “He didn’t tell me where to find the kitchen though.” “Which one?” Oh god of course there’d be more than one, Shaw probably didn’t want his food prepared in the same area as Shinobi’s guests since they were all people like Pyro. He groaned, lowering his head and burying his long bony fingers in his dandelion puff blond curls, “Just whichever one has some eggs and espresso.” “Come on,” she gestured lightly and turned, leading the way. Damn tall drink of water, might have been taller than Shaw, though far less broad than he was, but more so than Pyro...admittedly, that range probably covered almost everyone on the planet. She didn’t ask his name, so he offered his with some pride, “I’m Pyro, I’m one of the Marauders.” “Neat.” “‘Spect Mr. Shaw has a few things to say about me.” She looked mildly thoughtful a moment, “Uh...no, never mentioned you. I think I’ve heard the Marauders, but not Pyro.” “How about Mr. Allerdyce?” “Definitely not.” Ok, he was kind of insulted now, not by Mindmeld but he took it out on her anyway with a snippy, “Well he hasn’t mentioned you either.” She just gave him a funny look.” “Sorry,” he said abashed at how stupid and spiteful he sounded, “We just don’t get on too well, me and Sebastian.” “What a surprise.” “So you know he’s a pompous asshole.” “Oh yeah, it’s hilarious,” she said, “Like the other day,  these two like, total Eurotrash blonds come in, and he told them they were living proof of how inbreeding ruined the royal Austrian family tree or something, I don’t know, and I just told the guy he shouldn’t wear black if he’s not going to clean the semen stains off it first. The girl, her outfit was great, but nothing I could say was going to be worse than that Basic Bitch haircut.” “So what, you two just hang around talking shit about everyone else like we’re dirt on your shoes?!” Any regret he had about being snippy was suddenly gone. “Yeah, pretty much,” she said, her blase tone not changing. He started to say something else but she turned her head to him and said, tone still the same, “Look, if you’re gonna get precious, I can leave you right here. Next person to find you will probably be him, you know. He’s always up crazy early.” It was a potent threat. Normally Pyro was not afraid at all to deal with that hirsute egomaniac, but in his current state, he was not fit for the battle of barbs. “No, no, lead the way,” he sighed. “Cool,” Mindmeld turned her gaze front again and added, “Sorry you’re mad I’m his dick puppet.” If Pyro had a liquid in his mouth he would have spit it out. He must have made some kind of sound, because she asked, “What, Shinobi not mention that?” “He uh...he mentioned it a lot, yeah. “Good,” she smiled at him, and turned away. Weird. They got to small kitchen, very normal looking. So much so that it felt almost surreally out of place. “Drip’s over there,” Mindmeld pointed. Okay, nice, Shaw had a proper espresso machine. No surprise, he probably kept a full roasting machine and French press and other fancy barista shit in HIS kitchen---he was obviously not using THIS one. While he put on the drip, Mindmeld sat down and started playing idly with a phone left on table, obviously hers. Pyro was sure the bowl of Lucky Charms next to it surely wasn’t Sebastian Shaw’s. “You uh, live here?” “Yeah basically,” she did not look up from her phone, “Beats public housing.” Pyro realized he hadn’t thought about how everyone on Krakoa was living; he’d been basically on a boat the whole time himself. “What, is it bad?” he asked, imagining the crowded slums he’d seen in some of his travels, as well as the crappier apartments he’d stayed in, which was most. “Nah, but this is better.” “Yeah well, the rent seems high to me.” “You just have a different landlord.” “Hey, I’m nobody’s kept--” The espresso shot was ready, and it going off gave him a moment to cool down again. “Sorry, there’s nothing wrong with...with you,” he said, after taking his cup and sitting down across from her, “I just feel bad for Shinobi, he says you two used to be..” . “Together? Kinda, yeah. He tell you the part where he left me to die? or before that, where I was stuck in somebody else’s body and he was still ready to put the guy through a depowering machine while I was inside him?” “I, uh...no.” Was there some kind of mistake? He’d thought Shinobi was harmless. He knew the guy was selfish and spoiled, but it was hard to imagine him that cold. “Yeah, I bet not,” she said, her tone still the same, “He doesn’t seem like he has it in him, does he?” “Uh...no.” “Well, even a rat will bite if it’s back is against the wall,” her eyes rose from her phone and met his intensely, “So if you’re in deep shit, don’t count on him to pull you out.” They went back to her phone,  “He’s beautiful though so, you know, keep doing what you’re doing, I’m not judging.” “Uh...” Pyro had no idea what to say to this, “So is that why...” He had thought it had been money, since anything Shinobi had was actually coming from Sebastian, but now he wondered if it was for... “Vengeance? Pyro nodded. “Could you think of a BETTER way?” Pyro admitted he could not. “You must be pretty dedicated,” he said, still not able to get the ‘ick’ feeling quite out. It wasn’t the idea of sex for benefits his skin was crawling at, it was sex with SHAW. He supposed he could see the physical appeal if that man wasn’t so personally repulsive, but... “I mean, I just came back to life like this month” she shrugged idly, “I’ve got nothing from before to go back to, I’ve got nothing else going on.” “I don’t know, you look like you got it going on to me,” Pyro gave an exaggerated wink. That made her snort-laugh. Okay, he felt they were good now. And he felt suddenly a lot warmer to her. Not from knowing she had better reasons than he thought---the reasons unsettled him actually---but because of how similar their situations were. A situation doubtless shared by many Krakoans but he hadn’t had a real chance yet to talk to many Krakoans. He had planned to spend today fixing that actually, going and finding out if what few friends he’d had in his life before were here now. Like Dom. Wondered if Mindmeld had any, a Dom or a Mort or a Fred. Kinda doubted it, somehow. “Hey, uh, listen,” he began. She looked up from her phone. “Do you wanna go...check out the island with me? I been at sea since I came back, I don’t know what’s on it, but there’s got to be SOMETHING people been doing all day for fun, right?” She regarded him a long moment. “Yeah,” she finally said, “I’d like that."

[monopolizednotes]

Monopolized End Notes, p.1-250

Here are the end notes for pages 1-250 of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power by David Dayen.

Introduction

1 announced a $300 million deal Becky Peterson, “Salesforce Is Paying $300 Million to Acquire Its Own Charitable Foundation, and It Could Add as Much as $200 million to Its Annual Revenue,” Business Insider, April 15, 2019.

1 In its announcement Salesforce press release, “Salesforce and Salesforce.org Combine to Drive Greater Philanthropic Impact and Success for Social Good Organizations,” PR Newswire, April 15, 2019.

1 On a conference call  Therese Poletti, “Salesforce.com Buys Salesforce.org, and That’s the Only Straightforward Part,” CBS Marketwatch, April 16, 2019.

1 made sixty acquisitions since 2006 Crunchbase, “List of Salesforce’s 60 Acquisitions,” www.crunchbase.com/search/acquisitions/field/organizations/num_acquisitions/salesforce.

1 Expedia Group bought Liberty Expedia Holdings Olivia Carville, “Barry Diller’s Expedia Group to Buy Liberty Expedia in All-Stock Deal,” Bloomberg, April 21, 2019.

2 I’ve read their papers Antitrust status quo defenders include Carl Shapiro, “Antitrust in a Time of Populism,” Haas School of Business, University of California–Berkeley, February 27, 2018, faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/antitrustpopulism.pdf, and Herbert Hovenkamp, “Whatever Did Happen to the Antitrust Movement?,” Notre Dame Law Review 94, no. 2 (2018): 583–638.

2 found increases in concentration Gustavo Grullon, Yelena Larkin, and Roni Michaely, “Are U.S. Industries Becoming More Concentrated?,” Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper No. 19-41, last revised September 11, 2019, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2612047.

2 found similar systematic increases Council of Economic Advisers, “Bene ts of Competition and Indicators of Market Power,” April 2016, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/20160414_cea_competition_issue_brief.pdf.

3 top three health insurance companies “Market Share and Enrollment of Largest Three Insurers—Individual Market,” Kaiser Family Foundation, 2018.

3 allegory about unrestrained capitalism Jordan Zakarin, “John Carpenter Looks Back on ‘They Live’: ‘It’s Not Science Fiction. It’s a Documentary,’” Yahoo Entertainment, October 9, 2015.

3 random, six-minute-long fight scene You can watch the epic fight scene between Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=4 -MVMbm6c0k.

3 all owned by the same company Kaitlyn Tiffany, “Nearly All of the Big Dating Apps Are Now Owned by the Same Company,” Vox, February 11, 2019.

3 got bought in November Sara Ashley O’Brien, “Blackstone Acquires Dating Apps Bumble and Badoo Amid Investigation into Former Owner,” CNN, November 8, 2019.

3 most of the big ones Julie Brown, “Get to Know Your New Ski Resort Conglomerate,” Powder Magazine, January 18, 2018.

3 a division of Tyco Mark Maremont, “Tyco Rules Plastic-Hangers Market Through Aggressive Acquisitions,” Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2000.

3 a 2006 acquisition Mainetti press release, “Mainetti Group Announces Agree- ment to Acquire A&E Products Group from Tyco,” March 23, 2006, www.mainetti.com/us/latest/article/?nitm=52.

4 earned around 40 percent Brett Heinz, “It’s Time to Break Up Disney,” American Prospect, October 1, 2019.

4 a division of Kroger A list of Kroger brand names can be found at www.thekrogerco.com/about-kroger/our-business/grocery-retail.

4 peanut butter Data from the Open Markets Institute, concentrationcrisis .openmarketsinstitute.org/industry/peanut-butter.

4 jelly Data from the Open Markets Institute, concentrationcrisis .openmarketsinstitute.org/industry/jelly.

4 All that toothpaste? Joseph Solitro, “Procter & Gamble vs. Colgate-Palmolive: Which Toothpaste Titan Posted the Better Quarter?,” The Motley Fool, June 11, 2014.

4 disruptive, healther brands Annie Gasparro and Saabira Chaudhuri, “So Long, Hamburger Helper: America’s Venerable Food Brands Are Struggling,” Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2017.

4 Naked Juice comes from PepsiCo Helena Bottemiller Evich and Catherine Boudreau, “The Big Washington Food Fight,” Politico, November 26, 2017.

4 part of Unilever Saabira Chaudhuri, “Outfoxed by Small-Batch Upstarts, Unilever Decides to Imitate Them,” Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2018.

4 Blue Bottle coffee Michael J. de la Merced and Oliver Strand, “Nestlé Targets High-End Coffee by Taking Majority Stake in Blue Bottle,” New York Times, September 14, 2017.

4 brought the incumbents back Stephen Wilmot, “Disrupted Consumer Giants Are Fighting Back,” Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2019.

4 One article headline Lauren Hirsch, “Yogurt Is Cool, So Deal Talk Is Heating Up,” CNBC, January 12, 2018.

4 merged with Luxottica Axios, “How We’re Reading: The New Eyeglass Giant,” May 12, 2018.

4 supplying more than a billion lenses Sam Knight, “The Spectacular Power of Big Lens,” The Guardian, May 10, 2018.

4 EssilorLuxottica bought GrandVision Matthias Blamont, “EssilorLuxottica Sets Sights on Retail Dominance with $8 Billion GrandVision Deal,” Reuters, July 30, 2019.

5 office supply wholesaler monopoly Advocates for Independent Business, “In Joint Comments to Federal Trade Commission, AIB Members Oppose Recently Approved Staples-Essendant Merger,” February 28, 2019, indiebizadvocates.org/2019/02/28/ftc-comments-aib-members-oppose-staples-merger.

5 sanitary napkin monopoly IBISWorld, “Top 10 Highly Concentrated Indus- tries,” February 10, 2012, news.cision.com/ibisworld/r/top-10-highly-concentrated-industries,c9219248.

5 font monopoly Iris Dorbian, “HGGC to Buy Monotype for $825 Mln,” PE Hub Network, July 26, 2019, www.pehub.com/2019/07/hggc-to-buy-monotype-for-825-mln.

5 matzo monopoly Joseph Berger, “‘Man, Oh Manischewitz’: Kosher Food Merger Opens New Chapter for Famous Name,” New York Times, August 2, 2019.

5 Entire books have been written Jonathan Taplin, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy (New York: Little, Brown, 2017); Franklin Foer, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech (New York: Penguin Books, 2017).

5 “Competition is for losers” Peter Thiel, “Competition Is for Losers,” Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2014.

5 an antimonopoly riot Benjamin Carp, Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010).

6 his 1978 treatise Robert Bork, The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself (New York: Free Press, 1978).

7 no real evidence Guy Rolnik and Asher Schechter, “Do Mergers Benefit or Harm the Economy? Q&A with Bruce Blonigen,” ProMarket, December 23, 2016.

7 look back at approved mergers John Kwoka, Mergers, Merger Control, and Remedies: A Retrospective Analysis of U.S. Policy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014).

7 A 2018 paper Jan de Loecker, Jan Eeckhout, and Gabriel Unger, “The Rise of Market Powerand the Macroeconomic Implications,” November 22, 2018, www.janeeckhout.com/wp-content/uploads/RMP.pdf.

7 Bill Baxter, rewrote the Justice Department guidelines Stephen Calkins, “The New Merger Guidelines and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index,” California Law Review 71 (1983): 402–429.

7 court rulings started to quote Douglas Ginsburg, “Bork’s ‘Legislative Intent’ and the Courts,” Antitrust Law Journal 79, no. 3 (2014): 941–951.

8 a few good books about this history Matt Stoller, Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019); Tim Wu, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2018).

8 Efficiencies equals layoffs Alana Semuels, “The Downsides of ‘Efficiency,’” The Atlantic, March 2, 2017.

8 solve the more difficult puzzle Kevin Drum, “The Mystery of the Tight Labor Market,” Mother Jones, August 6, 2017.

8 Nathan Wilmers estimates Nathan Wilmers, “Wage Stagnation and Buyer Power: How Buyer-Supplier Relations Affect U.S. Workers’ Wages, 1978 to 2014,” American Sociological Review 83, no. 2 (2018): 213–242.

8 a 10 percent decline Simcha Barkai, “Declining Labor and Capital Shares,” University of Chicago, November 2016, research.chicagobooth.edu/~/media /5872FBEB104245909B8F0AE8A84486C9.pdf.

8 about $14,000 per worker Matt Stoller, “Bigger Corporations Are Making You Poorer,” Vice, April 5, 2017.

8 17 percent decline in wages José Azar, Ioana Elena Marinescu, and Marshall Steinbaum, “Labor Market Concentration,” Social Science Research Network, December 10, 2018, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3088767.

8 “superstar firms” David Autor, David Dorn, Lawrence F. Katz, Christina Patterson, and John Van Reenen, “Concentrating on the Fall of the Labor Share,” National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working Paper No. 23108, January 2017.

8 Obama White House Council of Economic Advisers, “Labor Market Monopsony: Trends, Consequences, and Policy Responses,” October 2016, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/20161025_monopsony_labor_mrkt_cea.pdf.

9 classified as independent contractors Françoise Carré, “(In)dependent Con- tractor Misclassification,” Economic Policy Institute, June 8, 2015, www.epi.org/publication/independent-contractor-misclassification.

9 no-poaching agreements Peter Cappelli, Matthew Johnson, and Evan Starr, “How Fair—or Legal—Are Non-Poaching Agreements?,” Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, July 17, 2018, knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-fair-or-legal-are-non-poaching-agreements.

9 workers at its own franchises Alan B. Krueger and Orley Ashenfelter, “Theory and Evidence on Employer Collusion in the Franchise Sector,” National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working Paper No. 24831, July 2018.

9 summer camp counselors Matt O’Brien, “You Know There’s Something Wrong with the Economy When Sandwich-Makers Have Non-Compete Clauses,” Washington Post, October 16, 2014.

9 doggy day-care minders Matt O’Brien, “Capitalism Is Officially Broken: Even Doggy Day Care Workers Have Non-Competes Now,” Washington Post, December 2, 2014.

9 janitors Matt O’Brien, “Even Janitors Have Noncompetes Now. Nobody Is Safe,” Washington Post, October 18, 2018.

9 mandatory arbitration agreement Katherine V. W. Stone and Alexander J. S. Colvin, “The Arbitration Epidemic,” Economic Policy Institute, December 7, 2015, www.epi.org/publication/the-arbitration-epidemic.

9 startup activity has plummeted Economic Innovation Group, “Dynamism in Retreat: Consequences for Regions, Markets, and Workers,” February 2017, eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Dynamism-in-Retreat-A.pdf.

9 fewer new businesses open Ben Casselman, “A Start-Up Slump Is a Drag on the Economy. Big Business May Be to Blame,” New York Times, September 20, 2017.

9 workers employed by younger firms cut in half Ryan Decker, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, and Javier Miranda, “Declining Business Dynamism: Implications for productivity?,” Brookings Institution, September 19, 2016.

9 “kill zone” Noah Smith, “Big Tech Sets Up a ‘Kill Zone’ for Industry Upstarts,” Bloomberg, November 7, 2018.

9 Mergers typically lead to lower innovation Asher Schechter, “Mergers Are Bad for Innovation,” ProMarket, September 29, 2017, promarket.org/mergers-bad-innovation.

9 pretax profits have been at historical highs Washington Center for Equitable Growth, “What’s the Link Between Corporate Profits, Investments, and Economic Growth?,” November25, 2014, equitablegrowth.org/whats-link-corporate-profits-investments-economic-growth.

9 investment remains relatively low Robin Harding, “Corporate Investment: A Mysterious Divergence,” Financial Times, July 24, 2013.

10 low-investment economy doesn’t grow as quickly Jonathan B. Baker, “Market Power in the U.S. Economy Today,” Washington Center for Equitable Growth, March 20, 2017, equitablegrowth.org/market-power-in-the-u-s-economy-today.

10 economic growth has flattened out Nicholas Eberstadt, “Our Miserable 21st Century,” Commentary, February 2017.

10 random outages among its servers Jake Swearingen, “When Amazon Web Services Goes Down, So Does a Lot of the Web,” New York, March 2, 2018.

10 an earthquake in Jiji, Taiwan Danny Vinik, “Inside the New Battle Against Google,” Politico, September 17, 2017.

11 Sony factory that made videotape Carolyn Giardana, “Industry Scrambling After Japan Earthquake, Tsunami Lead to Tape Shortage,” Hollywood Reporter, March 20, 2011.

11 Flu vaccines Anita Manning, “FDA Red-Flagged Flu Vaccine Factory,” USA Today, October 10, 2004.

11 cancer drugs Debra Sherman and Julie Steenhuysen, “U.S. Cancer Drugs Shortage Has Doctors Scrambling,” Reuters, June 7, 2011.

11 refined gasoline Sophia Kunthara, “California Gas Prices Spike After Refinery Problems,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 27, 2019.

11 rise of inequality Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014).

11 monopoly plays a role Lina Khan and Sandeep Vaheesan, “Market Power and Inequality: The Antitrust Counterrevolution and its Discontents,” Harvard Law and Policy Review 11, no. 1 (2017): 235–294.

11 now up 940 percent Lawrence Mishel and Julia Wolfe, “CEO Compensation Has Grown 940% Since 1978,” Economic Policy Institute, August 14, 2019, www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018.

11 a 2016 paper Jae Song, David J. Price, Fatih Guvenen, Nicholas Bloom, and Tili von Wachter, “Firming Up Inequality,” National Bureau of Ecomomic Research, NBER Working Paper No. 21199, last revised June 2015.

11 earn money from having money Matt Bruenig, “The Problem Is Capital,” Jacobin, August 7, 2017.

11 greatest share of overall wealth Robert Frank, “The Top 1% of Americans Now Control 38% of the Wealth,” CNBC, September 27, 2017.

11 Jeff Bezos Catherine Clifford, “Jeff Bezos Says This Is How He Plans to Spend the Bulk of His Fortune,” CNBC, April 30, 2018.

11 responsible for half the economic growth Kim Hart, “The Age of Winner-Take-All Cities,” Axios, July 10, 2019.

11 started around the early 1980s Phillip Longman, “Bloom and Bust,” Washington Monthly, November–December 2015.

11 “geography of discontent” Clara Henderson, Mark Muro, and William Galston, “Countering the Geography of Discontent: Strategies for Left-Behind Places,” Brookings Institution, November 2018, www.brookings.edu/research/countering-the-geography-of-discontent-strategies-for-left-behind-places.

11 dejected and resentful left-behind class Katherine J. Kramer, “For Years, I’ve Been Watching Anti-Elite Fury Build in Wisconsin. Then Came Trump,” Vox, November 16, 2016.

12 nearly 3 million fewer Gregory Krieg, “It’s Official: Clinton Swamps Trump in Popular Vote,” CNN, December 22, 2016.

12 more easily buy politicians Asher Schechter, “Angus Deaton on the Under- Discussed Driver of Inequality in America: It’s Easier for Rent-Seekers to Affect Policy Here than in Much of Europe,” ProMarket, February 8, 2018, promarket.org/angus-deaton-discussed-driver-inequality-america-easier-rent-seekers-affect-policy-much-europe.

12 99 percent of all new advertising Alex Heath, “Facebook and Google Completely Dominate the Digital Ad Industry,” Business Insider, April 26, 2017.

12 Great Lakes and Nelnet Elizabeth Warren, letter to Makan Delrahim, June 26, 2019, www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019.06.25%20Letter%20to%20 DOJ%20re%20Nelnet-Great%20Lakes%20merger1.pdf.

13 destroying black-owned businesses Brian Feldman, “The Decline of Black Business,” Washington Monthly, March–May 2017.

13 farmers Summer Sewell, “There Were Nearly a Million Black Farmers in 1920. Why Have They Disappeared?,” The Guardian, April 29, 2019.

13 apparatus could not exist David Dayen, “Below the Surface of ICE,” In These Times, October 2018.

13 New Brandeis movement Lina Khan, “The New Brandeis Movement: America’s Antimonopoly Debate,” Journal of European Competition Law and Practice 9, no. 3 (2018): 131–132.

13 Herfindahl-Hirschman index Adam Hayes, “Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI),” Investopedia, April 29, 2019, www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hhi.asp

Interlude

15 get his chairman’s letters Warren Buffett 2018 annual letter, www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2018ltr.pdf.

15 the nation’s second-largest auto insurer Insurance Journal, “GEICO Passes Allstate to Become 2d Largest U.S. Auto Insurer: SNL,” December 16, 2013.

15 two-thirds of the local furniture market The Economist, “Don’t Buff It Up,” August 13, 2016.

15 “Woodstock for capitalists” Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Forget Taxes, Warren Buffett Says. The Real Problem Is Health Care,” New York Times, May 8, 2017.

15 a giant arena Nicole Friedman, Erik Holm, and Hanna Sender, “Warren Buffett’s Empire, in 194,300 Square Feet,” Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2019.

15 will cost you $8,950 Trevor Hunnicutt and Jonathan Stempel, “Pilgrimage to See Warren Buffett Out of Step with Populist Mood,” Reuters, May 1, 2019.

15 put $5 billion into Goldman Sachs David Teather and Graeme Wearden, “Markets Boosted as Warren Buffett Invests $5bn in Goldman Sachs,” The Guardian, September 24, 2008.

16 used to see in the 1960s Nicholas Gilmore, “The Forgotten History of How 1960s Conglomerates Derailed the American Dream,” Saturday Evening Post, November 1, 2018.

16 Berkshire subsidiary businesses Listed at www.berkshirehathaway.com/subs/sublinks.html.

16 largest nontechnology company Martin Wolf, “Taming the Masters of the Tech Universe,” Financial Times, November 14, 2017.

16 astronomical $100 billion Thomas Heath, “Warren Buffett’s $100 Billion Problem,” Washington Post, September 8, 2017.

16 told the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting Bob Bryan, “One Quote from Warren Buffett Is the Perfect Advice for Investing in the Age of Uber and Netflix,” Business Insider, May 4, 2019.

16 cheerlead for capitalism Matthew J. Belvedere, “Warren Buffett Rejects Socialism, Calling Capitalism ‘Absolutely a Miracle’ for the United States,” CNBC, May 6, 2019.

16 “economic moat” index Morningstar, “The Morningstar Economic Moat Rating,” January 26, 2016, www.morningstar.com/articles/735365/the-morningstar-economic-moat-rating.

16 another money manager created VanEck, “VanEck Vectors Morningstar Wide Moat ETF,” www.vaneck.com/etf/equity/moat/overview.

1. Monopolies Are Why People Keep Contracting Deep Vein Thrombosis on Long-Haul Flights

19 boarded American Airlines Flight 1348 Jeff Bailey, “An Air Travel Activist Is Born,” New York Times, September 20, 2007.

19 the Toasted Heads You can hear the Toasted Heads singing Aretha Franklin’s “Baby, I Love You” at www.youtube.com/watch?v=61QvBBSrGMI.

20 thirteen thousand American Airlines passengers FlyersRights.org press release, “JFK Tarmac Delays Impact International Travellers,” December 29, 2010,  flyersrights.org/uncategorized/jfk-tarmac-delays-impact-international-travellers.

21 extreme tarmac delays Mark Gerchick, Full Upright and Locked Position: Not-So-Comfortable Truths About Air Travel Today (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), 173–200.

21 devoting her life Bailey, “An Air Travel Activist Is Born.”

21 “We Gotta Get out of  is Plane” You can hear this song at graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/audio/business/19STRANDED_WeGottaGetOutof isPlane.mp3.

21 regulation took another three years Gerchick, Full Upright, 173–200.

21 fined Southwest Airlines NBC News, “U.S. Fines Southwest Airlines Record $1.6 Million for Runway Delays,” January 15, 2015.

22 rapidly canceling flights Robert Channick, “Rule to Prevent Tarmac Delays Backfires for Airline Passengers: Study,” Chicago Tribune, January 5, 2016.

22 Granger movement Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Granger Movement: American Farm Coalition,” www.britannica.com/event/Granger-movement.

22 During Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001).

23 “public convenience and necessity” Phillip Longman and Lina Khan, “Terminal Sickness,” Washington Monthly, March–April 2012.

23 guaranteed airlines a 12 percent profit David Morris, “Airline Deregulation: A Triumph of Ideology over Evidence,” Huffington Post, December 13, 2013.

23 change uniform colors John E. Robson, “Airline Deregulation: Twenty Years of Success and Counting,” Cato Institute, April 1998, www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/1998/4/airline2-98.pdf.

23 climbed to 63 percent Longman and Khan, “Terminal Sickness.”

23 Ted Kennedy Scott McCartney, “Kennedy Pushed Airline Deregulation, Changed U.S. Air Travel,” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2009.

23 Stephen Breyer convinced him Barbara Sturken Peterson, Rapid Descent: Deregulation and the Shakeout in the Airlines (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).

23 Alfred Kahn Dan Reed, “Wrath of Kahn Kept Airfares Low,” USA Today, July 24, 2007.

23 1990 chronicle of deregulation Paul Stephen Dempsey, “Flying Blind: The Failure of Airline Deregulation,” Economic Policy Institute, 1990, www.epi.org/files/2014/flying-blind.pdf.

24 Airline Deregulation Act Michael Arria, “The Surprising Collection of Politicos Who Brought Us Destructive Airline Deregulation,” Alternet, July 3, 2016, www.alternet.org/2016/07/how-liberals-deregulated-airline-industry.

24 one opponent Terry Maxon, “Bob Crandall and Airline Deregulation,” Dallas Morning News, May 27, 2008.

24 collude to raise prices Robert D. Hershey Jr., “American Airlines Target of U.S. Suit,” New York Times, February 24, 1983.

24 cut fuel prices InflationData.com, “Historical Crude Oil Prices (Table),” inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices/historical-crude-oil-prices-table.

24 already had the world’s lowest airfares James W. Callison, “Airline Deregulation—Only Partially a Hoax: The Current Status of the Airline Deregulation Movement,” Journal of Air Law and Commerce 45, no. 5 (1980): 961–1000.

24 two hundred airlines went bankrupt Dempsey, “Flying Blind.”

25 fifty-one airlines merged Dempsey, “Flying Blind.”

25 infamous flyer Gaby Del Valle, “Delta Told Its Workers to Buy Video Games Instead of Unionizing,” Vox, May 10, 2019.

25 another duopoly Mark Pilling, “Food for Thought,” Flight Global, January 1, 2001, www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/food-for-thought-124406. See also Airport Strike Alert, www.airportstrikealert.org/whats-at-risk.

25 Maintenance was outsourced James B. Steele, “The Disturbing Truth About How Airplanes Are Maintained Today,” Vanity Fair, November 9, 2015.

25 80 percent of its aircraft Jake Harris, “Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Union President Responds to ‘Operational Emergency,’ Blames Airline for Issues,” WFAA (Dallas, TX), February 26, 2019.

25 2018 incident Haroon Siddique, “Southwest Passenger Dies After Being Partially Sucked out of Window,” The Guardian, April 18, 2018.

25 United or Delta connecting flight Sid Lipsey, “These Are America’s 10 Largest Regional Airlines,” The Points Guy, May 4, 2019, thepointsguy.com/guides/largest-regional-american-airlines.

26 $15,000 a year Air Line Pilots Association, “Airline Pilot Shortage? None Exists. It’s a Pilot Pay Shortage,” 2014, www.gojetibt618.org/docs/Pilot-Shortage-Fact-Sheet.pdf.

26 carriers shifting to 401(k) Ted Reed, “US Airways Pilots Still Fight for Pension Payouts, 11 Years After Bankruptcy Case,” TheStreet, May 12, 2014, www.thestreet.com/story/12703297/1/us-airways-pilots-still-fight-for-pension-payouts-11-years-after-bankruptcy-case.html; Delta press release, “Bankruptcy Court Grants Delta Motion for Court Approval of Termination of Pilot Pension Plan,” September 5, 2006, news.delta.com/bankruptcy-court-grants-delta-motion-court-approval-termination-pilot-pension-plan.

26 grueling thirty-eight-month bankruptcy Micheline Maynard, “United Air Wins Right to Default on Its Employee Pension Plans,” New York Times, May 11, 2005.

26 imposed such stringent conditions Dempsey, “Flying Blind.”

26 waved it through without conditions Ted Reed, “How Northwest ‘Took Over’ Delta,” TheStreet, March 4, 2009, www.thestreet.com/story/10467663/1/how-northwest-took-over-delta.html.

26 United/Continental Jad Mouawad and Michael J. de la Merced, “United and Continental Said to Agree to Merge,” New York Times, May 2, 2010.

26 Southwest/AirTran Southwest press release, “AirTran Acquisition,” May 2, 2011, investors.southwest.com/stock-information/airtran-acquisition.

26 initially filed suit Justin Elliott, “The American Way,” ProPublica, October 11, 2016.

27 control over 80 percent David Koenig and Scott Mayerowitz, “Analysis: Consolidation of U.S. Airline Industry Radically Reducing Competition,” Associated Press, July 14, 2015.

27 they created “hubs” Longman and Khan, “Terminal Sickness.”

27 American controls 90 percent Scott McCartney, “Why an American Airlines Monopoly Works for Charlotte,” Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2018.

27 consolidated or eliminated hubs Longman and Khan, “Terminal Sickness.”

27 Delta cut back hub operations Mike Ramsey, “Airline Mergers Leave Airports Off the Radar,” Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2011.

27 passenger flights have fallen Shibani Mahtani, “How Cincinnati’s Airport Turned Delta Cutback into Economic Win,” Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2017.

28 Chiquita Banana left Cincinnati Longman and Khan, “Terminal Sickness.”

28 Caterpillar moved its headquarters Matt Buedel, “Exclusive Q&A with Caterpillar Inc. CEO Jim Umpleby About Headquarters Moving,” Peoria Journal Star, January 31, 2017.

28 Prices rose across the board Jack Nicas, “Airline Consolidation Hits Smaller Cities Hardest,” Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2015.

28 only way to fly into state capitals Longman and Khan, “Terminal Sickness.”

28 thirty-two regional airports losing service Hugo Martin, “As Airlines Post Big Profits, Small Communities Lose Service,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2018.

29 majority of all flight delays Gerchick, Full Upright, 12–44; Barbara Peterson, “The Worst U.S. Airports for Flight Delays,” Conde Nast Traveler, February 28, 2017; Sarah L. Stewart, “America’s Best and Worst Airports for Flight Delays,” Travel and Leisure, October 24, 2014.

29 Some airlines don’t value Justin Bachman, “What Do You Want, Cheap Airfare or an On-Time Flight?” Bloomberg, July 31, 2017.

29 padding the schedules Mattha Busby, “Flight Times Extended by Major Airlines to Avoid Payouts, Report Claims,” The Guardian, August 26, 2018.

29 grounding thousands of flights David Dayen, “Unfriendly Skies,” American Prospect, November 3, 2017; Leslie Josephs and Everett Rosenfeld, “Delta Resumes Operations After a ‘Technology Issue’ Briefly Halted Flights,” CNBC, September 26, 2018; Brian Pascus, “A Computer Glitch Forced American Airlines to Cancel Hundreds of Flights, and Customers Are Furious,” Business Insider, June 19, 2018.

29 all experienced a technical glitch Emma Newburger, “Major US Airlines Coming Back Online After Systemwide Outages, Delays Are Expected,” CNBC, April 1, 2019.

29 refused to rebook customers Brian Sumers, “Delta’s Hardline Stance Limits its Ability to Rebook Passengers on Rival Airlines,” Skift, August 11, 2016, skift.com/2016/08/11/deltas-hardline-stance-limits-its-ability-to-rebook-passengers-on-rival-airlines.

29 stock volume went virtually unchanged Matt Levine, “Don’t Panic! Market Fragmentation Will Save You!,” Bloomberg View, July 8, 2015.

29 Delta’s CEO has admitted Susan Carey, “Delta Air Lines CEO Takes Responsibility for Outage,” Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2016.

30 computer meltdowns become more prevalent Diana Moss, “Delivering the Benefits? Efficiencies and Airline Mergers,” American Antitrust Institute, November 21, 2013, www.antitrustinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/AAI_USAir-AA_Efficiencies.pdf.

30 how profitable their enterprise has become Alison Slider, “Pricier Fuel to Test Airline Profits,” Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2018.

30 planes were 83 percent full Bureau of Transportation Statistics, “2018 Traffic Data for U.S Airlines and Foreign Airlines U.S. Flights,” March 21, 2019, www.bts.gov/newsroom/2018-traffic-data-us-airlines-and-foreign-airlines-us-flights.

30 “capacity discipline” Diane Bartz, “Airlines’ Undisciplined Talk May Have Led to Antitrust Probe: Experts,” Reuters, July 2, 2015.

30 Delta announced in April 2019 Eun Kyung Kim, “Delta Is Making a Big Change to Reclining Seats on Its Planes,” Today, NBC, April 17, 2019.

30 Passenger headroom has also been shrinking Scott McCartney, “Feel Squished? Airlines Are Shrinking Headroom, Too,” Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2016.

30 standing “seats” Christopher Muther, “Near-Standing ‘Seats’ Might Be the Awful Future of Flying,” Boston Globe, April 24, 2018.

30 Airplane Wi-Fi is abominable Sam Grobart, “Why Gogo’s Infuriatingly Expensive, Slow Internet Still Owns the Skies,” Bloomberg Businessweek, August 26, 2015.

30 Restrooms have shrunk in size Scott McCartney, “You’re Not Getting Bigger, the Airplane Bathroom Is Getting Smaller,” Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2018.

30 despaired of the contortions Lori Aratani, “Could You Fit in This Airplane Bathroom?,” Washington Post, November 17, 2018.

31 Privacy-sapping cameras Francesca Street, “Can Airplane Seat Cameras Spy on Passengers?,” CNN, March 3, 2019.

31 drawn the ire Francesca Street, “Airplane Seat Cameras: US Senators Demand Answers,” CNN, April 23, 2019.

31 International Air Transport Association report International Air Transport Association, “Unruly Passengers: Fact Sheet,” May 2019, www.iata.org/pressroom /facts_ gures/fact_sheets/Documents/fact-sheet-unruly-passengers.pdf.

31 cameras filmed airline police William Turton, “Hired Goon Drags Man off United Flight After He Refuses to Give Up Seat [Updated],” Gizmodo, April 10, 2017.

31 settling out of court Hugo Martin and Lauren Raab, “United Airlines Reaches ‘Amicable’ Settlement with Passenger Dragged from a Plane,” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2017.

31 didn’t even bother to fine United Faiz Siddiqui, “Feds Won’t Fine United over Dragging Incident, Despite Finding Rules Violations,” Washington Post, September 6, 2017.

31 overbooking flights had at least slowed down Department of Transportation, “Airline Bumping Rate Lowest in Decades,” August 2017, www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/dot6417.

31 told the Washington Post Lori Aratani, “A Year After the Infamous United Dragging Incident, Has Anything Changed for Airline Travelers?,” Washington Post, April 9, 2018.

32 first class seat will cost you dearly Scott McCartney, “First Class vs. Coach: A Game of Square Inches,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2019.

32 consistently drop fares Hugo Martin, “Airfares Fall Again, but Some Suggest Increases May Lie Ahead,” Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2017.

32 hauled in $29.7 billion Jay Sorenson, “2017 Top 10 Airline Ancillary Revenue Ranking,” IdeaWorks and CarTrawler Airline Intelligence, July 2018, www.ideaworkscompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2017-Top-10-Airline-Ancillary-Revenue-Rankings.pdf.

32 once ran a weekend Gerchick, Full Upright, 139–140.

32 famously raised base fares Alexander Eichler, “FAA Shutdown: Airlines Pocket the Difference, Customers Pay the Same,” Huffington Post, September 29, 2011.

32 loyalty credit card fees Andrew Tangel and Alison Slider, “Airlines Cash In on Loyalty Credit Cards,” Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2018.

32 “gate service” fee Scott McCartney, “A New Surprise Airline Fee,” Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2017.

32 passengers bid against one another Aditi Shrikant, “Airlines’ Latest Customer Shakedown? Making You Bid for a Seat Upgrade,” Vox, September 14, 2018.

32 deliberately split up families Helen Coffey, “Airlines Face Crack Down on Use of ‘Exploitative’ Algorithm That Splits Up Families on Flights,” The Independent (UK), November 19, 2018.

33 baggage fees in fall 2018 Zach Wichter, “Airlines Are Raising the Cost of Checked Bags,” New York Times, September 20, 2018.

33 low-cost carriers like Spirit List of Spirit Airlines “optional services” at www.spirit.com/Optionalservices. Ed Perkins, “The 10 Airlines That Charge the Most Fees,” SmarterTravel, July 23, 2018, https://www.smartertravel.com/who-charges-the-most-airline-fees.

33 Sending Spirit a text Rachel Siegel, “Spirit Airlines Is Letting You Book Flights over Text. That’ll Be $25,” Washington Post, August 27, 2019.

33 46.6 percent of Spirit’s revenue Sorenson, “2017 Top 10 Airline Ancillary Revenue Ranking.”

33 “basic economy” fares Scott McCartney, “Hate Basic Economy Fares? More Are Coming,” Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2017.

33 Jet Blue decided Cyrus Sanati, “JetBlue Will Need to Fight for Its Soul Against Wall Street,” Fortune, September 2, 2014.

33 told a local paper Karen Robes Meeks, “JetBlue CEO David Barger Reflects on 10 Years,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, February 12, 2010.

33 stock analysts hated the idea Ted Reed, “JetBlue Analysts Say ‘Bring Us the Head of Dave Barger,’” TheStreet, August 20, 2014, www.thestreet.com/story/12851404/1/jetblue-analysts-say-bring-us-the-head-of-dave-barger.html.

33 ran him out of town Ted Reed, “Why JetBlue CEO Dave Barger Was Chased Out by Wall Street,” TheStreet, September 18, 2014, www.thestreet.com/story/12885110/1/why-jetblue-ceo-dave-barger-was-chased-out-by-wall-street.html.

33 rolled back the legroom Hugo Martin and Christine Mai-Duc, “JetBlue Cutting Legroom, Adding Checked-Bags Fee for Some Fliers,” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2014.

33 parceled out the “improvements” Reed, “JetBlue Analysts Say.”

33 wrote Cowen and Co. analyst Reed, “JetBlue Analysts Say.”

34 Warren Buffett joked Leslie Josephs, “Buffett Sticks with Big Airline Bet, Even as Value Drops,” CNBC, November 14, 2017.

34 By the end of 2018 Securities and Exchange Commission, Berkshire Hath- way Form 13F, October31, 2018, www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983 /000095012319002221/xslForm13F_X01/form13fInfoTable.xml.

34 2014 research note Goldman Sachs Equity Research, “Does Consolidation Create Value?,” February12, 2014, www.documentcloud.org/documents/3124001-Goldman-merger-analysis.html#document/p3/a320730, 3.

34 among the top ten investors José Azar, Martin Schmalz, and Isabel Tecu, “Anti-competitive Effects of Common Ownership,” Journal of Finance 73, no. 4 (2018): 1513–1565.

34 Becky Quick asked Buffett “Here Is the Full Transcript of Billionaire Investor Warren Buffett’s Interview with CNBC” (from CNBC’s Squawk Box), February 27, 2017.

34 airfares on the average route Azar, Schmalz, and Tecu, “Common Ownership.”

35 “rein in supply growth” Teresa Rivas, “Will Airlines Cut Capacity Growth to Boost Prices? Well . . . ,” Barron’s, August 11, 2017.

35 groused Citi analyst Kevin Crissey Associated Press, “American Airlines Announces Pay Raises, and Investors Balk,” April 27, 2017.

35 every major airline stock Mary Schlangenstein, “Airline Stocks Plunge After American’s ‘Worrying Precedent’ on Pay,” Bloomberg, April 27, 2017.

35 Airline Tariff Publishing Company Gerchick, Full Upright, 123–125.

35 DOJ opened an investigation Christopher Drew, “Airlines Under Justice Dept. Investigation Over Possible Collusion,” New York Times, July 1, 2015.

35 investigation quietly closed Bill Hethcock, “American Airlines, Southwest Veer from Collusion Course with DOJ,” Dallas Business Journal, January 12, 2017.

35 battle over the measurement Justin Bachman, “The Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat,” Bloomberg, August 16, 2017.

35 Before deregulation Stephanie Rosenbloom, “Fighting the Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat,” New York Times, February 29, 2016.

35 Spirit Airlines, ever the innovator Spirit Airlines seat maps, SeatGuru, www.seatguru.com/airlines/Spirit_Airlines/Spirit_Airlines_Airbus_A320.php.

36 one in six thousand passengers World Health Organization, “Immobility, Circulatory Problems and Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT),” www.who.int/ith/mode_of_travel/DVT/en.

36 “economy class syndrome” William C. Shiel Jr., “Medical Definition of Economy Class Syndrome,” MedicineNet, December 11, 2018.

36 Serena Williams was treated James Beckerman, “Celebrities Who’ve Had Blood Clots,” WebMD, March 16, 2018.

36 David Bloom did die The Coalition to Prevent Deep-Vein Thrombosis, “David Bloom’s DVT Story: An Interview with Melanie Bloom,” ClotCare.com, March 2006, www.clotcare.com/dvtstorymelaniebloom.aspx.

36 petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration FlyersRights.org, “Petition for Rulemaking: Limitation of Seat Size Reductions,” August 26, 2015, flyersrights.org/uncategorized/before-administrator-federal-aviation.

36 be able to evacuate Leslie Josephs, “90 Seconds with How Much Legroom? FAA Faces Audit of Airplane Evacuation Standards,” CNBC, June 19, 2018.

37 ordered the FAA to reconsider Associated Press, “‘Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat’: US Court Says Seat Size a Safety Issue,” July 29, 2017.

37 Airlines for America Martha C. White, “Air Travelers Resisting the ‘Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat,’” New York Times, November 6, 2017.

37 FAA informed FlyersRights.org Letter from Federal Aviation Administration to Paul Hudson, July 2, 2018, files.constantcontact.com/7a85813b001/d1d4f4f1-9864-46a2-a056-69180fe2f2ed.pdf.

37 checked out the videos Videos available at “FlyersRights.org—Exemption /Rulemaking” docket, Regulations.gov, www.regulations.gov/docketBrowser?rpp=2 5&so=DESC&sb=commentDueDate&po=0&dct=N%2BFR%2BPR%2BO&D=FAA -2015-4011.

37 consultants consider it unlikely Tracy Rucinski and David Shepardson, “New U.S. FAA Rules on Airplane Seat Size May Not Create More Leg Room,” Reuters, October 1, 2018.

37 stronger oversight of ticket change fees Andrew Tangel, “Airlines Fight Push to Regulate Ticket-Change Fees,” Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2018.

38 the provision magically disappeared Andrew Tangel and Andy Pasztor, “FAA Bill Leaves out Change Fee Oversight,” Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2018.

38 mandates have simply gone unanswered Scott McCartney, “Boeing 737 MAX: The Latest Example of a Passive DOT,” Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2019.

38 pushed it back up to 30 Hugo Martin, “American Airlines Nixes Plan to Squeeze Legroom on New 737 Planes,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2017.

38 Boeing sold as optional extras Hiroko Tabuchi and David Gelles, “Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras,” New York Times, March 21, 2019.

38 earning as little as $9 an hour Peter Robison, “Boeing’s 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers,” Bloomberg, June 28, 2019.

38 FAA managers delegated Dominic Gates, “Flawed Analysis, Failed Oversight: How Boeing, FAA Certified the Suspect 737 MAX Flight Control System,” Seattle Times, March 21, 2019.

38 a 1993 government report Government Accountability Office, “New FAA Approach Needed to Meet Challenges of Advanced Technology,” September 16, 1993, www.gao.gov/products/GAO/rced-93-155.

38 office “defaulted” to Boeing Peter Robison and Margaret Newkirk, “Boeing Charted Own Safety Course for Years with FAA as Co-Pilot,” Bloomberg, March 23, 2019.

38 confidentially report issues Drew Griffin, “Source: Boeing Whistleblowers Report 737 Max Problems to FAA,” CNN, April 27, 2019.

38 would take $1.8 billion David Shepardson, “FAA Tells U.S. Senate It Would Need 10,000 New Employees, $1.8 Billion to Assume All Certification,” Reuters, March 27, 2019.

39 too big to fail Jon Sindreu, “Boeing’s 737 MAX Is Too Big to Fail,” Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2019.

39 Boeing assigned its general counsel Tom Schoenberg, Julie Johnsson, and Peter Robison, “Boeing Has Friends in High Places as It Nears a Showdown over the 737 Max,” Bloomberg, July 22, 2019.

39 handed over the reins Ben Mutzabaugh, “Kate Hanni to Step Down from FlyersRights role,” USA Today, February 5, 2013.

39 over $85 million a year Data from the Center for Repsonsive Politics, www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=M01&year=2018.

Interlude

41 owned by the same corporate parent Enterprise Holdings website, www.enterpriseholdings.com.

41 according to a study Car rental data from Open Markets Institute, concentrationcrisis.openmarketsinstitute.org/industry/car-rental.

41 in that Des Moines airport “Vehicle Rental Reservations and Information,” Des Moines International Airport website, www.dsmairport.com/at-the-airport/ground-transportation/car-rentals.aspx.

41 A 2018 article Brandon Carter, “Top Car Rental Companies End Corporate Relationship with NRA,” The Hill, February 23, 2018.

42 brands cater to unique markets Andrew C. Taylor, “Enterprise’s Leader on How Integrating an Acquisition Transformed His Business,” Harvard Business Review, September 2013.

42 owned by the umbrella group Booking Holdings Stella Yifan Xie, “After a Comeback and a Name Change, Priceline Bets Big on China,” Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2018.

42 purchased in 2015 Orbitz press release, “Expedia, Inc. Completes Acquisition of Orbitz Worldwide, Inc.,” September 17, 2015, www.orbitz.com/blog/2015/09/expedia-inc-completes-acquisition-orbitz-worldwide-inc.

2. Monopolies Are Why a Farmer’s Daughter is Crying Behind the Desk of a Best Western

45 farm country experienced a depression Dan Bryan, “The Great (Farm) Depression of the 1920s,” American History USA, March 6, 2012, www.americanhistoryusa.com/great-farm-depression-1920s.

45 over 200,000 farm foreclosures Encyclopedia.com, “Farm Foreclosures,” updated August 31, 2019, www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/farm-foreclosures.

45 Packers and Stockyards Act National Agricultural Law Center, “The Packers and Stockyards Act: An Overview,” nationalaglawcenter.org/overview/packers-and-stockyards.

45 The next crisis hit Iowa Public Television, “1980s Farm Crisis,” www.iptv.org /mtom/classroom/module/13999/farm-crisis.

45 Farm income reached $92.1 billion Brian Lamm, “Banking and the Agricul- tural Problems of the 1980s,” in History of the Eighties: Lessons for the Future, vol. 1, An Examination of the Banking Crises of the 1980s and Early 1990s (Washington, DC: FDIC, 1997), 259–290.

45 The 1985 Farm Aid concert Data from TheConcertStage.com, www.theconcertstage.com/farmaid1985.html.

46 when hog prices dropped David Barboza, “Farmers Are in Crisis as Hog Prices Collapse,” New York Times, December 13, 1998.

46 more than 70 percent of hog farmers Food and Water Watch, “Factory Farm Nation: How America Turned Its Livestock Farms into Factories,” November 2010, www.factoryfarmmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/FactoryFarmNation-web.pdf.

46 25 percent decline U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Packers and Stockyards Program: 2016 Annual Report,” 2016, www.gipsa.usda.gov/psp/publication/ar/2016_psp_annual_report.pdf.

46 over 18,700 hog farms Data from U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2017, www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_1_State_Level/Iowa/st19_1_0001_0001.pdf.

47 top four hog farms Claire Kelloway and Sarah Miller, “Food and Power: Addressing Monopolization in America’s Food System,” Open Markets Institute, April 2019, openmarketsinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/190322_MonopolyFoodReport-v7.pdf.

47 no prices are negotiated Glenn Grimes and Ron Plain, “U.S. Hog Marketing Contract Study,” Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri–Columbia, January 2009, mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/8942/USHogMarketingContractStudy.pdf.

47 checkoff program Humane Society of the United States press release, “Federal Court Stops Multi-Million Dollar Payments to Pork Lobby Group,” February 1, 2018, www.humanesociety.org/news/federal-court-stops-multi-million-dollar-payments-pork-lobby-group.

47 WH Group purchased Smithfield Nathan Halverson, “How China Purchased a Prime Cut of America’s Pork Industry,” Center for Investigative Reporting, January 24, 2015, www.revealnews.org/article/how-china-purchased-a-prime-cut-of-americas-pork-industry.

47 chairman earned $291 million Paul Schrodt, “One of the World’s Highest-Paid CEOs Worked His Way Up from Meat Factory Employee to a $291 Million Pay Package,” Money, May 18, 2018.

47 flow to Smithfield Arthur Delaney, “New Farm Bill Won’t Save Small Farmers,” Huffington Post, December 12, 2018.

47 funneled $28 billion Laura Reiley, Colby Itkowitz, and Annie Gowen, “Trump Announces New $16 Billion Aid Package for American Farmers Hit in Trade War,” Washington Post, May 23, 2019.

47 Smithfield qualified for purchase contracts Jeff Stein, “Chinese-Owned Company Qualifies for Trump’s Anti-China Farm Bailout,” Washington Post, October 23, 2018.

47 bowed to public pressure Jeff Stein, “Chinese-Owned Pork Producer Pulls Out of President Trump’s Farm Bailout amid Backlash,” Washington Post, November 16, 2018.

47 received $78 million Kimberly Kindy, “This Foreign Meat Company Got U.S. Tax Money. Now it Wants to Conquer America,” Washington Post, November 7, 2019.

47 under Justice Department investigation Letter from Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Robert Menendez to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, October 8, 2019, www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/c56251c2-ec1b-4924-89e4-de09b4f9fd7c/2B697C6F66C6DE7A59C4DA0BB978D712.10-08-19-rm-rubio-letter-brazil-cfius.pdf.

48 went to the richest 10 percent of farmers Environmental Working Group, “Total Market Facilitation Program Payments in the United States,” 2018–2019, farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?ps=00000&progcode=total_mfp&regionname=theUnitedStates&_ga=2.86917403.2068073712.1564696136-323535865.1564696136.

48 killing of 26 million chickens Donnelle Eller, “Iowa Searching for Help with Millions of Dead Chickens,” Des Moines Register, May 18, 2015.

48 biggest hog state is North Carolina Kendra Pierre-Louis, “Lagoons of Pig Waste Are Overflowing After Florence. Yes, That’s as Nasty as It Sounds,” New York Times, September 19, 2018.

48 state reached agreement Talia Buford, “A Hog Waste Agreement Lacked Teeth, and Some North Carolinians Say They’re Left to Suffer,” ProPublica, November 23, 2018.

48 fifty-seven more lagoons flooded H. Claire Brown, “In the Carolinas, Farmers Face the Painful Task of Livestock Disposal,” The New Food Economy, September 20, 2018, newfoodeconomy.org/north-south-carolinas-farmers-livestock-chicken-pig-disposal-hog-waste-lagoons-flood.

48 over 3 million chickens drowned Kelsey Piper, “How 3.4 Million Chickens Drowned in Hurricane Florence,” Vox, September 24, 2018.

49 located near communities of color Christine Ball-Blakely, “CAFOs: Plaguing North Carolina Communities of Color,” Animal Legal Defense Fund, June 2018, aldf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/CAFOs-Plaguing-North-Carolina-Communities-of-Color.pdf.

49 public health problems Kaye H. Kilburn, “Human Impairment from Living near Confined Animal (Hog) Feeding Operations,” Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 2012, article ID 565690; Ricky Langley, “Occupational Hazards on Swine Farms,” North Carolina Swine Veterinary Group, 1995, projects.ncsu.edu/project/swine_extension/healthyhogs/book1995/langley.htm.

49 Duke University study Julia Kravchenko, “Mortality and Health Outcomes in North Carolina Communities Located in Close Proximity to Hog Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations,” North Carolina Medical Journal 79, no. 5 (2018): 278–288.

49 awarded CAFO neighbors compensation Craig Jarvis and Josh Shaffer, “Jury Finds in Favor of NC Neighbors in Fourth Hog-Waste Trial,” Charlotte Observer, December 12, 2018.

49 often use shell companies Claire Kelloway, “How a New Corporate Model in Hog Farming Puts Rural Communities at Risk,” Food and Power, March 15, 2019, www.foodandpower.net/2019/03/15/how-a-new-corporate-model-in-hog-farming-puts-rural-communities-at-risk.

49 nearly a third born outside the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Additional Data Needed to Address Continued Hazards in the Meat and Poultry Industry,” April 2016, www.gao.gov/assets/680/676796.pdf.

49 destroy over fifty thousand pounds of meat Kate Taylor, “Disturbing Footage Appears to Show a Worker Urinating on the Production Line at the World’s Largest Pork Producer, Forcing the Company to Destroy 50,000 Pounds of Meat,” Business Insider, October 18, 2018.

49 report being injured on the job The Food Chain Workers Alliance, “The Hands at Feed Us: Challenges and Opportunities for Workers Along the Food Chain,” June 6, 2012, foodchainworkers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Hands-at-Feed-Us-Report.pdf.

49 many fear telling their bosses United Food and Commercial Workers, “Is the Meatpacking Industry Getting Safer?,” January 10, 2012, www.ufcw.org/2012/01/10/is-the-meatpacking-industry-getting-safer.

49 USDA lifted most limits Suzy Khimm, “Trump Administration Allows Pork Slaughterhouses to Have Fewer USDA Inspectors,” NBC News, September 17, 2019.

49 shifting inspections to plant employees Kimberly Kindy, “Pork Industry Soon Will Have More Power over Meat Inspections,” Washington Post, April 3, 2019.

49 a hygienic nightmare Andrew Wasley, “‘Dirty Meat’: Shocking Hygiene Failings Discovered in US Pig and Chicken Plants,” The Guardian, February 21, 2018.

49 hogs are shot through with antibiotics Siobhan Fenton, “Overuse of Antibiotics in Pig Factory Farming Causing Antibiotic Resistant Superbugs in Humans, Campaigners Warn,” The Independent (UK), May 12, 2016.

50 lost a significant share Data from U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=17885&AspxAutoDetectCookie Support=1.

50 meat industry is more concentrated Austin Frerick, “Iowa Farm Bureau Is a Suburban Insurance Company Pretending to Be the Voice of Farmers,” Des Moines Register, June 22, 2018.

50 control roughly 85 percent Kelloway and Miller, “Food and Power.”

50 proposed 2019 merger last year Ashley Williams, “Marfrig-National Beef Jointly Acquire Iowa Premium,” GlobalMeatNews, March 13, 2019, www.globalmeatnews.com/Article/2019/03/13/Iowa-Premium-acquired-by-Marfrig-National-Beef.

50 eliminate one of the only cash markets Letter from R-CALF USA to Attorney General William Barr, “Request to U.S. Department of Justice to Block the Proposed Acquisition of Iowa Premium by National Beef Packing Company,” March 28, 2019, www.r-calfusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/190328-Letter-to-DOJ-re-National-Beef-and-Iowa-Premium-Beef-Merger.pdf.

50 the entry of Walmart Tom Polansek, “Walmart Creates Angus Beef Supply Chain, Cutting out Meat Processors,” Reuters, April 24, 2019.

50 processing its own milk Arthur Delaney, “Does America Want Walmart Milk- ing Its Cows?,” Huffington Post, March 29, 2019.

51 beef packers enjoy high margins Tom Polansek, “USDA to Probe Beef Market After Tyson Foods Slaughterhouse Fire,” Reuters, August 28, 2019.

51 operators alleged in a lawsuit Joe Fassler, “A New Lawsuit Accuses the ‘Big Four’ Beef Packers of Conspiring to Fix Cattle Prices,” The New Food Economy, April 23, 2019, newfoodeconomy.org/meatpacker-price-fixing-class-action-lawsuit-cattlemen-tyson-jbs-cargill-national-beef.

51 17,000 have tapped out every year Bill Bullard, “Under Siege: The U.S. Live Cattle Industry,” R-CALF USA, March 2014, www.competitivemarkets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/UnderSiegeSDLAWREVIEWBillBullard2013.pdf.

51 emanated from one JBS plant Joe Fassler, “Why Sick Dairy Cows May Be to Blame for 2018’s Historic Recalls of Salmonella-Tainted Beef,” The New Food Economy, October 9, 2018, newfoodeconomy.org/jbs-salmonella-newport-beef-recall-cull-dairy-cows.

51 market leader Tyson Foods Pat Mooney, “Too Big to Feed: Exploring the Impacts of Mega-Mergers, Concentration, Concentration of Power in the Agri-Food Sector,” IPES-Food, 2017, www.ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/Concentration_FullReport.pdf.

51 scooped up dozens of competitors Jacob Bunge, “Tyson Foods to Acquire Keystone Foods in $2.16 Billion Deal,” Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2018.

51 involves contract farming Annie Lowrey, “The Rise of the Zombie Small Businesses,” The Atlantic, September 4, 2018.

51 the tournament system James M. McDonald, “Financial Risks and Incomes in Contract Broiler Production,” U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, August 4, 2014, www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2014/august/financial-risks-and-incomes-in-contract-broiler-production.

51 Small Business Administration determined U.S. Small Business Administration, “Evaluation of SBA’s 7(a) Loans to Poultry Farmers,” March 6, 2018, www.sba.gov/node/1615442.

52 companies provided inaccurate information Peter Whoriskey, “If You Thought You Were Paying Fair Prices for Chicken at the Supermarket, Think Again,” Washington Post, November 17, 2016.

52 Justice Department intervened in the case David Yaffe-Bellamy, “Why Chicken Producers Are Under Investigation for Price Fixing,” New York Times, June 25, 2019.

52 supermarket chains and food distributors Ally Marotti, “Second Lawsuit Against Poultry Giants Alleges Chicken Price-Fixing Conspiracy,” Chicago Tribune, January 15, 2018; Jacob Bunge, “Food Distributors Sue Tyson, Pilgrim’s Pride and Others Alleging Collusion on Chicken Prices,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2018.

52 subscription service called AgriStats Christopher Leonard, “Is the Chicken Industry Rigged,” Bloomberg Businessweek, February 15, 2017.

52 scandal in the tuna market Diane Bartz, “Former Bumble Bee Tuna CEO Found Guilty of Price Fixing,” Reuters, December 3, 2019.

52 A 2013 Pew report Pew Charitable Trusts, “The Business of Broilers: Hidden Costs of Putting a Chicken on Every Grill,” December 20, 2013, www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2013/12/20/the-business-of-broilers-hidden-costs-of-putting-a-chicken-on-every-grill.

52 just 25,000 today Lowrey, “Zombie Small Businesses.”

52 prices for milk have plummeted Rick Barrett, “Dairy Farmers Are in Crisis— and It Could Change Wisconsin Forever,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, February 21, 2019.

52 4,600 dairy farms close John Burnett, “Independent Farmers Feel Squeezed by Milk Cartel,” NPR News, August 20, 2009.

52 expected to accelerate Jim Goodman, “Dairy Farming Is Dying. After 40 years, I’m Done,” Washington Post, December 21, 2018.

52 Wisconsin farmer Emily Harris Rick Barrett, “Wisconsin Dairy Farmers Barely Hanging On as Crisis Deepens with No End in Sight,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, November 26, 2018.

52 average number of cows per dairy farm Barrett, “Dairy Farmers Are in Crisis.”

52 Sonny Perdue read the eulogy Todd Richmond, “Ag Secretary: No Guarantee Small Dairy Farms Will Survive,” Associated Press, October 2, 2019.

53 Dean Foods processes James Detar, “Dean Foods’ Milk Market Share Shrinks as Sales Dry Up,” Investor’s Business Daily, February 22, 2016.

53 its bankruptcy filing David Yaffe-Bellany, “A Milk Giant Goes Broke as Americans Reject Old Staples,” New York Times, November 13, 2019.

53 slowed its purchases in 2017 Danielle Endvick, “At the Mercy of the Mailbox: Dairies Dropping Farms,” Wisconsin State Farmer, April 7, 2017.

53 dairy co-ops include monopoly giants Phillip Longman, “How Rural America Got Milked,” Washington Monthly, January–March 2018.

53 30 percent of the raw milk supply Dairy Farmers of America press release, “DFA Reports 2017 Financial Results,” March 21, 2018, www.dfamilk.com/newsroom/press-releases/dfa-reports-2017-financial-results.

53 quickly turned to DFA Jessica Fu, “America’s Biggest Dairy Co-Op May Buy Dean Foods. Opponents Fear a Milk Monopoly,” The New Food Economy, November 13, 2019, newfoodeconomy.org/dean-foods-bankruptcy-dfa-dairy.

53 accused in the past of colluding Claire Kelloway, “The Monopolization of Milk,” Washington Monthly, November 21, 2019.

53 tanking the independent market for cranberries Madeleine Behr, “Ocean Spray Bogged Down with Legal Challenges,” Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, August 3, 2014, www.wisconsinwatch.org/2014/08/ocean-spray-bogged-down-with-legal-challenges; PBS Newshour, “Cranberry Growers Are Facing an Overproduction Crisis,” November 24, 2017.

53 four companies in control Kristina Hubbard, “The Sobering Details Behind the Latest Seed Monopoly Chart,” Civil Eats, January 11, 2019, civileats.com/2019/01/11/the-sobering-details-behind-the-latest-seed-monopoly-chart.

53 successive jury trials Alexandria Sage and Tina Bellon, “U.S. Jury Says Bayer Must Pay $80 Million to Man in Roundup Cancer Trial,” Reuters, March 27, 2019.

54 EPA has continued to authorize Jacob Bunge, “EPA Allows Farmers to Keep Using Bayer’s Controversial Weedkiller,” Wall Street Journal, October 31, 2018.

54 prices have skyrocketed over three-fold Farm Aid, “Fair and Competitive Markets for Family Farmers and Our Food,” April 15, 2016, www.farmaid.org/issues/fair-competitive-markets-for-family-farmers-our-food.

54 Bayer’s Xtend soybean seeds Dan Charles, “Is Fear Driving Sales of Monsanto’s Dicamba-Proof Soybeans?,” NPR News, February 7, 2019.

54 dicamba-resistant corn seed Liza Gross, “Dicamba Revisited: Will Corn Be the Next Herbicide Debacle?,” The Fern, April 30, 2019, thefern.org/ag_insider/dicamba-revisited-will-corn-face-the-same-damage-as-soybeans.

54 99 percent of iconic Iowa corn Iowa Corn Growers Association, “Corn Facts,” 2019, www.iowacorn.org/media-page/corn-facts.

54 biodiversity has evaporated Ryan Cooper, “How to Fix the American Dairy Crisis,” The Week, April 27, 2017.

54 largest recall of 2018 Sam Bloch, “The Biggest Food Recall of 2018 Is One You Still Haven’t Heard About,” The New Food Economy, January 3, 2019, newfoodeconomy.org/mccain-foods-salmonella-listeria-recall-2018.

54 Contaminated romaine lettuce Kaila White, “35 Sickened in E. coli Outbreak Linked to Arizona Lettuce, CDC Says,” Arizona Republic, April 14, 2018.

55 sell about half of all tractors IBISWorld, “Tractors and Agricultural Machin- ery Manufacturing Industry in the US—Market Research Report,” July 2019, www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/tractors-agricultural-machinery-manufacturing-industry.

55 they prohibit farmers Adam Minter, “U.S. Farmers Are Being Bled by the Tractor Monopoly,” Bloomberg, April 23, 2019.

55 “right to repair” Margaret Sessa-Hawkins, “Farmers Face Uphill Battle in Right to Repair Tractors,” Civil Eats, June 6, 2017, civileats.com/2017/06/06/in-the-fight-over-the-right-to-repair-tractors-farmers-face-an-uphill-battle.

55 “license to operate the vehicle” Kyle Wiens, “We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership,” Wired, April 21, 2015.

55 sold it all in 2017 Nasdaq, “Warren Buffett Buys Apple, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines Co, Sells Deere, Wal-Mart,” February 14, 2017, www.nasdaq.com/articles/warren-buffett-buys-apple-delta-air-lines-southwest-airlines-co-sells-deere-wal-mart-2017.

55 scooped up farm technology firms Lina Khan, “Monsanto’s Scary New Scheme: Why Does It Really Want All This Data?,” Salon, December 30, 2013; Nicole Erwin, “Data Farming: How Big Data Is Revolutionizing Big Ag,” Ohio Valley Resource, September16, 2016, ohiovalleyresource.org/2016/09/16/data-farming-big-data-revolutionizing-big-ag.

55 Farm credit companies have been merging Tom Meersman, “AgStar Merger Creating One of Nation’s Largest Farm Credit Associations,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, April 22, 2017.

55 from nine hundred lending associations Jim Monke, “Farm Credit System,” Congressional Research Service, May 17, 2016, fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21278.pdf.

55 have vanished as well Sarah Edelman, testimony before the Senate Bank- ing Committee, “The State of Rural Banking: Challenges and Consequences,” Center for American Progress, July 2015, www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/EdelmanTestimony102815FICP.pdf.

55 John Deere Jesse Newman and Bob Tita, “America’s Farmers Turn to Bank of John Deere,” Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2017.

56 Four corporations dominate grain trading Sophia Murphy, David Burch, and Jennifer Clapp, “Cereal Secrets: The World’s Largest Grain Traders and Global Agriculture,” Oxfam, August 2012, www.oxfam.org/en/research/cereal-secrets-worlds-largest-grain-traders-and-global-agriculture.

56 Three companies manage IBISWorld, “Food Service Contractors Industry in the US—Market Research Report,” December 2018, www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/food-service-contractors-industry.

56 Four chains sell nearly half Ian Walker and Annie Gasparro, “Deal Unites Major Supermarket Players,” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2015.

56 sells over two thousand brands Nestlé 2018 annual report, www.nestle.com/investors/annual-report.

56 Dr Pepper Snapple merged Lisa Wolfson, Eric Pfanner, and Jennifer Kaplan, “Keurig to Take Control of Dr Pepper in $18.7 Billion Deal,” Bloomberg, January 29, 2018.

56 Keurig Dr Pepper merged with Core Laura Mullan, “Keurig Dr Pepper to Acquire Drink Maker Core Nutrition for $525mn,” Food Drink & Franchise, September 28, 2018, www.fdfworld.com/drink/keurig-dr-pepper-acquire-drink-maker-core-nutrition-525mn.

56 secretive European firm Zeke Turner and Julie Jargon, “The Secretive Company That Pours America’s Coffee,” Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2018.

56 bankruptcies soared to higher levels Ronald A. Wirtz, “Chapter 12 Bank- ruptcies on the Rise in the Ninth District,” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, November 14, 2018, www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/fedgazette/chapter-12-bankruptcies-on-the-rise-in-the-ninth-district.

56 most other farm regions Jesse Newman and Jacob Bunge, “‘This One Here Is Gonna Kick My Butt’—Farm Belt Bankruptcies Are Soaring,” Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2019.

57 average age of a farmer Alana Semuels, “Women Take Over the Family Farm,” The Atlantic, June 22, 2016.

57 60 percent of all farm owners Wendong Zhang, Alejandro Plastina, and Wendiam Sawadgo, “Iowa Farmland Ownership and Tenure Survey, 1982–2017: A Thirty-Five Year Perspective,” Iowa State University, August 2018, www.card.iastate.edu/farmland/ownership/FM1893.pdf.

57 Iowa farmland is rented out Beth Hoffman, “Ninety-Nine Percent of America’s Farms Are Family-Owned. But Only Half Are Family-Farmed,” The New Food Economy, May 24, 2018, newfoodeconomy.org/farmland-rent-iowa-family-farm.

57 responsible for 30 percent of the economy Robert Leonard and Matt Russell, “What Democrats Need to Know to Win in Rural America,” New York Times, March 17, 2019.

58 Farmers commit suicide Debbie Weingarten, “Why Are America’s Farmers Killing  emselves?,” The Guardian, December 11, 2018.

58 highest rates of any U.S. occupation Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Suicide Rates by Major Occupational Group—17 States, 2012 and 2015,” November 16, 2018, www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6745a1.htm.

58 include a list of suicide prevention hotlines Tovia Smith, “As Milk Prices Decline, Worries About Dairy Farmer Suicides Rise,” Harvest Public Media, March 2, 2018, www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/milk-prices-decline-worries-about-dairy-farmer-suicides-rise?_ga=2.85735069.525371438.1556572795-89108805.1556572795.

58 hears from more and more desperate folks Mike Rosmann as told to Emily Atkin, “I Work with Suicidal Farmers. It’s Becoming Too Much to Bear,” New Republic, April 22, 2019.

58 Hillary Clinton stumbled upon it David Choi, “Hillary Clinton: I Won the Places at Are ‘Dynamic, Moving Forward,’ While Trump’s Campaign ‘Was Looking Backwards,’” Business Insider, March 13, 2018.

58 contributed 64 percent of U.S. GDP Jim Tankersley, “Donald Trump Lost Most of the American Economy in  is Election,” Washington Post, November 22, 2016.

58 a Brookings Institution study Clara Henderson, Mark Muro, and William Galston, “Countering the Geography of Discontent: Strategies for Left-Behind Places,” Brookings Institution, November 2018.

59 winner-take-all cities Emily Badger, “In Superstar Cities, the Rich Get Richer, and They Get Amazon,” New York Times, November 7, 2018.

59 abandoned blue-collar towns Alec MacGillis, “How Struggling Dayton, Ohio, Reveals the Chasm Among American Cities,” ProPublica, September 11, 2018.

59 feel powerless and forgotten Alec MacGillis, “Revenge of the Forgotten Class,” ProPublica, November 10, 2016.

59 Regional disparities correlate heavily The Economist, “Internal Affairs,” March 10, 2011; Simon Wren-Lewis, “Left Behind Movements Do Not Just Reflect Deindustrialisation, but Also Geography, Inequality and Lack of Representation,” Mainly Macro (blog), March 26, 2019, mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2019/03/left-behind-movements-do-not-just.html.

59 accounted for her loss Daniel Block, “To Take Back the Map, Democrats Need a Plan to Revive Heartland Cities,” Washington Monthly, January–March 2019.

59 composition of the Senate Phillip Bump, “The Minority-Majority That May Propel Kavanaugh to the Bench,” Washington Post, September 28, 2018.

59 expressed some painful truths Economic Innovation Group, “Dynamism in Retreat: Consequences for Regions, Markets, and Workers,” February 2017, eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Dynamism-in-Retreat-A.pdf.

59 Just 20 percent of rural counties “Rural US Businesses in Decline While Cities Prosper,” Business Telegraph (UK), October 15, 2018.

60 Startups cluster close to the source Richard Florida, “A Closer Look at the Geography of Venture Capital in the United States,” CityLab, February 23, 2016, www.citylab.com/life/2016/02/the-spiky-geography-of-venture-capital-in-the-us/470208.

60 obesity increases William Wan, “Obesity Epidemic Is Led More by Rural than Urban Populations,” Washington Post, May 8, 2019.

60 “Deaths of despair” Anne Case and Sir Angus Deaton, “Mortality and Morbidity in the 21st Century,” Brookings Institution, March 23, 2017.

60 aggregate statistics in news stories Annie Lowrey, “2016: A Year Defined by America’s Diverging Economies,” The Atlantic, December 30, 2016.

60 convened five public workshops U.S. Department of Justice, “Public Workshops: Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues in Our 21st Century Economy,” 2010, www.justice.gov/atr/events/public-workshops-agriculture-and-antitrust-enforcement-issues-our-21st-century-economy-10.

60 Peterson got up “A Dialogue on Competition Issues Facing Farmers in Today’s Agricultural Marketplaces,” Fort Collins, CO, August 27, 2010, transcript at www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/atr/legacy/2012/08/20/colorado-agworkshop-transcript.pdf.

61 practically the last word Lina Khan, “Obama’s Game of Chicken,” Washington Monthly, November–December 2012.

61 HBO’s John Oliver shamed them Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, “Chickens,” May 17, 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wHzt6gBgI.

61 Vilsack is now a lobbyist Tom Philpott, “The Head of Obama’s USDA Just Took a Cushy Big Dairy Job,” Mother Jones, January 10, 2017.

61 gouged farmers Lisa Rathke, “Northeast Dairy Farmers Paid in Class Action Lawsuit,” Associated Press, August 31, 2018.

61 goes around Iowa warning Democrats David Dayen, “Obama’s Agriculture Secretary, Now Working for the Dairy Industry, Urges 2020 Democrats to Be Nice to the Dairy Industry,” The Intercept, May 6, 2019.

61 tariffs made things worse Ryan McCrimmon, “Farmers Nearing Crisis Push Back on Trump Trade Policies,” Politico, February 6, 2019.

61 meat lay frozen in storage Jacob Bunge, “2.5 Billion Pounds of Meat Piles Up in U.S. as Production Grows, Exports Slow,” Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2018.

61 almost insulting penny per bushel P. J. Huffstutter and Mark Weinraub, “Penny for Your Corn? Stingy Trade-War Aid Irks U.S. Farmers,” Reuters, November 28, 2018.

61 ties to chicken industry interests Katherine Paul, “Trump’s Pick for Ag Secretary Has ‘Bigly’ Ties to Big Ag and Big Food,” Organic Consumers Association, January 24, 2017, www.organicconsumers.org/blog/trump%E2%80%99s-pick-ag-secretary-has-%E2%80%98bigly%E2%80%99-ties-big-ag-and-big-food.

62 delayed and then withdrew the GIPSA rules David Dayen, “Trump Sides with Big Agriculture over Family Farmers,” The Nation, October 18, 2017.

62 Perdue’s donors in the industry Deena Shanker, “Farmers’ Beef with Trump over ‘Big Meat,’” Bloomberg, April 21, 2017.

62 Trump’s GIPSA administrator acknowledged U.S. Department of Agriculture, Withdrawal of Final Rule, Scope of Sections 202(a) and (b) of the Packers and Stockyards Act, s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2017-22593.pdf.

62 Chuck Grassley had to admit Spencer Chase, “USDA to Withdraw GIPSA Rule,” AgriPulse, October 17, 2017.

62 sued the USDA Organization for Competitive Markets et al. v. USDA, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, December 2017.

62 rally outside the U.S. Court of Appeals Video can be seen at www.facebook.com/FarmActionUS/videos/290642734872460.

62 after promising to revisit the rules Liz Crampton, “USDA to Revisit GIPSA Rules in 2019,” Politico, September 28, 2018.

62 Perdue actually eliminated GIPSA entirely U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Revision of Delegation of Authority,” Federal Register, November 29, 2018.

62 a PR agency that Maxwell’s group calls Organization for Competitive Mar- kets, “GIPSA Is Dead; the Fight for Producer Protections Continues,” November 29, 2018, competitivemarkets.com/gipsa-is-dead-the-fight-for-producer-protections-continues.

62 yielded fines at less than 10 percent Isaac Arnsdorf, “Chicken Farmers Thought Trump Was Going to Help Them. Then His Administration Did the Opposite,” ProPublica, June 5, 2019.

62 again promising the world Daniel Marans, “2020 Democratic Hopefuls Tackle Monopoly Power, Rural Issues in Iowa Forum,” Huffington Post, March 30, 2019.

62 reforming commodity checkoff programs Sen. Mike Lee press release, “Sens. Lee, Booker Introduce Commodity Check Off Reform Bill,” March 28, 2017, www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/3/sens-lee-booker-introduce-commodity-check-off-reform-bill.

62 moratorium on agriculture and food mergers Sam Bloch, “A Handful of Companies Control American Agriculture. Cory Booker Wants to Change That,” New Food Economy, August 30, 2018, newfoodeconomy.org/cory-booker-agribusiness-merger-moratorium-antitrust-bill.

62 national right-to-repair law . . . breaking up agribusinesses Elizabeth Warren, “Leveling the Playing Field for America’s Family Farmers,” Medium, March 27, 2019.

62 returning to price parity mechanisms Elizabeth Warren, “A New Farm Economy,” Medium, August 7, 2019.

63 megafarms will dominate all food production Chuck Abbott, “In a Generation, Mega-Farms Will Dominate ‘Production’ Ag, Analyst Predicts,” The Fern, March 18, 2019, thefern.org/ag_insider/in-a-generation-mega-farms-will-dominate-production-ag-analyst-predicts.

Interlude

65 after a 2010 merger Ben Sisario and Graham Bowley, “Live Nation Rules Music Ticketing, Some Say with Threats,” New York Times, April 1, 2018.

66 unyieldingly bad service ABC Radio, “Ticketmaster Hits a Bad Note with Music Fans,” June 26, 2016, wtop.com/entertainment/2016/06/ticketmaster-hits-a-bad-note-with-music-fans.

66 includes your service fee Kevin Coffey, “Ticketmaster’s Concert Ticket Fees Explained,” Omaha World-Herald, February 1, 2019.

66 Government Accountability Office estimated Government Accountability Office, “Event Ticket Sales: Market Characteristics and Consumer Protection Issues,” April 2018, www.gao.gov/assets/700/691247.pdf.

66 fees make up about half “Live Nation Entertainment Reports Fourth Quar- ter and Full Year 2018 Results,” Live Nation Entertainment, February 2019, www.livenationentertainment.com/2019/02/live-nation-entertainment-report-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2018-results.

66 promotes over five hundred major artists Tim Ingham, “Live Nation Companies Now Manage over 500 Artists Worldwide,” Music Business Worldwide, February 27, 2017, www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/live-nation-companies-now-manage-500-artists-worldwide.

66 date back to Pearl Jam Eric Boehlert, “Pearl Jam: Taking on Ticketmaster,” Rolling Stone, December 28, 1995.

66 presence of Ari Emanuel “Ariel Emanuel Elected to Live Nation Board of Directors,” Live Nation Entertainment, September 2007, www.livenationentertainment.com/2007/09/ariel-emanuel-elected-to-live-nation-board-of-directors.

66 Half of that market belongs David Dayen, “The Ticket Monopoly Is Worse than Ever (Thanks, Obama),” New Republic, May 15, 2018.

66 Canadian Broadcasting Company reported Dave Seglins, Rachel Houlihan, and Laura Clementson, “‘A Public Relations Nightmare’: Ticketmaster Recruits Pros for Secret Scalper Program,” CBC, September 19, 2018.

66 Ticketmaster even partnered with artists Dave Brooks and Hannah Karp, “Secretly Recorded Phone Call Offers Window into How Live Nation Helped Metallica and Other Artists Place Tickets Directly on Resale Market,” Billboard, July 19, 2019.

66 Ticketmaster has settled cases GAO, “Event Ticket Sales.”

3. Monopolies Are Why Hundreds of Journalists Became Filmmakers, then Back to Writers, then Unemployed

69 had been picking off smaller publishers Sara Fischer, “Mic Cuts Most Staff Ahead of Bustle Acquisition,” Axios, November 29, 2018.

69 Recode broke the news Peter Kafka, “Mic.com Is in Talks to Sell to Bustle,” Recode, November 28, 2018, www.vox.com/2018/11/28/18116822/mic-sale-bustle-facebook.

69 Altchek . . . had acknowledged Sara Fischer, “Mic CEO Confirms Acquisition Interest,” Axios, September 21, 2018.

69 lost a video series deal Maxwell Strachan, “The Fall of Mic Was a Warning,” Huffington Post, July 23, 2019.

70 news of the layoffs Niraj Chokshi, “Mic, a News Site for Millennials, Lays Off Most of Its Staff,” New York Times, November 29, 2018.

70 tweeted Colleen Curry Tweet from Colleen Curry (@currycolleen), Novem- ber 29, 2018, twitter.com/currycolleen/status/1068177356085518336.

70 wrote reporter Emily Singer Tweet from Emily Singer (@CahnEmily), November 29, 2018, twitter.com/CahnEmily/status/1068166372016967680.

70 tweeted a combination farewell/résumé Tweet from Erin Evans (@heyerinevans), November 29, 2018, twitter.com/heyerinevans/status/1068167664151998470.

70 company that had raised $59.5 million Crunchbase, “Mic Network—Funding Rounds,” www.crunchbase.com/organization/mic-network#section-funding-rounds.

71 one insider told Recode Kafka, “Mic.com Is in Talks.”

71 2,400 journalists lost their jobs Benjamin Goggin, “7,200 People Have Lost eir Jobs So Far This Year in a Media Landslide,” Business Insider, September 17, 2019.

71 America’s founding newspapers John Ferling, Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (London: Oxford University Press, 2004), 53–54, 143–156.

72 snatch the Republican presidential nomination Paul Starr, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications (New York: Basic Books, 2004) 186–187.

72 Hayessociated Press Matthew Lasar, “How Robber Barons Hijacked the ‘Victorian Internet,’” Ars Technica, May 13, 2011.

72 Democrats created the Washington Post Franklin Foer, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech (New York: Penguin Books, 2017), 115.

72 yellow journalism PBS, Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War, 1999, www.pbs.org/crucible/frames/_journalism.html.

72 regurgitated Johnson administration lies Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, “30-Year Anniversary: Tonkin Gulf Lie Launched Vietnam War,” Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, July 27, 1994, fair.org/media-beat-column/30-year-anniversary-tonkin-gulf-lie-launched-vietnam-war.

72 objective media planted false stories Jonathan Stein and Tim Dickinson, “Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got into Iraq,” Mother Jones, September–October 2006.

72 Some of his first investments Robin Harding, “How Warren Buffett Broke American Capitalism,” Financial Times, September 12, 2017.

72 Buffett told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Transcript, FCIC Interview of Warren Buffett, May 26, 2010, ritholtz.com/2016/03/fcic-buffett.

73 used scores of unpaid bloggers Sydney Ember, “HuffPost, Breaking From Its Roots, Ends Unpaid Contributions,” New York Times, January 18, 2018.

73 plenty of aggregation Kimberly Isbell, “What’s the law around aggregating news online? A Harvard Law report on the risks and the best practices,” Nieman Lab, September 8, 2010.

73 establishment of Craigslist Rob Gloster, “Craigslist Founder Giving Away Fortune, with Jewish Values Honed in Morristown as Moral Compass,” Morristown Green, April 5, 2019.

73 $5 billion in classified ads Agence France-Presse, “Craigslist Costs US Newspapers Billions: Study,” August 14, 2013.

73 donating at least $50 million David Streitfeld, “Craig Newmark, Newspaper Villain, Is Working to Save Journalism,” New York Times, October 17, 2018.

74 commandeered the digital ad market Sheila Dang, “Google, Facebook Have Tight Grip on Growing U.S. Online Ad Market: Report,” Reuters, June 5, 2019.

74 it worked out Statista, “Google’s Revenue Worldwide from 2002 to 2018 (in Billion U.S. Dollars),” 2019, www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-global-revenue.

74 took about $4.7 billion Marc Tracy, “Google Made $4.7 Billion from the News Industry in 2018, Study Says,” New York Times, June 9, 2019.

74 a monopoly on search Search engine date from the Open Markets Institute, concentrationcrisis.openmarketsinstitute.org/industry/search-engines.

74 Google bought YouTube Michael Arrington, “Google Has Acquired YouTube,” TechCrunch, October 9, 2006.

74 2007 purchase of DoubleClick Louise Story and Miguel Helft, “Google Buys DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion,” New York Times, April 14, 2007.

74 aptly described on his website Josh Marshall, “A Serf on Google’s Farm,” Talking Points Memo, September 1, 2017.

75 Google treats all content Taplin, Move Fast and Break Things, 134.

75 There is no differentiation Taplin, Move Fast and Break Things, 161.

75 Facebook opened its site Carolyn, “Welcome to Facebook, Everyone,” Facebook Notes, September 26, 2006, www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/welcome-to-facebook-everyone/2210227130.

75 Like Google Todd Haselton, “How to Find Out What Google Knows About You and Limit the Data It Collects,” CNBC, December 6, 2017.

75 Facebook mines Todd Haselton, “How to Find Out What Facebook Knows About You,” CNBC, November 19, 2017.

75 outpaced ad spending on television Peter Kafka and Rani Molla, “2017 Was the Year Digital Ad Spending Finally Beat TV,” Recode, December 4, 2017, www.vox.com/2017/12/4/16733460/2017-digital-ad-spend-advertising-beat-tv.

75 reached $100 billion Megan Graham, “Digital Ad Revenue in the US Surpassed $100 Billion for the First Time in 2018,” CNBC, May 7, 2019.

75 have accounted for 99 percent Alex Heath, “Facebook and Google Completely Dominate the Digital Ad Industry,” Business Insider, April 26, 2017.

75 not tech firms but junk mail companies Jason Kint, “Facebook and Google’s Dirty Secret: They’re Really Junk Mail Empires,” Daily Beast, January 9, 2018.

76 They certainly should work Stuart A. Thompson, “These Ads Think They Know You,” New York Times, April 30, 2019.

76 after you shut them off Gerrit de Vynck, “Now Apps Can Track You Even After You Uninstall Them,” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 22, 2018.

76 tracked even in encrypted messages Hannah Murphy, “How Facebook Could Target Ads in an Age of Encryption,” Financial Times, March 27, 2019.

76 personal to the point of creepiness Rebecca Jennings, “Why Targeted Ads Are the Most Brutal Owns,” Vox, September 25, 2018.

76 vehicles for age Julia Angwin, Noam Scheiber, and Ariana Tobin, “Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers from Job Ads,” ProPublica, December 20, 2017.

76 and racial Julia Angwin, Ariana Tobin, and Madeleine Varner, “Facebook (Still) Letting Housing Advertisers Exclude Users by Race,” ProPublica, November 21, 2017.

76 and gender discrimination Noam Scheiber, “Facebook Accused of Allowing Bias Against Women in Job Ads,” New York Times, September 18, 2018.

76 capture the attention of children Alessandra Malito, “Advertisers Are Quietly Targeting Your Kids  rough Apps,” CBS Marketwatch, October 30, 2018.

76 shady scam attempts Zeke Faux, “How Facebook Helps Shady Advertisers Pollute the Internet,” Bloomberg Businessweek, March 28, 2018.

76 law firms target ads Bobby Allyn, “Digital Ambulance Chasers? Law Firms Send Ads to Patients’ Phones Inside ERs,” NPR News, May 25, 2018.

76 they show Mother’s Day ads Elizabeth Entenman, “My Mom Died 8 Years Ago. Why Won’t the Internet Stop Showing Me Mother’s Day Ads?,” Vox, May 9, 2019.

76 and parenting ads Kari Paul, “Woman Begs Facebook to Stop Showing Her Parenting Ads A er Baby’s Death—Here’s How to Avoid Upsetting Ads,” CBS Marketwatch, December 13, 2018.

76 A 2018 study Nico Neumann, Catherine E. Tucker, and Timothy Whitfield, “How Effective Is Third-Party Consumer Profiling and Audience Delivery? Evidence from Field Studies,” Social Science Research Network, July 16, 2018, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3203131.

76 Procter & Gamble, cut its digital ad budget Suzanne Vranica, “P&G Contends Too Much Digital Ad Spending Is a Waste,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2018.

76 repeatedly been caught lying to advertisers Suzanne Vranica and Jack Marshall, “Facebook Overestimated Key Video Metric for Two Years,” Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2016; Suzanne Vranica, “Facebook and Google Face Emboldened Antagonists: Big Advertisers,” Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2018; Patience Haggin, “Google to Refund Advertisers After Suit over Fraud Scheme,” Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2019.

76 “The numbers are all fking [sic] fake” Tweet from Aram Zucker-Schar  (@Chronotope), December 26, 2018, twitter.com/Chronotope/status/1078003966863200256.

76 the data to back his claims up Samuel Scott, “The $8.2 Billion Adtech Fraud Problem That Everyone Is Ignoring,” Techcrunch, January 6, 2016; Max Read, “How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually,” New York, December 26, 2018.

76 Facebook has misreported Tim Peterson, “FAQ: Everything Facebook Has Admitted About Its Measurement Errors,” Marketing Land, May17, 2017, marketingland.com/heres-itemized-list-facebooks-measurement-errors-date-200663.

76 even the definition of a “minute” Sara Fischer, “Facebook Touts Video Metrics, Outlines More Scrutiny for Show Funding,” Axios, December 13, 2018.

77 A groundbreaking 2019 study Keach Hagey, “Behavioral Ad Targeting Not Pay- ing O  for Publishers, Study Suggests,” Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2019.

77 led to exclusive reports David Dietz, “Snapshot of a New Tunisia: An Uneasy, but Hopeful Calm,” Mic, January 12, 2011; David Dietz, “Interview with David Dietz: Life in a Tunisian Revolution,” Mic, January 24, 2011.

77 grab nearly $15 million Brian Stelter, “A $10 Million Boost for Millennial Media Startup PolicyMic,” CNN, April 28, 2014.

77 another $17 million a year later Erin Griffith, “Mic’s Plans to Become a Millennial Media Powerhouse,” Fortune, June 2, 2015.

77 14 million unique visitors Abram Brown, “The Media Startup Getting 20-Year-Olds to Talk About More than Cat Pictures,” Forbes, January 6, 2014.

77 up to 30 million Griffith, “Mic’s Plans.”

78 Mic even kept a template Adrianne Jeffries, “Mic’s Drop,”  e Outline, August 22, 2017, theoutline.com/post/2156/mic-com-and-the-cynicism-of-modern-media.

78 unlike HuffPost, it paid them Jack Smith IV, “PolicyMic Raises $10 Million to Keep Chasing the Millennial News Audience,” The Observer, April 29, 2014.

78 came in to run the newsroom Griffith, “Mic’s Plans.”

78 Sikka would leave Jeremy Barr, “Madhulika Sikka Leaves Mic After Brief Stint as Executive Editor,” AdAge, March 15, 2016.

78 executives were brought in Ricardo Bilton, “Can PolicyMic Become the Voice of the Millennials?,” Digiday, February 7, 2014.

78 scored a one-on-one interview Jake Horowitz, “The Mic Interview: President Barack Obama,” Mic, August 10, 2015.

79 getting one billion video views per day Tim Peterson, “Facebook’s Strategy to Take On YouTube Comes into View,” AdAge, September 9, 2014.

79 prioritizing video John Koetsier, “Facebook: Native Video Gets 10X More Shares than YouTube,” Forbes, March 13, 2017.

79 lost nearly half its traffic Nicholas Carlson, “Upworthy Traffic Gets Crushed,” Business Insider, February 10, 2014.

79 January 2015 blog post Facebook, “What the Shift to Video Means for Creators,” January 7, 2015, web.archive.org/web/20150207000243/http://media.fb.com/2015/01/07/what-the-shift-to-video-means-for-creators.

79 Zuckerberg told the Facebook developer conference Alex Kantrowitz, “As Social Shifts to Video, Content Creators Win Power and Dollars,” BuzzFeed, April 26, 2016.

79 Facebook would be mostly video Jason Lederman, “Mark Zuckerberg: Within Five Years, Facebook Will Be Mostly Video,” Popular Science, April 6, 2016.

79 said media critic John Herrman John Herrman, “Territory Annexed,” The Awl, January 8, 2015, web.archive.org/web/20150108215932/https://www.theawl.com/2015/01/everything-ends.

79 Facebook would eventually dangle money Kantrowitz, “As Social Shifts.”

80 NowThis decided Jeremy Barr, “NowThis Scraps Its Website, Goes All-In on Social,” Politico, February 6, 2015.

80 Mashable fired its editorial writing staff Noah Kulwin, “Mashable Fires News Staff, Replaces Executives as Part of Pivot to Video Infotainment,” Recode, April 7, 2016, www.vox.com/2016/4/7/11585950/mashable-fires-news-staff-executives.

80 so did Vocativ Cale Guthrie Weissman, “‘Deep Web’ News Site Vocativ Has Laid Off Its Editorial Staff,” Fast Company, June 14, 2017.

80 fired them all Andy Gensler, “MTV Restructuring News Department, Shifting to Emphasis on Video,” Billboard, June 28, 2017.

80 original series like Flip the Script Eric Blattberg, “Mic’s Hit Video Series on Facebook Has Gotten 33 Million Views in Two Months,” Digiday, May 20, 2015.

80 featured an advertiser logo Mike Shields, “Mic Has a Way for Advertisers to Sponsor Editorial Videos on Facebook,” Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2016.

81 Mic formed a TV studio Sahil Patel, “‘The Moment We’re in Now Is About Being Smart’: Mic Aims to Get Paid to License Video Shows,” Digiday, August 21, 2018.

81 publisher Cory Haik wrote Cory Haik, “We’re in the Early Stages of a Visual Revolution in Journalism,” Recode, August 7, 2017, www.vox.com/2017/8/7/16106862/pivot-video-digital-revolution-journalism-advertising-visual-media-storytelling-business-model.

81 Mic laid off twenty-five employees Frank Pallotta, “Mic Becomes Latest Media Company to Lay Off Staffers Amid ‘Pivot to Video,’” CNN, August 17, 2017.

81 American Society of Magazine Editors award ASME, “New York, The New Yorker Lead Ellie Pack—National Magazine Award 2018 Winners Announced,” March 13, 2018, asme.magazine.org/industry-news/press-releases/asme/new-york-new-yorker-lead-ellie-pack-national-magazine-award-2018.

81 Traffic on Mic fell Mike Shields, “Millennial Publisher Mic.com Says comScore Data Showing a Shrinking Audience Is Wrong—and It Exposes a Critical Disagreement in Digital Media,” Business Insider, September 20, 2017.

81 the double entendre “#69theVote” Harry Cheadle, “A Brief History of Embarrassing Attempts to Get the Youth to Vote,” Vice, August 11, 2016.

81 aware of the issue Suzanne Vranica, “Advertisers Allege Facebook Failed to Disclose Key Metric Error for More than a Year,” Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2018.

81 inflated by as much as 900 percent Maya Kosoff, “Was the Media’s Big ‘Pivot to Video’ All Based on a Lie?,” Vanity Fair, October 17, 2018.

81 reached 25 million more young people Alex Heath, “Facebook Says It Can Reach 25 Million More People in the US than Census Data Shows Exist,” Business Insider, September 6, 2017.

81 It stopped paying publishers Sahil Patel, “Facebook Plans to Stop Paying Publishers to Make News Feed Videos,” Digiday, December 13, 2017.

81 show more posts from families and friends Adam Mosseri, “Bringing People Closer Together,” Facebook newsroom, January 11, 2018, newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/news-feed-fyi-bringing-people-closer-together.

82 dropped by 90 percent Max Willens, “Pivoting to Nowhere: How Mic Ran Out of Radical Makeovers,” Digiday, November 30, 2018.

82 Bill Grueskin told the Washington Post Abby Ohlheiser, “A Pivot to Video Couldn’t Save Mic. The News Outlet Has Laid Off Most of Its Staff,” Washington Post, November 29, 2018.

82 one-twelfth of what it had raised Alexandra Steigrad, “Bustle Seals Deal to Buy Mic for Less than $5 Million,” New York Post, November 29, 2018.

82 Media companies cut 15,474 jobs Daniel Roberts, “2018 Was the Worst Year of Media Layoffs Since 2009,” Yahoo Finance, February 14, 2019.

82 another 7,200 Benjamin Goggin, “7,200 People Have Lost Their Jobs So Far This Year in a Media Landslide,” Business Insider, September 18, 2019.

82 Little Things shut down Mike Shields, “Facebook’s Algorithm Has Wiped Out a Once Flourishing Digital Publisher,” Business Insider, February 27, 2018.

82 Vox laid off video teams Todd Spangler, “Vox Media Lays Off 50 Staffers, or 5% of Workforce,” Variety, February 21, 2018.

82 BuzzFeed dropped two hundred people Jaclyn Peiser, “BuzzFeed’s First Round of Layoffs Puts an End to Its National News Desk,” New York Times, January 25, 2019.

82 Vice Media let go 10 percent of its staff Natalie Jarvey, “Vice Media to Reorganize, Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff,” Hollywood Reporter, February 1, 2019.

82 as did Refinery29 Natalie Jarvey, “Refinery29 to Lay Off 10 Percent of Staff,” Hollywood Reporter, October 23, 2018.

82 Vice bought Refinery29 Anna Nicolau, “Vice Buys Refinery29, Creating a $4-Billion Digital Publishing Group,” Financial Times, October 2, 2019.

82 Verizon lost eight hundred journalists Sara Salinas and Ryan Ruggiero, “Verizon Media Group Is Laying Off 7% of Its Staff,” CNBC, January 23, 2019.

82 referral drops of 80 to 90 percent Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery, “It’s the End of News as We Know It (and Facebook Is Feeling Fine),” Mother Jones, December 4, 2018.

83 went from 340 journalists to 33 Sara Guaglione, “‘Cleveland Plain Dealer’ Cuts 14 Newsroom Staffers, Employee Sets Up Fundraising Efforts,” Publishers Daily, April 2, 2019.

83 folded into a competitor Rick Edmonds, “Upstart New Orleans Advocate Has Bought the Rival Times-Picayune,” Poynter, May 2, 2019, www.poynter.org/business-work/2019/upstart-new-orleans-advocate-has-bought-the-rival-times-picayune.

83 closed after 150 years Betty H. Brown Jagnow and Mark A. Brown, “Vindicator Announces It Will Cease Publication at End of August,” Youngstown Vindicator, June 28, 2019.

83 cut four hundred jobs Keith J. Kelly, “Gannett to Cut 400 Staffers Across the Board,” New York Post, October 24, 2016.

83 GateHouse Media . . . announced a merger Cara Lombardo and Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, “GateHouse Media Parent to Buy Gannett for $1.4 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2019.

83 private equity firms own Robert Kuttner and Hildy Zenger, “Saving the Free Press from Private Equity,” American Prospect, December 27, 2017.

83 one-third the staff Chloe Aiello, “As Hedge Funds Overtake Media, the Denver Post Leads a Vocal Revolt Against ‘Vulture Capitalists,’” CNBC, June 16, 2018.

83 gaining control of the buildings Jonathan O’Connell and Emma Brown, “A Hedge Fund’s ‘Mercenary’ Strategy: Buy Newspapers, Slash Jobs, Sell the Buildings,” Washington Post, February 11, 2019.

83 Great Hill Partners buying Benjamin Mullin, “Great Hill Partners Agrees to Acquire Gizmodo Media Group,” Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2019.

83 Sheldon Adelson’s initially secret purchase Nigel Duara, “Las Vegas Newspaper Staff Feels Casino Giant Sheldon Adelson’s Tightening Grip,” Los Angeles Times, Feburary 9, 2016.

84 spelled the end of Pacific Standard James F. Peltz and Sam Dean, “Pacific Standard Magazine Is Shutting Down After Losing Main Financial Backer,” Los Angeles Times, August 7, 2019.

84 only big brands Keach Hagey, Lukas I. Alpert, and Yaryna Serkez, “In News Industry, a Stark Divide Between Haves and Have-Nots,” Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2019.

84 displaced local subscriptions Lisa M. George and Joel Waldfogel, “The New York Times and the Market for Local Newspapers,” American Economic Review 96, no. 1 (2006): 435–447.

84 lending a helping hand Barbara Ortutay, “Facebook to Invest $300 Million in News, Focusing on Local,” Associated Press, January 15, 2019; Kevin Roose, “Google Pledges $300 Million to Clean Up False News,” New York Times, March 30, 2018.

84 Google promised to help publishers Jack Nicas, “Google Plans to Help News Publishers Increase Subscriptions,” Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2017.

84 Google also blocked “intrusive” ads Tom Warren, “Google’s Chrome Ad Blocking Arrives Today and This Is How It Works,” The Verge, February 14, 2018.

84 it is using Chrome Ben Galbraith and Justin Schuh, “Improving Privacy and Security on the Web,” Chromium Blog, May 7, 2019, blog.chromium.org/2019/05/improving-privacy-and-security-on-web.html.

84 Facebook created a digital patronage model Josh Constine, “Facebook Wants up to 30% of Fan Subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%,” Techcrunch, February 26, 2019.

84 News+ was an even worse deal Sara Fischer, “Publishers Balk at Apple’s News Subscription Deal,” Axios, February 13, 2019.

84 floated banding together Jim Rutenberg, “News Outlets to Seek Bargaining Rights Against Google and Facebook,” New York Times, July 9, 2017.

84 or even mergers Edmund Lee, “Founder’s Big Idea to Revive BuzzFeed’s Fortunes? A Merger with Rivals,” New York Times, November 19, 2018.

85 study from the University of North Carolina Penelope Muse Abernathy, “The Expanding News Desert,” University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media, 2018, www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert.

85 eight hundred newspapers have closed Hagey, Alpert, and Serkez, “Stark Divide.”

85 circulation has dropped Hagey, Alpert, and Serkez, “Stark Divide.”

85 it couldn’t find enough Keach Kagey, “Facebook Wants to Feed Users More Local News. There Just Isn’t Enough of It,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2019.

85 news deserts correlate Helen Branswell, “When Towns Lose Their Newspapers, Disease Detectives Are Left Flying Blind,” Stat News, March 20, 2018, www.statnews.com/2018/03/20/news-deserts-infectious-disease.

85 broke the important story E. Scott Reckard, “Wells Fargo’s Pressure-Cooker Sales Culture Comes at a Cost,” Los Angeles Times, December 21, 2013.

85 was out of journalism Pete Vernon, “Q&A: Former LA Times Reporter on Story That Led to $185 Million Wells Fargo Fine,” Columbia Journalism Review, September 12, 2016.

85 Two Pulitzer Prize winners Erin Mundahl, “Pulitzer Prize Winners Moving to PR: What Does That Say About the Future of Journalism?,” InsideSources, April 20, 2018, www.insidesources.com/two-of-this-years-pulitzer-prize-winners-now-work-in-pr-what-does-that-say-about-the-future-of-journalism.

85 Warren Buffett cashed out Nicole Friedman, “Lee Enterprises in Pact to Manage Berkshire Hathaway Newspapers,” Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2018.

85 Buffett said in 2019 Sam Ro, “Warren Buffett Says the Newspaper Business Is ‘Toast,’” Yahoo Finance, April 29, 2019.

85 in particular Sinclair Broadcasting Jacey Fortin and Jonah Engel Bromwich, “Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script,” New York Times, April 2, 2018.

85 prioritize conspiratorial and provocative content Caroline Haskins, “How YouTube Drives Shane Dawson and Other Creators to Conspiracy Theories,” Motherboard, February 12, 2019, www.vice.com/en_us/article/yw83eg/how-youtube-drives-shane-dawson-and-other-creators-to-conspiracy-theories.

85 radicalizing the nation of Brazil Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, “How YouTube Radicalized Brazil,” New York Times, August 11, 2019.

85 writing from robots Peter Kafka, “TFW You Realize the Robot You Trained Is Going to Take Your Job,” Recode, May 3, 2016, www.vox.com/2016/5/3/11634212/facebook-content-editors-robots.

85 pose as local websites Igor Derysh, “Republicans Launch Propaganda Sites Designed to Look Like Local News Outlets,” Salon, March 5, 2019.

85 privileges lower-quality, hyper-partisan news Matthew Ingram, “New Data Casts Doubt on Facebook’s Commitment to Quality News,” Columbia Journalism Review, May 7, 2018.

85 Google favors established giants Nicholas Diakopoulos, “Audit Suggests Google Favors a Small Number of Major Outlets,” Columbia Journalism Review, May 10, 2019.

86 went dark in Los Angeles and Chicago Peter B. Collins, “An Insider’s View of the Progressive Talk Radio Devolution,” Truthout, February 10, 2013, truthout.org/articles/an-insiders-view-of-the-progressive-talk-radio-devolution.

86 Clear Channel . . . got bought out “Clear Channel Communications, Inc. Com- pletes Merger with Private Investor Group,” Thomas H. Lee Partners press release, July 30, 2008, www.thl.com/newsroom/press-release?year=2008&id=1441.

87 Clear Channel filed for bankruptcy Tom Hals, “Largest U.S. Radio Company iHeartMedia Files for Bankruptcy,” Reuters, March 14, 2018.

87 exited Chapter 11 Todd Spangler, “iHeartMedia Bankruptcy Plan Approved, CEO Bob Pittman’s Contract Renewed,” Variety, January 22, 2019.

87 has proposed the elimination Ed Christman, “Radio Industry Group Wants FCC to Eliminate Competition Rules Limiting Ownership,” Billboard, December 3, 2018.

87 consolidation from Spotify Felix Salmon, “Spotify’s Podcasting Dreams,” Axios, February 10, 2019.

88 reach of Sean Hannity Talkers Magazine, “Top Talk Audiences,” 2017, web.archive.org/web/20170906064456/http://www.talkers.com/top-talk-audiences.

88 A 2018 study of over 2,900 counties Shawn Musgrave and Matthew Nuss- baum, “Trump Thrives in Areas That Lack Traditional News Outlets,” Politico, April 8, 2018.

88 begun throwing broadcasters off their platforms Isaac Chotiner, “No One Voted for Facebook and Apple to Deal with Alex Jones,” Slate, August 6, 2018.

88 setting up “fact-check” services Aaron Rupar, “Facebook’s Controversial Fact-Checking Partnership with a Daily Caller–Funded Website, Explained,” Vox, May 6, 2019.

88 He’s already gotten it wrong Matt Taibbi, “Who Will Fix Facebook?,” Rolling Stone, November 26, 2018.

88 Conservatives have also complained Li Zhou, “Republicans and Democrats Have Completely Different Priorities on Tech,” Vox, April 9, 2019.

89 by blocking an ad Eli Rosenberg, “Facebook Blocked Many Gay-Themed Ads as Part of Its New Advertising Policy, Angering LGBT Groups,” Washington Post, October 3, 2018.

89 allowing ad purchases William Turton, “Facebook’s Political Ad Tool Let Us Buy Ads ‘Paid For’ by Mike Pence and ISIS,” Vice, October 25, 2018.

89 continues to wave through ads Google Transparency Project, “How to Sow Discord Using Google and $100 (or 6,800 Rubles),” September 4, 2018, www.googletransparencyproject.org/articles/how-sow-discord-using-google-and-100-or-6800-rubles.

89 Josh Marshall explained Josh Marshall, “A Serf on Google’s Farm,” Talking Points Memo, September 1, 2017.

89 Mic is still alive Jon Levine, “Mic Quietly Comes Back to Life with New Writers, Fresh Content,” The Wrap, January 16, 2019, www.thewrap.com/mic-quietly-comes-back-to-life-with-new-writers-fresh-content.

Interlude

91 One out of every 11,600 residents Theodore Schleifer, “One out of Every 11,600 People in San Francisco Is a Billionaire,” Recode, May 9, 2019, www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/9/18537122/billionaire-study-wealthx-san-francisco.

91 over 8,000 residents are homeless “One Day, One City, No Relief: 24 Hours Inside San Francisco’s Homelessness Crisis,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 2019.

92 Bay Area is the nation’s second-most dense Devon Thorsby, “The Biggest Cities in the United States,” U.S. News and World Report, August 14, 2019.

4. Monopolies Are Why Students Sit in Starbucks Parking Lots at Night to Do Their Homework

94 only about 10 percent Chris Dobbs, “Rural Electrification Act,” New Georgia Encyclopedia, August 22, 2018, www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/business-economy/rural-electrification-act.

94 she told the local paper TVA Newsroom, “How TVA Changed Lives,” The Chattanoogan, May 18, 2018.

95 “Dynamo of Dixie” David Eichenthal and Tracy Windeknecht, “Chattanooga, Tennessee: A Restoring Prosperity Case Study,” Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution, September 2008.

95 “Dixie Alley” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “Tornado Alley,” www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-information/extreme-events/us-tornado-climatology/tornado-alley.

95 The city approved Karl Bode, “Chattanooga Gets Their FTTH,” DSL Reports, September 27, 2007, www.dslreports.com/shownews/87916.

95 It sued EPB “Comcast Sues EPB in Hamilton County on Eve of Bond Issue,” The Chattanoogan, April 22, 2008.

96 and dismissed the case Sam Savage, “Chattanooga: Judge Dismisses Comcast Lawsuit,” RedOrbit, July 12, 2008, www.redorbit.com/news/business/1474712/chattanooga_judge_dismisses_comcast_lawsuit.

97 3-D prints housing materials Andrew Zaleski, “Chattanooga Startup Wants to 3D Print Your Future House,” Fortune, July 30, 2015.

97 Chattanooga’s historical role in logistics Chad Prevost, “Freight Alley: A Region Where Logistics Contributes to More than 40% of the Economy,” FreightWaves, September 19, 2018, www.freightwaves.com/news/freight-alley-where-its-at.

98 testing ground for scientific research Dave Flessner, “UTC, Erlanger, EPB Join in Chattanooga Research Collaborative,” Chattanooga Times Free Press, October 18, 2018.

98 top-rated internet service provider James K. Wilcox, “People Still Don’t Like Their Cable Companies, CR’s Latest Telecom Survey Finds,” Consumer Reports, August 8, 2018.

98 bringing tech jobs to Chattanooga Jamie McGee, “Chattanooga Mayor: Gigabit Speed Internet Helped Revive City,” Tennessean, June 14, 2016.

99 31 percent of them live in poverty “Poverty in Chattanooga, Tennessee,” Welfare Info, data from 2017 American Community Survey, https://www.welfareinfo.org/poverty-rate/tennessee/chattanooga.

99 2019 broadband deployment report Federal Communications Commission, 2019 Broadband Deployment Report, May 29, 2019, docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-19-44A1.pdf.

99 self-reporting from the telecoms Devin Coldewey, “Microsoft Says Its Data Shows FCC Reports Massively Overstate Broadband Adoption,” Techcrunch, April 8, 2019.

99 that the FCC touted Federal Communications Commission, “Report: America’s Digital Divide Narrows Substantially,” February 19, 2019, docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-356271A1.pdf.

99 Barrier Free erroneously claiming Jon Brodkin, “Ajit Pai’s Rosy Broadband Deployment Claim May Be Based on Gigantic Error,” Ars Technica, March 7, 2019.

99 assumes that entire block Christopher Ali, “We Need a National Rural Broadband Plan,” New York Times, February 6, 2019.

99 FCC stopped reporting results Jon Brodkin, “Ajit Pai Isn’t Saying Whether ISPs Deliver the Broadband Speeds You Pay For,” Ars Technica, November 19, 2018.

99 Microsoft study from December 2018 Steve Lohr, “Digital Divide Is Wider than We Think, Study Says,” New York Times, December 4, 2018.

100 a 2016 study of Tennessee TNECD Broadband Initiative Summary, July 19, 2016, assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2995723/Broadband-Study.pdf.

101 a comprehensive 2018 study H. Trostle and Christopher Mitchell, “Profiles of Monopoly: Big Cable and Telecom,” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, July 2018, ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/profiles-of-monopoly-2018.pdf.

101 Warren Buffett owns 3 percent Jonathan Garber, “Here Are Warren Buffett’s 15 Biggest Investments,” Business Insider, February 23, 2019.

101 have effectively stopped Ernesto Falcon, “The Heavy Focus on 5G Wireless Means We Are Ignoring 68 Million Americans Facing High-Speed Cable Monopolies,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, October 22, 2018, www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/heavy-focus-5g-wireless-means-we-are-ignoring-68-million-americans-facing-high.

102 Despite $1.5 billion Trostle and Mitchell, “Profiles of Monopoly.”

102 totaling at least $4.6 billion Universal Service Administrative Company, 2017 Annual Report, www.usac.org/_res/documents/about/pdf/annual-reports/usac-annual-report-2017.pdf.

102 received half a billion dollars Trostle and Mitchell, “Profiles of Monopoly.”

102 reversed the Obama-era net neutrality order Matt Wood and Guarav Laroia, “All the Details on Pai’s Internet-Breaking Plan,” Free Press, November 22, 2017, www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/insights-opinions/all-details-pais-internet-breaking-plan.

102 capital expenditures went down slightly Kiran Stacey, “Broadband Groups Cut Capital Expenditure Despite Net Neutrality Win,” Financial Times, February 7, 2019.

102 with more reductions planned Jeff Baumgartner, “Cable & Wireless: A Tale of Two Capex Scenarios in 2019,” LightReading, January 22, 2019, www.lightreading.com/financial/cable-and-wireless-a-tale-of-two-capex-scenarios-in-2019/d/d-id/748966.

102 upgraded the more affluent parts Jon Brodkin, “AT&T Allegedly ‘discriminated’ Against Poor People in Broadband Upgrades,” Ars Technica, March 10, 2017.

102 according to research Mara Faccio and Luigi Zingales, “Political Determinants of Competition in the Mobile Telecommunication Industry,” National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working Paper 23041, January 2017.

102 One example is comically absurd Jon Brodkin, “Frontier Customer Bought His Own Router—but Has to Pay $10 Rental Fee Anyway,” Ars Technica, July 2, 2019.

102 a 2018 survey Daniel B. Kline, “Consumer Satisfaction with Cable, Internet Service Providers Drops Again,” The Motley Fool, May 24, 2018.

103 were found to have sold Joseph Cox, “I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone,” Motherboard, January 8, 2019, www.vice.com/en_us/article/nepxbz/i-gave-a-bounty-hunter-300-dollars-located-phone-microbilt-zumigo-tmobile.

103 bounty hunters and bail-bond firms Joseph Cox, “Hundreds of Bounty Hunters Had Access to AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint Customer Location Data for Years,” Motherboard, February 6, 2019, www.vice.com/en_us/article/43z3dn/hundreds-bounty-hunters-att-tmobile-sprint-customer-location-data-years.

103 found to use the information Richard Nieva, “Law Enforcement Taps Google’s Sensorvault for Location Data, Report Says,” CNET, April 13, 2019.

103 Even stalkers and domestic violence abusers Geoffrey Starks, “Why It’s So Easy for a Bounty Hunter to Find You,” New York Times, April 2, 2019.

103 from the black market Joseph Cox, “Big Telecom Sold Highly Sensitive Cus- tomer GPS Data Typically Used for 911 Calls,” Motherboard, February 6, 2019, www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3b3dg/big-telecom-sold-customer-gps-data-911-calls.

103 Big Telecom pledged Drew FitzGerald and Sarah Krouse, “T-Mobile, AT&T Pledge to Stop Location Sharing by End of March,” Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2019.

103 all sorts of other data they collect Sean Kirk, “Customer Data: Hidden Gold for Telecoms and Cable Companies,” Aria Systems, June 29, 2016, www.ariasystems.com/blog/customer-data-telecoms-cable-companies.

103 In 2017 the FCC declared Ryan Knutson, “U.S. Wireless Industry Is Finally Competitive, FCC Says,” Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2017.

103 by offering unlimited data plans Chaim Gartenberg, “Why Every US Carrier Has a New Unlimited Plan,” The Verge, February 17, 2017.

103 Comcast returned to the area Karl Bode, “Chattanooga Residents Mock Comcast for Belated Gigabit Launch,” DSL Reports, April 11, 2017, www.dslreports.com/shownews/Chattanooga-Residents-Mock-Comcast-For-Belated-Gigabit-Launch-139348.

103 it was “introducing” Comcast Xfinity, “Introducing Gig-Speed Internet to the City of Chattanooga,” Facebook, March 20, 2017, www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155915553999056.

103 which it had to clarify Ellis Smith, “Comcast Blistered over Facebook Ad ‘Introducing’ Gigabit Internet to Chattanooga,” Chattanooga Times Free Press, April 10, 2017.

103 if customers locked themselves Bode, “Chattanooga Residents Mock Comcast.”

103 incumbents trying to improve their services Jacob Davidson, “Google Fiber Has Internet Providers Scrambling to Improve Their Service,” Money, April 14, 2015.

103 industry lobbyists got Tennessee Allan Holmes, “How Big Telecom Smothers City-Run Broadband,” Center for Public Integrity, August 28, 2014, publicintegrity.org/business/how-big-telecom-smothers-city-run-broadband.

103 laws in twenty-six states Kendra Chamberlain, “Municipal Broadband Is Roadblocked or Outlawed in 25 States,” Broadband Now, April 17, 2019, broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks.

104 Texas banned community internet service Siddharta Mahanta, “Why Are Telecom Companies Blocking Rural America from Getting High-Speed internet?,” New Republic, April 16, 2012.

104 millions of dollars have been spent Holmes, “How Big Telecom Smothers.”

104 took Lafayette, Louisiana, three years Testimony of Terry Huval, Director of Utilities, Lafayette, Louisiana, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, “Connecting Main Street to the World: Federal E orts to Expand Small Business Internet Access,” April 27, 2010, www.sbc.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/6/4/646b01b6 -6e75-4f5a-9c0f-790c0ba48889/CA8FAE93749EC96E1642C0D88CFB58EC.terry-huval-testimony.pdf.

104 FCC eliminated price caps Jon Brodkin, “FCC Helps AT&T and Verizon Charge More by Ending Broadband Price Caps,” Ars Technica, April 20, 2017.

104 He called community broadband Karl Bode, “FCC Falsely Claims Community Broadband an ‘Ominous Threat to the First Amendment,’” Motherboard, October 29, 2018, www.vice.com/en_us/article/bj49j8/fcc-falsely-claims-community-broadband-an-ominous-threat-to-the-first-amendment.

104 telecom-industry-funded study Enrique Armijo, “Municipal Broadband Networks in Court: Why Is the FCC Ignoring First Amendment Violations?,” Free State Foundation, October 27, 2015, assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5023684/Municipal-Broadband.pdf.

105 most notably in 2014 Holmes, “How Big Telecom Smothers.”

105 second effort in 2016 Sean Buckley, “AT&T, Comcast Lead Protest of Nashville’s Municipal Broadband Plans,” Fierce Telecom, February 4, 2016, www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/at-t-comcast-lead-protest-nashville-s-municipal-broadband-plans.

106 Wheeler gave a speech Julian Hattem, “FCC Chief: People Need More Broadband Options,” The Hill, September 4, 2014.

106 Wheeler’s FCC struck down David Dayen, “The Most Important Decision the FCC Made Last Week Wasn’t on Net Neutrality,” New Republic, March 2, 2015.

106 to sue the FCC The State of Tennessee v. Federal Communications Commission, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, September 22, 2015.

106 reversed the FCC’s preemption order Cari Wade Gervin, “Sixth Circuit Hits FCC on Broadband Expansion,” Nashville Post, August 10, 2016.

106 Wheeler declined to appeal Andy Sher, “FCC Won’t Appeal Sixth Circuit Court’s Decision on Municipal Broadband,” Chattanooga Times Free Press, August 31, 2016.

106 can’t even reliably receive Drew FitzGerald, “Rural America Still Waiting for Phone Calls  at Won’t Connect,” Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2019.

107 Lack of broadband correlates “Special Report: The New Digital Divides,” Axios, December 1, 2018.

107 Rosenworcel estimated in 2015 Jessica Rosenworcel, “Bridging the Homework Gap,” Huffington Post, June 15, 2015.

107 one in six John B. Horrigan, “The Numbers Behind the Broadband ‘Homework Gap,’” Pew Research Center, April 20, 2015.

107 have become a fact of life Jennifer Levitz and Valerie Bauerlein, “Rural America Is Stranded in the Dial-Up Age,” Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2017.

107 During significant fiooding Associated Press, “Federal Government Offers $10M Immediately for Road Damage,” March 15, 2019.

108 over 750 cities and towns Karl Bode, “More than 750 American Communities Have Built Their Own Internet Networks,” Motherboard, January 23, 2018, www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3np4a/new-municipal-broadband-map.

108 Comcast spent almost $1 million David Z. Morris, “Private Providers Spent Nearly $1 Million to Fight Municipal Broadband in One Small Colorado City,” Fortune, December 10, 2017.

108 won with 57 percent Kevin Duggan, “Fort Collins Voters Say Yes to Broad- band,” Coloradoan, November 8, 2017.

108 the town’s voters rejected the offer Jon Brodkin, “Comcast Rejected by Small Town—Residents Vote for Municipal Fiber Instead,” Ars Technica, December 11, 2018.

109 Three-quarters of Americans get their power W. M. Warwick et al., “Electricity Distribution System Baseline Report,” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, July 2016, www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/Electricity%20Distribution%20 System%20Baseline%20Report.pdf.

109 the final indignity came David Z. Morris, “Private Telecoms Get Another Win over Municipal Broadband in Tennessee,” Fortune, April 15, 2017.

109 could be as low as 10 Mbps Jason Koebler, “Tennessee Could Give Taxpayers America’s Fastest Internet for Free, But It Will Give Comcast and AT&T $45 Million Instead,” Motherboard, April 11, 2017, www.vice.com/en_us/article/3d98mw/tennessee-could-give-taxpayers-americas-fastest-internet-for-free-but-it-will-give-comcast-and-atandt-dollar45-million-instead.

109 Local cooperatives did snag Deb Socia, “State Should Let Municipal Fiber Optic Networks Expand to Meet Demand,” Tennesseean, April 12, 2019.

109 announced a $20 billion grant program Sam Bloch, “5G Technology Is Coming to Rural America,” The New Food Economy, April 16, 2019, newfoodeconomy.org/broadband-rural-america-wireless-5g-technology-fcc.

110 obstacles in the physical terrain Anna Tobin, “Could 5G Have Trouble Penetrating Buildings?,” Forbes, May 25, 2018.

110 also have limited range Sascha Segan, “Trump’s FCC Is Auctioning the Wrong 5G Spectrum,” PC Magazine, April 15, 2019.

110 using streetlight poles Sam Liccardo, “Why San Jose Kids Do Homework in Parking Lots,” New York Times, November 8, 2018.

110 happening in large cities Kim Hart and Sara Fischer, “Faster Internet Is Coming, but Only for a Few,” Axios, August 6, 2019.

110 sort of admitted this last year Brian Fung, “Sprint Sues AT&T over ‘5G E’ Marketing, Calling It Deceptive and Misleading,” Washington Post, February 8, 2019.

110 OpenSignal ran a speed test Ian Fogg, “Quantifying the Real-World Experience of 5G E,” OpenSignal (blog), March 22, 2019, www.opensignal.com/blog/2019/03/22/quantifying-the-real-world-experience-of-5g-e.

110 Sprint and T-Mobile Sarah Krouse and Drew FitzGerald, “U.S. Approves T-Mobile-Sprint Merger,” Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2019.

110 State attorneys general have sued Emily Birnbaum, “Four More States Join Attorneys General Lawsuit to Block T-Mobile-Sprint Merger,” The Hill, June 21, 2019.

110 AT&T’s $85.4 billion purchase Michael J. de la Merced, “AT&T Agrees to Buy Time Warner for $85.4 Billion,” New York Times, October 22, 2016.

110 AT&T wasted no time David Lazarus, “AT&T’s Promise of Better Pay-TV Prices and Service Is ‘Bordering on the Absurd,’” Los Angeles Times, August 6, 2019.

110 AT&T’s stated goal Michelle Castillo, “AT&T’s Recent Acquisition Spree Is Part of a Plan to Dominate Advertising on Connected TVs and Devices,” CNBC, August 10, 2018.

Interlude

113 U.S. delegation got involved Andrew Jacobs, “Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution by U.S. Stuns World Health Official,” New York Times, July 8, 2018.

113 control around 70 percent Data from the Open Markets Institute, concentrationcrisis.openmarketsinstitute.org/industry/baby-formula.

113 it bought Mead Johnson Martinne Geller, “Reckitt Finalizes Deal to Buy Mead Johnson for $16.6 Billion,” Reuters, February 9, 2017.

113 ran a price-fixing ring Barbara Presley Noble, “All About/Baby Formula; Price-Fixing and Other Charges Roil a Once-Placid Market,” New York Times, July 28, 1991.

113 rather incredible black market Chris Pomorski, “The Baby Formula Crime Ring,” New York Times, May 2, 2018.

114 dates back to the 1970s Jill Krasny, “Every Parent Should Know the Scandalous History of Infant Formula,” Business Insider, June 25, 2012.

114 “The Baby Killer” Mike Muller, “The Baby Killer,” War on Want, March 1974, www.babymilkaction.org/pdfs/babykiller.pdf.

114 credibly linked Stephen Solomon, “The Controversy over Infant Formula,” New York Times, December 6, 1981.

114 Lancet estimates “Breastfeeding: Achieving the New Normal,” The Lancet, January 30, 2016.

5. Monopolies Are Why Teamsters Stormed a Podium to Tell One Another About Their Dead Friends and Relatives

116 every nineteen minutes Anders Mellin, “Overdose Victim’s Dad Rallies Teamsters in Fight with McKesson,” Bloomberg, July 21, 2017.

116 well over two hundred thousand deaths Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Prescription Opioid Data,” June 27, 2019, www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/prescribing.html.

118 two to five times as large Government Accountability Office, “Drug Industry: Profits, Research and Development Spending, and Merger and Acquisition Deals,” November 2017, oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/688472.pdf.

118 most profitable sector Keith Speights, “12 Big Pharma Stats That Will Blow You Away,” The Motley Fool, October 4, 2018.

118 origins in government research Ekaterina Galkina Cleary, Jennifer M. Beierlein, Navleen Surjit Khanuja, Laura M. McNamee, and Fred D. Ledley, “Contribution of NIH Funding to New Drug Approvals 2010–2016,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 10 (2017): 2329–2334.

118 moving your patents Michael Ermin and Tom Bergin, “How U.S. Tax Reform Rewards Companies That Shift Profit to Tax Havens,” Reuters, June 18, 2018.

118 merging with a foreign company Patty Tascarella, “Mylan Inversion Deal Completed,” Pittsburgh Business Journal, February 27, 2015.

118 bribing doctors and hospitals Peter Loftus, “U.S. Probes Drugmakers over Free Services,” Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2018.

118 newsletters can still be found Fatty Oxidation Disorders Family Support Group newsletters, fodsupport.org/newsletters.

119 one from December 1991 Deb and Dan Gould, “MCAD Communication Network ‘All in This Together,’” FOD Support Group, December 1991, fodsupport.org/pdf/fod_news_12-91.pdf.

119 pioneered as a treatment Shirley Barnes, “Grief Turns into Hope,” Chicago Tribune, November 27, 1994.

119 his curriculum vitae Charles R. Roe curriculum vitae, Baylor University Medical Center, July 10, 2006, www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/31364.pdf.

119 defended its continued use Dr. Charles R. Roe and Dr. Alfred Slonim, “Carnitine Supplementation and VLCAD Deficiency,” FOD Support, fodsupport.org/documents/CarnitineSupplementationandVLCADDeficiency.pdf.

120 drug companies hire Instagram influencers Suzanne Zuppello, “The Latest Instagram Influencer Frontier? Medical Promotions,” Vox, February 15, 2019.

121 companies deliberately make the drop larger Marshall Allen, “Drug Companies Make Eyedrops Too Big—And You Pay for the Waste,” ProPublica, October 18, 2017.

121 “lifecycle management” PR Newswire, “Pharmaceutical Lifecycle Management Strategies in 2017: Comprehensive Assessment of Strategies Being Implemented by Pharmaceutical Companies Around the World—Research and Markets,” May 5, 2017.

121 paved the way for this abuse Alexander Zaitchik, “How Big Pharma Was Captured by the One Percent,” New Republic, June 28, 2018.

121 Celgene has twenty-seven patents Food and Drug Administration, “Orange Book: Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations, Lenalidomide (Revlimid),” www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/ob/patent_info.cfm?Product _No=005&Appl_No=021880&Appl_type=N.

121 tried to sell some of its patents Katie Thomas, “How to Protect a Drug Patent? Give It to a Native American Tribe,” New York Times, September 8, 2017.

121 never made the research public Christopher Rowland, “Pfizer Had Clues Its Blockbuster Drug Could Prevent Alzheimer’s. Why Didn’t It Tell the World?,” Washington Post, June 4, 2019.

122 forcing them to negotiate Alison Kodjak, “How a Drugmaker Gamed the System to Keep Generic Competition Away,” NPR News, May 17, 2018.

122 “citizen” petitions P&T Community, “FDA Thwarts Drug Companies That Abuse Citizen Petitions,” October 9, 2018, www.ptcommunity.com/news/20181009/fda-thwarts-drug-companies-abuse-citizen-petitions.

122 they bribe hospitals with rebates Bob Herman, “Johnson & Johnson’s Stranglehold on the Blockbuster Drug Remicade,” Axios, July 11, 2019.

122 pay-for-delay Federal Trade Commission, “Pay-for-Delay: When Companies Agree Not to Compete,” www.ftc.gov/news-events/media-resources/mergers-competition/pay-delay.

122 a situation like that of insulin Natalie Shure, “The Insulin Racket,” American Prospect, June 24, 2019.

122 regulators kept insulin producers honest Mike Hoskins, “Way Back When . . . Insulin Was Cheap (And Then It Wasn’t),” Healthline, September 28, 2016.

122 seventy-four patent applications Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge, “Sano ’s Lantus Is Overpatented and Overpriced,” T1 International, November 1, 2018, www.t1international.com/blog/2018/11/01/sanofis-lantus-overpatented-and-overpriced.

122 sue them for patent infringement Noemie Bisserbe and Inti Landauro, “Sanofi Files Suit Against Merck, Claiming Patent Infringements,” Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2016.

122 One in four patients report Kendall Teare, “One in Four Patients Say They’ve Skimped on Insulin Because of High Cost,” Yale News, December 3, 2018, news.yale.edu/2018/12/03/one-four-patients-say-theyve-skimped-insulin-because-high-cost.

122 can lead to death Shure, “Insulin Racket.”

123 Gilead Sciences set the price Ed Silverman, “Gilead Pricing for Sovaldi Hepatitis C Drug Slammed by Senators,” Stat News, December 1, 2015, www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2015/12/01/pharmalot-gilead-pricing-sovaldi-hepatitis-c-drug-slammed-senators.

123 “a very good value” John LaMattina, “Gilead’s CEO Admits to ‘Failures’ in Set- ting Price of $1,000-a-Pill Breakthrough,” Forbes, December 8, 2016.

123 jumped twenty-fold in twelve years Serena Gordon, “MS Patients Now Pay 20 Times More for Drugs than a Decade Ago,” U.S. News and World Report, May 1, 2019.

123 list price of $2.125 million Denise Rowland, “At $2 Million, New Novartis Drug Is Priciest Ever,” Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2019.

123 3,400 drugs raised prices Aimee Picchi, “Drug Prices in 2019 Are Surging, with Hikes at 5 Times Inflation,” CBS News, July 1, 2019.

123 jumped 450 percent Tara Parker-Pope and Rachel Rabkin Peachman, “EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Su erers,” New York Times, August 22, 2016.

123 would cost only $20 Ike Swetlitz, “High Price of EpiPens Spurs Consumers, EMTs to Resort to Syringes for Allergic Reactions,” Stat News, July 6, 2016, www.statnews.com/2016/07/06/epipen-prices-allergies.

123 as little as $1 Emily Willingham, “Why Did Mylan Hike EpiPen Prices 400%? Because They Could,” Forbes, August 21, 2016.

123 Mylan controls 87 percent Chris Cillizza, “The Price of EpiPens Has Gone Up 450 Percent Since 2004. That’s Ridiculous,” Washington Post, August 22, 2016.

123 Mylan paid out rebates Chris Moran, “Lawsuit: EpiPen Price Hikes Were Intended to Keep Competitor out of Pharmacies,” Consumerist, April26, 2017, consumerist.com/2017/04/26/lawsuit-epipen-price-hikes-were-intended-to-keep-competitor-out-of-pharmacies.

123 66 percent annual price increases Andrew Pollack and Sabrina Tavernese, “Valeant’s Drug Price Strategy Enriches It, but Infuriates Patients and Lawmakers,” New York Times, October 4, 2015.

123 relentless debt-fueled acquisitions Stephen Gandel, “Valeant: A Timeline of the Big Pharma Scandal,” Fortune, October 31, 2015, fortune.com/2015/10/31/valeant-scandal.

123 quietly worked at Philidor Jonathan D. Rocko and Jeanne Whalen, “Valeant and Pharmacy More Intertwined than Thought,” Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2015.

124 purchasing a drug called Daraprim Andrew Pollack, “Drug Goes from $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight,” New York Times, September 20, 2015.

124 eventually went to jail Dan Mangan, “‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison—Says, ‘This Is My Fault,’” CNBC, March 9, 2018.

124 slotted in behind him Ezra Klein, “Martin Shkreli Is the Symptom, Not the Problem,” Vox, December 17, 2015.

124 AbbVie . . . declared Bob Herman, “AbbVie Believes Political Risks of Drug Pricing Are ‘Waning,��” Axios, September 22, 2017.

124 AbbVie obtained hundreds of patents Bob Herman, “Mounting Lawsuits Allege AbbVie Abused the Drug Patent System,” Axios, April 3, 2019.

124 Daraprim still cost $750 a pill Shefali Luthra, “‘Pharma Bro’ Shkreli Is in Prison, But Daraprim’s Price Is Still High,” Kaiser Health News, May 4, 2018, khn.org/news/for-shame-pharma-bro-shkreli-is-in-prison-but-daraprims-price-is-still-high.

124 EpiPen prices haven’t dropped much Charles Duhigg, “Outcry Over EpiPen Prices Hasn’t Made Them Lower,” New York Times, June 4, 2017.

124 Sticky pricing is a common feature Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Why Competition Won’t Bring Down Drug Prices,” New York Times, June 21, 2018.

124 conspired to inflate prices Christopher Rowland, “Investigation of Generic ‘Cartel’ Expands to 300 Drugs,” Washington Post, December 9, 2018.

124 drugmakers have another strategy Charley Grant, “Plan on More Pharma Megamergers,” Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2019.

124 AbbVie . . . bought Allergan Katie Thomas and Michael J. de la Merced, “Botox Maker Allergan Is Sold to AbbVie in $63 Billion Deal,” New York Times, June 25, 2019.

124 Gilead bought rival Kite Pharmaceuticals John Dobosz, “Why Gilead Sci- ences Is Flying High with Kite,” Forbes, September 21, 2017.

124 Bristol-Myers Squibb paid $74 billion Tiffany Hsu and Katie Thomas, “Bristol-Myers to Acquire Celgene in Deal Worth $74 Billion,” New York Times, January 3, 2019.

124 Pfizer combined Jared S. Hopkins, “Mylan Deal Furthers Pfizer CEO’s Bet on Patent-Protected Drugs,” Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2019.

124 GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer just merged Jamie Condliffe, “GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer to Merge Consumer Health Units,” New York Times, December 19, 2018.

125 amazing study out of Yale Colleen Cunningham, Florian Ederer, and Song Ma, “Killer Acquisitions,” Yale School of Management, November 2018, fnce.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Song-Ma-Killer-Acquisitions-Wharton.pdf.

125 managed to fine Questcor Federal Trade Commission, “Mallinckrodt Will Pay $100 Million to Settle FTC, State Charges It Illegally Maintained its Monopoly of Specialty Drug Used to Treat Infants,” January 18, 2017, www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/01/mallinckrodt-will-pay-100-million-settle-ftc-state-charges-it.

125 forced the licensing Federal Trade Commission, “FTC Approves Sublicense for Synacthen Depot Submitted by Mallinckrodt ARD Inc.,” July 14, 2019, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/07/ftc-approves-sublicense-synacthen-depot-submitted-mallinckrodt.

125 West hasn’t completed “Assertio Therapeutics Announces Third-Quarter 2019 Results,” November 6, 2019, https://investor.depomedinc.com/news-releases/news-release-details/assertio-therapeutics-announces-third-quarter-2019-results. Assertio, then under the name Depomed, purchased the rights to market Synacthen Depot in the United States in November 2017.

125 costs $425,000 per eye Callum Burroughs, “Pharma Giant Roche Just Bought Biotech Firm Spark, the Maker of an $850,000 Eye Drug,” Business Insider, February 25, 2019.

125 showed 97 percent success Alex Keown, “Spark’s Hemophilia A Gene Therapy Significantly Reduced Bleeding in Clinical Trial,” BioSpace, August 7, 2018, www.biospace.com/article/spark-s-hemophilia-a-gene-therapy-significantly-reduced-bleeding-in-clinical-trial.

125 created dangerous shortages David Crow, “Pfizer Under Pressure to Resolve Shortage of Life-Saving EpiPen,” Financial Times, May 24, 2018.

125 buspirone suddenly dried up Roni Caryn Rabin, “Shortage of Anxiety Drug Leaves Patients Scrambling,” New York Times, February 1, 2019.

125 create opportunities for price hikes Peter Loftus, “Drugmakers Raise Prices Amid Shortages, Recalls,” Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2019.

127 gave Travis a standing ovation International Brotherhood of Teamsters, “Travis Bornstein—Breaking Barrier—Hope Is Alive,” June 29, 2016, teamster.org/videos/2016/06/travis-bornstein-breaking-barrier-hope-alive.

127 many prescribed them illegally Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham, “Doctors in Seven States Charged with Prescribing Pain Killers for Cash, Sex,” Washington Post, April 17, 2019.

127 Kickbacks for prescriptions Benjamin Weiser and Katie  omas, “5 Doctors Are Charged with Taking Kickbacks for Fentanyl Prescriptions,” New York Times, March 16, 2018.

127 like meals for doctors Jessica Bartlett, “Doctors Who Get Meals from Pharma Tend to Prescribe More Opioids, Says Study,” Boston Business Journal, May 14, 2018.

127 A 2017 study Scott E. Hadland, Maxwell S. Krieger, and Brandon D. L. Marshall, “Industry Payments to Physicians for Opioid Products, 2013–2015,” American Journal of Public Health 107, no. 9 (September 2017): 1493–1495.

128 overdose deaths increased Abby Goodnough, “Study Links Drug Maker Gifts for Doctors to More Overdose Deaths,” New York Times, January 18, 2019.

128 lowered the number of OxyContin prescriptions Molly Schnell, “Physician Behavior in the Presence of a Secondary Market: The Case of Prescription Opioids,” Princeton University, November 17, 2017, scholar.princeton.edu/schnell/files/schnell_jmp.pdf.

128 Purdue lobbied the Joint Commission Anna Lembke and Terry Gross, “‘Drug Dealer, M.D.’: Misunderstandings and Good Intentions Fueled Opioid Epidemic,” Fresh Air, NPR, December 15, 2016.

128 opioid prescriptions quadrupled Elaine Silvestrini, “Profiting from Pain,” DrugWatch, December15, 2017, www.drugwatch.com/featured/opioid-crisis-big-pharma.

128 most-prescribed pain medication Government Accountability Office, “Prescription Drugs: OxyContin Abuse and Diversion and Efforts to Address the Problem,” December 2003, www.gao.gov/new.items/d04110.pdf.

128 executives knew early on Andrew Kershner, “Purdue Pharma Execs Knew About Opioid Addiction Risks ‘Long Before’ Publicly Admitting Them, Court Papers Claim,” CBS Marketwatch, October 24, 2018.

128 pushed doctors to prescribe for higher dosages Barry Meier, “Sackler Scion’s Email Reveals Push for High-Dose OxyContin, New Lawsuit Disclosures Claim,” New York Times, January 31, 2019.

128 A retrospective study Abby E. Alpert, William N. Evans, Ethan M.J. Lieber, and David Powell, “Origins of the Opioid Crisis and Its Enduring Impacts,” National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2019.

128 built a fortune Christopher Glazek, “The Secretive Family Making Billions from the Opioid Crisis,” Esquire, October 16, 2017.

129 help of top-notch lawyers David Corn, “Why Eric Holder Represents What’s Wrong with Washington,” Mother Jones, January 14, 2009.

129 slapped a $634 million fine Sue Lindsey, “Fines Total $634.5 Million in OxyContin Case,” Seattle Times, July 21, 2007.

129 the Sacklers brainstormed David Armstrong, “OxyContin Maker Explored Expansion into ‘Attractive’ Anti-Addiction Market,” ProPublica, January 30, 2019.

129 Purdue filed for bankruptcy Mike Spector, “What’s Next for OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma,” Reuters, September 16, 2019.

129 museum donations rejected and events protested Kelsey Piper, “The Sackler Family Made Their Fortune in Opioids—and Museums Are Rejecting Their Donations,” Vox, March 26, 2019; Colin Moynihan, “Large-Scale Art Protest Outside OxyContin Maker Ends in Arrest,” New York Times, June 22, 2018.

129 followed Purdue’s playbook Emma Court, “As Opioid Crisis Raged, Insys Pushed Higher Doses of Addictive Drug and Pushed Salespeople to ‘Own’ Doctors,” CBS Marketwatch, October 21, 2018.

129 Insys vice president pleaded guilty Alex Johnson, “Ex-Drug Company Executive Pleads Guilty to Bribing Doctors,” NBC News, November 28, 2018.

129 executives . . . were convicted in court Nate Raymond, “Founder, Execs of Drug Company Guilty in Conspiracy That Fed Opioid Crisis,” Reuters, May 2, 2019.

129 company filed for bankruptcy Katie Thomas, “Insys, the Opioid Drug Maker, Files for Bankruptcy,” New York Times, June 10, 2019.

129 generic opioid manufacturers Aaron C. Davis, Shawn Boburg, and Robert O’Harrow Jr., “Little-Known Makers of Generic Drugs Played Central Role in Opioid Crisis, Records Show,” Washington Post, July 27, 2019.

129 a guy named Warren Buffett Tim Mullaney, “Why Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Loves Loathed Israeli Drug Stock Teva,” CNBC, February 15, 2018.

129 global settlement with opioid companies Geoff Mulvehill, “As Opioid Crisis Grows, Judge Aims for Solutions, Settlement,” Associated Press, January 30, 2018.

129 successful 2019 lawsuit Berkeley Lovelace Jr., “Judge Rules Against Johnson & Johnson in Landmark Opioid Case in Oklahoma,” CNBC, August 26, 2019.

129 Mike Moore has involved himself Esmé E. Duprez and Paul Barrett, “The Lawyer Who Beat Big Tobacco Takes On the Opioid Industry,” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 5, 2017.

129 controlled 64 percent Adam J. Fein, “The Top 15 U.S. Pharmacies of 2017: Market Shares and Key Developments for the Biggest Companies,” Drug Channels, February 21, 2018, www.drugchannels.net/2018/02/the-top-15-us-pharmacies-of-2017-market.html.

130 Walgreens bought half of Rite Aid’s stores Jill Disis, “Walgreens Finally Buys Rite Aid Stores in a Diminished Deal,” CNN, September 19, 2017.

130 Caremark plans nearly tripled Brian S. Feldman, “Big Pharmacies Are Dismantling the Industry That Keeps US Drug Costs Even Sort-of Under Control,” Quartz, March 17, 2016.

130 contract every pharmacy signs Bob Herman, “Inside a Drug Pricing Contract,” Axios, March 15, 2018.

131 profit through spread pricing Bob Herman, “The Data Showing Drug Pricing Games,” Axios, August 1, 2018.

131 pocket them without passing them on Linda Cahn, “Don’t Get Trapped by PBMs’ Rebate Labeling Games,” Managed Care, January 2009.

131 “direct and indirect remuneration” fees Bob Herman, “How Drug Middlemen Take Back Money from Pharmacists,” Axios, July 25, 2019.

131 one in five dollars Neeraj Sood, Tiffany Shih, Karen Van Nuys, and Dana Goldman, “Flow of Money Through the Pharmaceutical Distribution System,” USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, June 6, 2017, healthpolicy.usc.edu/research/flow-of-money-through-the-pharmaceutical-distribution-system.

131 dislocating a critical link Aaron E. Carroll, “The Unsung Role of the Pharmacist in Patient Health,” New York Times, January 28, 2019.

131 control over 75 percent of the market Adam J. Fein, “CVS, Express Scripts, and the Evolution of the PBM Business Model,” Drug Channels, May 29, 2019, www.drugchannels.net/2019/05/cvs-express-scripts-and-evolution-of.html.

132 massive amounts of waste National Community Pharmacists Association, “Waste Not, Want Not: Examples of Mail Order Pharmacy Waste,” September 2011, www.ncpanet.org/pdf/leg/sep11/mail_order_waste.pdf.

132 Purdue Pharma paid off PBMs David Armstrong, “Drug Maker Thwarted Plan to Limit OxyContin Prescriptions at Dawn of Opioid Epidemic,” Stat News, October 26, 2016, www.statnews.com/2016/10/26/oxycontin-maker-thwarted-limits.

132 It took until 2017 Jeanne Whalen, “CVS Health Moves to Limit Access to Opioid Painkillers,” Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2017.

132 Congress has shut down Kimberly Leonard, “House Votes to Ban ‘Gag Clauses’ at Prevent Pharmacies from Lowering Customers’ Drug Costs,” Washington Examiner, September 25, 2018.

132 companies have shifted profits Caitlin Owens and Bob Herman, “Part of Trump’s Drug Pricing Plan Is Already Happening,” Axios, March 15, 2019.

132 deliver about 90 percent Danny Hakim, William K. Rashbaum, and Roni Caryn Rabin, “The Giants at the Heart of the Opioid Crisis,” New York Times, April 22, 2019.

132 companies made the top sixteen 2019 Fortune 500, Fortune, fortune.com/fortune500/2019.

132 generated $7.9 million per employee Ilya Levtov, “Which Companies Have the Highest Revenue per Employee?” Priceonomics, May 24, 2017, priceonomics.com/which-companies-have-the-highest-revenue-per.

133 shipped 9 million opioid pills Eric Eyre, “Drug Firms Poured 780M Painkillers into WV amid Rise of Overdoses,” West Virginia Gazette, December 17, 2016.

133 Mingo County, West Virginia, got 20.8 million Eric Eyre, “Drug Firms Shipped 20.8M Pain Pills to WV Town with 2,900 People,” West Virginia Gazette, January 29, 2018.

133 the number is 76 billion “Drilling into the DEA’s Pain Pill Database,” Washington Post, July 21, 2019.

133 A New York complaint in 2019 New York v. Purdue Pharma et al., Supreme Court of the State of New York, April 11, 2019, www.documentcloud.org/documents/5817053-Unredacted-NYOAG-complaint.html.

133 Documents in a long-running case Scott Higham, Sari Horwitz, and Steven Rich, “Internal Drug Company Emails Show Indifference to Opioid Epidemic,” Washington Post, July 19, 2019.

133 Justice Department never filed anything Lenny Bernstein and Scott Higham, “‘We Feel Like Our System Was Hijacked’: DEA Agents Say a Huge Opioid Case Ended in a Whimper,” Washington Post, December 17, 2017.

134 pay package of $98 million Bob Herman, “McKesson CEO’s $98 Million Pay Comes Amid U.S. Opioid Crisis,” Axios, June 16, 2017.

134 $781 million in compensation Anders Mellin, “Overdose Victim’s Dad Rallies Teamsters in Fight with McKesson,” Bloomberg, July 21, 2017.

134 Congress passed a law Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein, “The Drug Industry’s Triumph over the DEA,” Washington Post, October 15, 2017.

134 and public pleas Ken Hall, “A Shareholder’s Prescription for the Big Three Opioid Distributors,” West Virginia Gazette, April 8, 2017.

134 first at AmerisourceBergen Don Sapatkin, “At Philly Shareholders Meeting, Teamsters Challenge Drug Wholesaler AmerisourceBergen on Opioid Policies,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2, 2017.

134 shareholders voted down International Brotherhood of Teamsters, “Teamsters Lead Rare Shareholder Victory at McKesson, Country’s Largest Opioid Distributor,” July 26, 2017, teamster.org/news/2017/07/teamsters-lead-rare-shareholder-victory-mckesson-countrys-largest-opioid-distributor.

134 board cleared itself of wrongdoing Anders Mellin and Jeff Feeley, “McKesson’s Board Clears Itself of Fault on Opioid Oversight,” Bloomberg, April 24, 2018.

134 calling criticism of McKesson “nonsense” Erik Schatzker and Ivan Levings- ton, “McKesson CEO Calls Criticism of Company’s Opioid Role ‘Nonsense,’” Bloomberg, January 9, 2018.

134 board did cut his pay Alicia Ritcey, “McKesson Reduces CEO’s Pay 10% Following Revolt by Investors,” Bloomberg, June 15, 2018.

134 defendants in the array of lawsuits Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein, “Drugmakers and Distributors Face Barrage of Lawsuits over Opioid Epidemic,” Washington Post, July 4, 2017.

135 California threatened to revoke Ed Silverman, “California Cites AmerisourceBergen for Failing to Flag Huge Sales of Opioids to Pharmacies,” Stat News, July 23, 2019, www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2019/07/23/california-cites-amerisourcebergen-for-failing-to-ag-huge-sales-of-opioids-to-pharmacies.

135 Justice Department got involved Joseph Tanfani, “Justice Department to Target Opioid Manufacturers and Distributors in a New Push to Curb Deadly Epidemic,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2018.

135 board chair of Miami-Luken said Bob Herman, “Drug Distributor Admits Contributing to Opioid Crisis,” Axios, May 8, 2018.

135 Justice Department criminally charged William K. Rashbaum, “For First Time, Pharmaceutical Distributor Faces Federal Criminal Charges over Opioid Crisis,” New York Times, April 23, 2019.

135 criminally indicted in Ohio Lenny Bernstein, “Prosecutors Bring Rare Criminal Charges Against Ohio Opioid Distributor,” Washington Post, July 18, 2019.

135 letters to the New York Times Gabe Weissman, “Don’t Blame Distributors for the Opioid Crisis,” New York Times, May 8, 2019.

135 Addicts have moved on Joel Achenbach, “Wave of Addiction Linked to Fentanyl Worsens as Drugs, Distribution, Evolve,” Washington Post, October 24, 2017.

Interlude

137 spiked to nearly $1 billion Jenni Avins, “The Era of Big Weed Is upon Us,” Quartz, April 5, 2019.

137 grew through acquisition Debroop Roy, “Curaleaf Buys Select Brand to Create World’s Biggest Pot Company by Sales,” Reuters, May 1, 2019.

137 MedMen scooped up Tomi Kilgore, “MedMen to Buy Medical Cannabis Company PharmaCann in a $682 Million Stock Deal,” CBS Marketwatch, October 11, 2018.

137 made a $4 billion investment David Gelles, “When the Makers of Marlboro and Corona Get into Marijuana,” New York Times, December 12, 2018.

137 MolsonCoors also joined forces “Molson Coors Canada and HEXO Announce Agreement to Create Joint Venture Focused on Non-Alcoholic, Cannabis-Infused Beverages for the Canadian Market,” Molson Coors press release, August 1, 2018, ir.molsoncoors.com/news/press-release-details/2018/Molson-Coors-Canada-and-HEXO-Announce-Agreement-to-Create-Joint-Venture-Focused-on-Non-Alcoholic-Cannabis-Infused-Beverages-for-the-Canadian-Market/default.aspx.

137 Anheuser-Busch InBev Associated Press, “Budweiser Maker Teams Up with Tilray to Explore Pot Drinks,” December 19, 2018.

137 took a 45 percent stake Gelles, “When the Makers of Marlboro and Corona.”

137 swallowing CBD “beauty brand” Anjelica LaVito, “Canadian Pot Company Cronos Gets Foothold in US by Buying Popular CBD Beauty Brand Lord Jones,” CNBC, August 2, 2019.

137 navigated a tobacco market Jennifer Maloney and Saabira Chaudhuri, “Against All Odds, the U.S. Tobacco Industry Is Rolling in Money,” Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2017.

137 the duopoly can raise prices Clark Schultz, “Altria Surprises with U.S. Cigarette Price Hike,” Seeking Alpha, June 13, 2019, seekingalpha.com/news/3471091-altria-surprises-u-s-cigarette-price-hike.

138 35 percent stake in Juul David Dayen, “How Vaping Giant Juul Explains Everything That’s Wrong with Our World,” The Intercept, December 27, 2018.

138 captured close to three-quarters Ivan Couronne, “JUUL: E-Cigarette Dominates the Market—and Fears of Parents,” Medical Xpress, October 3, 2018, medicalxpress.com/news/2018-10-juul-e-cigarette-dominates-marketand-parents.html.

138 often known as “juuling” Kate Zernike, “‘I Can’t Stop’: Schools Struggle with Vaping Explosion,” New York Times, April 2, 2018.

138 has been wiped out Kevin Drum, “The Juul Fad Is Far Bigger than I Ever Would Have Guessed,” Mother Jones, December 18, 2018.

138 Juul’s products and especially its marketing Alex Bogusky, “How Big Tobacco Got a New Generation Hooked,” New York Times, May 3, 2019; Robert K. Jackler et al., “JUUL Advertising over Its First Three Years on the Market,” Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising, January 31, 2019, tobacco.stanford.edu /tobacco_main/publications/JUUL_Marketing_Stanford.pdf.

138 Almost half of Juul’s Twitter followers Lisa Rapaport, “Teens Made Up Most of E-Cigarette Maker Juul’s Twitter Following—Study,” Reuters, May 20, 2019.

138 gave marketing presentations Beth Mole, “Juul Gave Presentations in Schools to Kids—and the FDA Is Fuming,” Ars Technica, September 10, 2019.

138 held free “sampling events” Jackler et al., “JUUL Advertising.”

138 has as much nicotine Michael Nedelman and Roni Selig, “Juul Ramped UpNicotine Levels, and Competitors Followed, Study Says,” CNN, February 7, 2019.

138 Schools are struggling Zernike, “I Can’t Stop.”

138 said former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb Julia Belluz, “Scott Gott- lieb’s Last Word as FDA Chief: Juul Drove a Youth Addiction Crisis,” Vox, April 5, 2019.

138 over a thousand people were sickened Denise Grady, “Vaping Illnesses Top 1,000, C.D.C. Says,” New York Times, October 3, 2019.

138 seizures, potential risk of heart disease Julia Belluz, “Vaping May Be More Dangerous than We Realized,” Vox, March 28, 2019; Rebecca Falconer, “E-Cigarette Flavorings May Pose Heart Risk, Study Finds,” Axios, May 28, 2019; American Lung Association, “Popcorn Lung: A Dangerous Risk of Flavored E-Cigarettes,” July 7, 2016, www.lung.org/about-us/blog/2016/07/popcorn-lung-risk-ecigs.html.

138 telling everyone to “stop vaping” Soumya Karlamanga, “California Officials Tell Everyone to Stop Vaping Right Now,” Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2019.

138 Walmart stopped stocking Angelica LaVito and Courtney Regan, “Walmart Will Stop Selling E-Cigarettes in the Wake of Vaping-Related Deaths,” CNBC, September 20, 2019.

138 TV networks stopped showing ads David Yaffe-Bellamy, “TV Networks Take Down Juul and Other E-Cigarette Ads,” New York Times, September 18, 2019.

139 cities and states banned sales Thomas Fuller, “San Francisco Bans Sale of Juul and Other E-Cigarettes,” New York Times, June 25, 2019; Steve LeBlanc, “Massachusetts Temporarily Banning Sale of Vaping Products,” Associated Press, September 24, 2019.

139 under federal civil and criminal investigation Jennifer Maloney, “Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul,” Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2019.

139 dumped the flavored pods Jennifer Maloney, “Juul Halts Online Sales of Some Flavored E-Cigarettes,” Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2019.

139 saw its CEO step down Michelle Chapman, “Juul CEO Kevin Burns Steps Down, Company to End Advertising as Vaping Comes Under Safety Scrutiny,” Associated Press, September 25, 2019.

139 an amazing article Jennifer Maloney, “Juul Looks to Marlboro Maker for More Sway in Washington,” Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2018.

139 bragged in a conference call “Altria Group, Inc. (MO) CEO Howard Willard on Discussion of Investment at Juul Labs Inc. Conference Call,” Seeking Alpha, December 20, 2018, seekingalpha.com/article/4229702-altria-group-inc-mo-ceo-howard-willard-discussion-investment-juul-labs-inc-conference-call.

139 former Massachsetts attorney general Zeninjor Enwemeka, “Former Mass. AG Coakley Joins E-Cigarette Company Juul,” WBUR, April 2, 2019.

139 top advisor Johnny DeStefano Josh Dawsey and Felicia Sonmez, “Trump Aides DeStefano, Knight to Depart White House,” Washington Post, May 21, 2019.

139 planned merger with Phillip Morris Daniel Strauss, “Philip Morris and Altria’s Tobacco Megamerger Goes Up in Smoke as Juul Struggles with Vaping Backlash,” Business Insider, September 25, 2019.

139 competition at mom-and-pop vape shops Andrew Van Dam, “Trump’s Vaping Crackdown Could Help Juul by Ending the Decade’s Biggest Small-Business Success Story,” Washington Post, September 23, 2019.

6. Monopolies Among Banks Are Why  ere Are Monopolies Among Every Other Economic Sector

141 said one admirer “Efforts on Behalf of the Industry Award 2012: Michael Funk,” Nutrition Business Journal, January18, 2013, www.newhope.com/people/efforts-behalf-industry-award-2012-michael-funk.

141 the corporate hagiography “UNFI over the Years,” UNFI website, www.unfi.com/our-history.

141 poaching nineteen other organic food distributors Kristen Leigh Palmer, “Buyer of Supervalu Is a Key Player in Fast-Growing Organic Foods Industry,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 27, 2018.

142 43,000 business customers United Natural Foods, Inc., Corporate Profile, ir.unfi.com/home/default.aspx.

142 $6 billion in quarterly sales United Natural Foods Inc. quarterly report, Q1 2019, Securities and Exchange Commission, d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001020859/c20f049b-a59b-4011-afc7-8bea9a158362.pdf.

142 response to Amazon buying Whole Foods Claire Kelloway, “As Independent Grocery Stores Wane and Amazon Looms, Wholesale Middlemen Merge,” Food and Power, August 2, 2018, www.foodandpower.net/2018/08/02/as-independent-grocery-stores-wane-and-amazon-looms-wholesale-middlemen-merge.

142 investment banks earned $21 billion Jonathan Tepper, “Why Regulators Went Soft on Monopolies,” American Conservative, January 9, 2019.

142 $22.8 billion in 2016 Portia Crowe and Matt Turner, “Here’s How Much the Top Wall Street Banks Have Earned in Fees in 2016,” Business Insider, December 22, 2016.

142 $690 million in fees Bob Bryan, “Wall Street Banks Could Make Close to $700 Million from the Bayer-Monsanto Deal,” Business Insider, September 14, 2016.

143 Citicorp merged with Travelers Insurance Randy Schultz, “Travelers, Citicorp to Unite,” CNN, April 6, 1998.

144 read a White House memo Clinton Digital Library, “NEC—Financial Modernization,” May 13, 1997, clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/4862.

144 banks all had securities operations Stacy Mitchell, “Glass-Steagall Act & the Volcker Rule,” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, October 26, 2010, ilsr.org/rule/glass-steagall-act-the-volcker-rule.

144 over $130 billion in assets Arthur E. Wilmarth, “Citigroup: A Case Study in Managerial and Regulatory Failures,” Indiana Law Review 47, no. 1 (2014): 69–137.

144 the investment bankers won Joseph Stiglitz, “Capitalist Fools,” Vanity Fair, January 2009.

144 the possibly apocryphal quote James Kwak, “All You Need for a Financial Crisis . . . ,” Baseline Scenario, January 27, 2014, baselinescenario.com/2014/01/27/all-you-need-for-a-financial-crisis.

145 Japanese private banking unit Todd Zaun, “Citigroup Tries to Repair Its Image in Japan,” New York Times, October 26, 2004.

145 admitted in 2012 Kim Chipman and Christine Harper, “Parsons Blames Glass-Steagall Repeal for Crisis,” Bloomberg, April 19, 2012.

145 demanded specific types Nathaniel Popper, “Court Filing Illuminates Morgan Stanley Role in Lending,” New York Times, December 29, 2014.

145 email from a September 2008 weekend Dennis Kelleher, “Goldman Sachs Failed 10 Years Ago Today,” Better Markets, September 20, 2018.

146 six biggest banks Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, “Large Holding Companies,” June 30, 2019, www.ffec.gov/npw/Institution/TopHoldings.

146 serial transnational criminal enterprises “Wall Street’s Six Biggest Bailed-Out Banks: Their RAP Sheets and Their Ongoing Crime Spree,” Better Markets, April 9, 2019, bettermarkets.com/sites/default/files/Better%20Markets%20-%20Wall%20Street%27s%20Six%20Biggest%20Bailed-Out%20Banks%20FINAL.pdf.

146 pension fund lawsuit Owen Davis, “Pensions Accuse Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs et al. of Being Just a Little Too Tight with Each Other,” Dealbreaker, August 18, 2017, dealbreaker.com/2017/08/pensions-accuse-morgan-stanley-goldman-sachs-et-al-of-getting-just-a-little-too-tight.

146 dominating the credit default swap market Jonathan Stempel, “Lawsuit in U.S. Accuses 12 Big Banks of Credit Default Swap Collusion,” Reuters, June 8, 2017.

146 windfall salary increases Laura Noonan and Robert Armstrong, “US Bank CEO Pay Rises at Faster Pace than Average Worker,” Financial Times, January 20, 2019.

146 today there are around 4,600 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, “Commercial Banks in the United States,” fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USNUM.

146 didn’t reject a single bank merger Felice Maranz, “‘Merge Now,’ Ahead of 2020 Elections, Mike Mayo Tells Banks,” Bloomberg, May 16, 2019.

146 mergers have quickened Lalita Clozel, “Bank Mergers Get Faster Under Trump,” Wall Street Journal, February 13, 2019.

146 even before the 2018 bill David Dayen, “Bill Aimed at Saving Community Banks Is Already Killing Them,” The Intercept, May 16, 2018.

146 Analysts have been screaming Matthew Monks, “JPMorgan Tells Banks to Partner Up as U.S. Deposit Drain Looms,” Bloomberg, May 8, 2017.

147 said top stock analyst Maranz, “‘Merge Now.’”

147 BB&T answered that plea David Dayen, “Elizabeth Warren Was Right: New Law Is Already Making Banks Bigger,” The Intercept, February 8, 2019.

147 Black farmers opposed the deal Claire Kelloway, “Black Farmers Association Opposes BB&T and SunTrust Bank Merger,” Food and Power, May 8, 2019, www.foodandpower.net/2019/05/08/black-farmers-association-opposes-bbt-and-suntrust-bank-merger.

147 expectation of closed branches Jordan Wathen, “BB&T and SunTrust Have Plenty of Branch Fat to Trim,” The Motley Fool, April 23, 2019.

147 hundreds of fintech acquisitions Yizhu Wang, “Banks Face Challenges Acquiring Fintech Firms,” Forbes, January 5, 2018.

147 BlackRock picked up robo-investor Leena Rao, “Blackrock Buys a Robo Advisor,” Fortune, August 26, 2015.

147 JPMorgan snapped up Ainsley Harris, “This Is Why JPMorgan Chase Is Buying Payments Startup WePay,” Fast Company, October 19, 2017.

147 Goldman Sachs has a peer-to-peer lender Kaja Whitehouse, “Goldman Sachs to Compete with LendingClub,” USA Today, June 15, 2015.

147 plowed money into these sites Shelly Banjo, “Wall Street Is Hogging the Peer-to-Peer Lending Market,” Quartz, March 4, 2015.

147 back-end suppliers have consolidated Telis Demos, “Banking’s Back-Office Workhorses Are Merging as Technology Reshapes Finance,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2019; Telis Demos and Rachel Louise Ensign, “Frustrated by the Tech Industry, Small Banks Start to Rebel,” Wall Street Journal, April 11, 2019.

147 controlling around 95 percent Corporate Finance Institute, “Rating Agency,” corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/ nance/rating-agency.

147 Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission asked Barry Ritholtz, “Transcript: FCIC Interview of Warren Bu ett, May 26, 2010,” The Big Picture (blog), March 28, 2016, ritholtz.com/2016/03/fcic-buffett.

147 holds over $100 billion Nicole Friedman, “Warren Buffett Is a Huge Backer of U.S. Banks,” Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2019.

148 simply ignored it David Dayen, “Remember This Moment When the Next Financial Crisis Strikes,” New Republic, August 28, 2014.

148 Big Three credit reporting bureaus Barbara Booth, “The Dysfunctional State of the US Consumer Credit-Score Model,” CNBC, December 26, 2015.

148 committing millions of errors Blake Ellis, “Millions of Credit Reports Have Errors,” CNN, February 12, 2013.

148 allowing the largest data breach Tara Siegel Bernard, Tiffany Hsu, Nicole Perlroth, and Ron Lieber, “Equifax Says Cyberattack May Have Affected 143 Million in the United States,” New York Times, September 7, 2017.

148 exploiting exclusive dominion Alexander Osipovich, Dave Michaels, and Gretchen Morgenson, “SEC Ruling Takes Aim at Stock-Exchange Profits,” Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2018.

148 owned by just three companies Robert J. Jackson Jr., “Unfair Exchange:  e State of America’s Stock Markets,” Securities and Exchange Commission, Septem-ber 19, 2018, www.sec.gov/news/speech/jackson-unfair-exchange-state-americas-stock-markets.

148 $4 trillion municipal bond market Heather Gillers and Gunjan Banerji, “The Municipal-Bond Market Is Now Controlled by Just a Few Firms,” Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2019.

148 Charles Schwab bought TD Ameritrade Tara Siegel Bernard and Matt Phillips, “Charles Schwab to Buy TD Ameritrade as Free Trading Takes Over,” New York Times, November 25, 2019.

148 dismantled by overlapping scandals Julia Kollewe, “Calls for More Scrutiny of Top Accounting Firms After Carillion Collapse,” The Guardian, January 30, 2018.

148 partners obtained confidential information Michael Rapoport, “Former KPMG Partner Pleads Guilty in Scheme to Obtain Secret Regulatory Information,” Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2018.

148 internal ethics and integrity tests Francine McKenna, “The KPMG Cheating Scandal Was Much More Widespread than Originally Thought,” CBS Marketwatch, June 18, 2019.

148 manage 81 percent John C. Bogle, “Bogle Sounds a Warning on Index Funds,” Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2018.

148 on track to control Owen Walker, “BlackRock, Vanguard and SSGA Tighten Hold on US Boards,” Financial Times, June 16, 2019.

148 the “Problem of Twelve” John C. Coates IV, “The Future of Corporate Governance Part I: The Problem of Twelve,” Harvard Public Law Working Paper, September 20, 2018, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247337.

148 encourage market leaders to not compete Einer Elhauge, “The Greatest Anti-competitive Threat of Our Time: Fixing the Horizontal Shareholding Problem,” ProMarket, January 7, 2019, promarket.org/greatest-anticompetitive-threat-horizontal-shareholding.

148 lower wages José Azar and Xavier Vives, “Common Ownership and the Secular Stagnation Hypothesis,” IESE Business School, January 2019, blog.iese.edu/xvives/files/2019/01/Azar-Vives_CO-and-Secular-Stagnation-Hypothesis-Jan2019.pdf.

149 sounded the alarm Bogle, “Bogle Sounds a Warning.”

149 “Verizon Subscriber Losses” Scott Moritz, “Verizon Subscriber Losses Highlight Need for M&A Exploration,” Bloomberg, April 20, 2017.

149 “Auto Consolidation Is Vital” Stephen Wilmot, “Auto Consolidation Is Vital but Needs a Crisis,” Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2019.

149 It was the biggest merger Chad Bray, “Anheuser-Busch InBev Completes Agreement for SABMiller,” New York Times, November 11, 2015.

149 around 41 percent National Beer Wholesalers Association, “The U.S. Beer Industry 2018,” www.nbwa.org/resources/industry-fast-facts.

150 so-called independent craft beers Caitlin Dewey, “Lots of ‘Craft’ Beer Is Brewed by Anheuser-Busch. Here’s How to Spot the Real Stuff,” Washington Post, July 4, 2017.

150 does its best to hide its ownership Ellis Jones and Daina Cheyenne Harvey, “Fed Up with Big Beer’s Incursion, Independent Craft Breweries Push Back,” CNBC, February 3, 2018.

150 all begun to merge John Kell, “What the Boston Beer–Dogfish Head Merger Means for the Future of Craft Beer,” Fortune, May 10, 2019; Jeff Sutherland and Lisa Du, “Anchor Steam Beer Snapped Up by Japan’s Sapporo in U.S. Push,” Bloomberg, August 2, 2017; Josie Sexton, “New Belgium Brewing, Colorado’s Largest Craft Brewery, Announces Sale to International Beer Conglomerate,” Denver Post, November 19, 2019.

150 the announcement article Bray, “Anheuser-Busch InBev Completes Agreement.”

150 Around 4,400 companies Stoller, Goliath, 275–281.

151 U.S. deals in 2016 Dan Primack, “2017 Was a Record Year for Mergers and Acquisitions,” Axios, January 3, 2018.

151 tax cuts fattened corporate wallets Kevin Drum, “Thanks to Tax Cuts, Corporate Mergers Are Skyrocketing,” Mother Jones, March 6, 2018.

151 $2.5 trillion in deals Stephen Grocer, “A Record $2.5 Trillion in Mergers Were Announced in the First Half of 2018,” New York Times, July 3, 2018.

151 $120 billion of that figure Eric Platt, “Merger Mania Whips Up $120bn of Tie-ups in Just One Day,” Financial Times, April 30, 2018.

151 ended up the third-largest on record Nabila Ahmed, Ruth David, and Ed Hammond, “Dealmakers See Slower 2019 as Stocks, Politics Drag on M&A,” Bloomberg, December 21, 2018.

151 biggest M&A bonanza since 2000 Nabila Ahmed and Michael Hytha, “M&A Surge Driven by U.S. Deals Makes for Best January Since 2000,” Bloomberg, February 1, 2019.

151 outside advisor on every Google deal Liana Baker, Gerrit De Vynck, and Sonali Basak, “Google Finds Its Deal Whisperers at Old-School Bank Lazard,” Bloomberg, November 18, 2019.

151 moved his family from Los Angeles Hugh Son, “How Goldman Sachs Is Changing Its Culture to Win More Deals,” CNBC, October 8, 2018.

152 paid out $6 billion Eric Platt and James Fontanella-Khan, “GE’s Dealmaking and Outlay to M&A Advisers Called into Question,” Financial Times, October 2, 2018.

152 a relationship that had began in 1892 Richard Clough, “JPMorgan’s 125-Year Courtship of GE Is Paying Off Handsomely,” Bloomberg, April 7, 2017.

152 signed with Centerview Partners Liz Hoffman, “Rahm Emanuel, Ex-Chicago Mayor, Is Going to Wall Street,” Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2019.

152 expected to yield $1 billion Lucy Muniz, “Wall St. Set for $1bn Fee Bonanza from Pharma Mega-deal,” Financial Times, February 4, 2019.

152 yielded the bank $123 million Arash Massoudi and James Fontanella-Khan, “JPMorgan Chase Set to Scoop Record Fee for Allergan Sale,” Financial Times, August 13, 2019.

153 Goldman Sachs plans Joshua Franklin, “Goldman Sachs, Mega-M&A Purveyor, Looks for Smaller Deals,” Reuters, November 5, 2018.

153 wants to regain market share “Moynihan Says BofA Aims to Regain Market Share in Mid-Sized M&A Deals” (video), Bloomberg, December 20, 2018.

153 historically been a stepping-stone Business Wire, “M&A Bankers’ Dreams Revealed in Ansarada Survey,” November 28, 2014.

153 late 2018 one from Willis Towers Watson Willis Towers Watson, “Deal Makers Consistently Beat the Market over the Last 10 Years, Underlining M&A’s Success as a Growth Strategy,” Yahoo Finance, November 27, 2018.

153 was actually invented Peer C. Fiss, Mark T. Kennedy, and Gerald F. Davis, “How Golden Parachutes Unfolded: Diffusion and Variation of a Controversial Practice,” Organization Science 23, no. 4 (2011): 1077–1099.

154 according to a 2012 study Lucian A. Bebchuk, Alma Cohen, and Charles C. Y. Wang, “The Promise and Peril of Golden Parachutes,” Harvard Law School, October 2012, www.strategy-business.com/article/re00215.

154 took home $400 million Howard Gold, “Here’s the Biggest Winner in the AT&T–Time Warner merger,” CBS Marketwatch, June 14, 2018.

154 worth around $500 million Chris Isidore, “Aetna CEO Could Walk Away with $500 Million in Cash and Stock After CVS Deal,” CNN, December 5, 2017.

154 received $31 million Benjamin Mullin, “Viacom and CBS Executives to Earn Big Bucks in Merger Deal,” Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2019.

154 eight- and nine-figure payouts Matt Stoller and Sarah Miller, “No More Payoffs for Layoffs,” BuzzFeed, May 3, 2019.

154 produced $700 million in fees Stoller and Miller, “No More Payoffs.”

155 Multiple verdicts Sara Randazzo and Ruth Bender, “Jury Finds Bayer’s Roundup Weedkiller Caused Man’s Cancer,” Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2019.

155 causing Bayer stock to plummet Rachel Siegel, “Roundup Is Embroiled in Cancer Cases. Now Its Maker Is Putting $5.6 Billion Toward a New Kind of Weedkiller,” Washington Post, June 14, 2019.

155 half of all investment-grade corporate bonds Emma Court, “All Those Big Health-Care Mergers May Mean Financial Risk Is Getting Concentrated,” CBS Marketwatch, October 31, 2018.

155 UNFI picked Goldman Sachs Interviews with UNFI associates, and United Natural Foods, Inc., v. Stephan J. Feldgoise et al., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Case No. 1:2019cv01607, February 20, 2019, dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv01607/510445.

158 Bloomberg ran a story Sridhar Natarajan and Katherine Doherty, “Goldman Strikes Unusual Concession in Struggling $2 Billion Deal,” Bloomberg, October 24, 2018.

158 could do so deliberately Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “State- ment on Manufactured Credit Events by CFTC Divisions of Clearing and Risk, Market Oversight, and Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight,” April 24, 2018, www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/divisionsstatement042418.

158 schemes designed to assert Joshua A. Feltman, Emil A. Kleinhaus, and John R. Sobolewski, “The Rise of the Net-Short Debt Activist,” Harvard Law School Forum, August 7, 2018, corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/08/07/the-rise-of-the-net-short-debt-activist.

159 nearly $500 million lawsuit Lauren Manning, “UNFI Sues Goldman Sachs over Handling of Supervalu Deal,” Grocery Dive, February 1, 2019, www.grocerydive.com/news/unfi-sues-goldman-sachs-over-handling-of-supervalu-deal/547310.

159 Spinner would later say “UNFI Files Suit Against Goldman Sachs in Supervalu Acquisition,” UNFI press release, January 31, 2019, progressivegrocer.com/unfi-files-suit-against-goldman-sachs-supervalu-acquisition.

159 Goldman Sachs responded Laura Noonan, “Goldman Sachs Sued over Work on $2.9bn Grocery Deal,” Financial Times, January 30, 2019.

Interlude

162 Hilton bought Doubletree Melody Petersen, “Hilton to Buy Promus Chain, Creating One of Biggest Hotel Groups,” New York Times, September 8, 1999.

162 in 2016 purchased Starwood Scott Mayerowitz, “Marriott Buys Starwood, Becoming World’s Largest Hotel Chain,” Associated Press, September 23, 2016.

162 frequent travelers complained Martha C. White, “Marriott’s Merger of Hotel Rewards Programs Tests Members’ Loyalty,” New York Times, October 8, 2018.

162 stealing four years’ worth of data Seena Gressin, “The Marriott Data Breach,” Federal Trade Commission, December 4, 2018, www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2018/12/marriott-data-breach.

162 have also been sued Ann Carrns, “Marriott and Hilton Sued over ‘Resort Fees,’ Long a Bane for Travelers,” New York Times, August 23, 2019.

7. Monopolies Are Why America Can’t Build or Run a Single Weapons System Without Assistance from China

165 “Understanding How the Government Buys” The Capitol Forum, “TransDigm: A Closer Look at TransDigm’s Corporate Training and Strategies to Avoid Government Scrutiny of Price and Cost Data,” March 27, 2017.

165 $100 million per jet Kyle Mizokami, “The F-35 Is About to Get a Lot Cheaper. Sort Of,” Popular Mechanics, July 11, 2016.

166 defense contractors outsource Ben Freeman, Nia Harris, and Cassandra Stimpson, “The Military-Industrial Jobs Scam,” TomDispatch, August 4, 2019, www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176593.

166 hollowed out its defense industrial base Matt Stoller and Lucas Kunce, “America’s Monopoly Crisis Hits the Military,” American Conservative, June 27, 2019.

167 held a series of hearings House Select Committee on Expenditures in the War Department, various volumes 1919–1921, list at The Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania, onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book /lookupname?key=United%20States%2E%20Congress%2E%20House%2E%20Select%20committee%20on%20expenditures%20in%20the%20War%20department.

167 his 1935 book Gen. Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket (New York: Round Table Press, 1935).

167 Senate Munitions Committee United States Senate, “Merchants of Death,” September 4, 1934, www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/merchants_of_death.htm.

167 Congress formed the Truman Committee Dwight John Zimmerman, “Senator Harry S. Truman and the Truman Committee,” Defense Media Network, December 19, 2012, www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/senator-harry-s-truman-and-the-truman-committee.

168 Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons Arthur Miller, All My Sons (New York: Rey- nal & Hitchcock, 1947).

168 1961 presidential farewell address Dwight D. Eisenhower farewell address, January 17, 1961, www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com/military-industrial-complex-speech.asp.

168 take control of the special tooling Federal Register 30, nos. 21–28 (1965): 1747.

168 Weinberger was forced to admit Richard C. Gross, “Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Disclosing a Defense Contractor Charged,” United Press International, July 26, 1983.

168 case of the $435 hammer Gross, “Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.”

168 $640 toilet seat Jack Smith, “$37 Screws, a $7,622 Coffee Maker, $640 Toilet Seats: Suppliers to Our Military Just Won’t Be Oversold,” Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1986.

168 artifacts of an old Pentagon bookkeeping structure Ezra Klein, “The Pentagon’s $435 Hammer,” Washington Post, June 8, 2011.

168 concept for networked communications protocols Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, “Paving the Way to the Modern Internet,” www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/modern-internet.

169 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Peter Grier, “Military to Face Tough Trims Under Gramm-Rudman Bill,” Christian Science Monitor, December 12, 1985.

169  figures from Gordon Adams Interview with Gordon Adams.

169 “Last Supper” Stoller and Kunce, “America’s Monopoly Crisis Hits the Military.”

169 Perry put a number to it Leslie Wayne, “The Shrinking Military Complex,” New York Times, February 27, 1998.

169 Northrop purchased Grumman Calvin Sims, “Northrop Bests Martin Mari- etta to Buy Grumman,” New York Times, April 5, 1994.

169 Lockheed bought out twenty-two suppliers Wayne, “The Shrinking Military Complex.”

169 Raytheon gobbled up Associated Press, “Raytheon to Buy Two Chrysler Businesses,” April 9, 1996; “Raytheon to Buy TI Missile Division,” Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1997; James F. Peltz, “Raytheon Acquires Hughes Wing in $9.5-Billion Deal,” Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1997.

169 Boeing took units CNN.com, “Boeing Buying Rockwell Units,” CNN, August 1, 1996; Brian Knowlton, “Boeing to Buy McDonnell Douglas,” New York Times, December 16, 1996.

169 General Dynamics absorbed General Dynamics, “Our History: A Long History of Continuous Improvement,” www.gd.com/about-gd/our-history.

169 17,000 firms exited Doug Cameron and Ben Kesling, “Defense Contractors Join Forces as Pentagon Spending Slows,” Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2019.

169 Raytheon bought United Technologies Cara Lombardo and Doug Cameron, “United Technologies Strikes Deal to Merge with Raytheon,” Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2019.

170 2006 research paper Judy B. Davis, “The Impact of the Defense Industry Consolidation on the Aerospace Industry,” thesis, Air Force Institute of Technology, March 2006, AFIT/GCA/ENV/06M-03, apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a449606.pdf.

170 earned $30.1 billion Alex Kane, “Here’s Exactly Who’s Profiting from the War on Yemen,” In These Times, May 20, 2019.

170 invoked an emergency provision Edward Wong, Catie Edmondson, and Eric Schmitt, “Trump Officials Prepare to Bypass Congress to Sell Weapons to Gulf Nations,” New York Times, May 23, 2019.

170 helped Raytheon earn Jon Schwarz, “How to Dismantle the Absurd Profitability of Nuclear Weapons,” The Intercept, May 4, 2019.

170 mused about how good Lee Fang, “Arms Manufacturers Tell Investors That Iran Tension Fuels Business,” The Intercept, May 28, 2019.

170 dollars flow to every state Amanda Macias and John W. Schoen, “Here Are the States Where the Pentagon Drops the Most—and Least—Money per Capita,” CNBC, May 10, 2019.

171 waivers to the Buy America Act Davis, “The Impact of the Defense Industry Consolidation.”

171 made stated policy House Committee on Government Reform, “Dollars, Not Sense: Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration,” June 2006, www.halliburtonwatch.org/reports/waxman0606.pdf.

171 Lockheed Martin listed Project on Government Oversight, “Taxpayers Carry the Load: The C-130J Cargo Plane Does Not,” March 15, 2005, www.pogo.org/report/2005/03/taxpayers-carry-load-c-130j-cargo-plane-does-not.

171 let go in large numbers Vicki Torres, “Trying to Loosen Big Companies’ Grip on Government Contracts,” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 1997.

172 officials began to sound the alarm Colin Clark, “Whoa, Lockheed & Co.! Kendall Urges Congress to Protect Innovation,” Breaking Defense, October 2, 2015, breakingdefense.com/2015/10/whoa-lockheed-co-kendall-urges-congress-to-protect-innovation; Renae Merle, “Regulators Warn About Too Much Defense Industry Consolidation,” Washington Post, April 12, 2016.

172 remarkable bout of chutzpah Colin Clark, “Perry Warns Against Industry Consolidation; Wary of French Response to ISIL,” Breaking Defense, December 3, 2015, breakingdefense.com/2015/12/perry-warns-against-industry-consolidation-wary-of-french-response-to-isil.

172 military hasn’t thought about this Jamie Freed, “Defense Contractor Consolidation a Security Concern: U.S. Air Force Acquisition Head,” Reuters, June 28, 2019.

172 released in September 2018 Department of Defense, “Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States,” September 2018, s3.amazonaws.com/static.militarytimes.com/assets/eo-13806-report-nal.pdf.

172 lost over twenty thousand establishments Department of Defense, “Assessing and Strengthening.”

173 between L3 and Harris Technologies Aaron Mehta and Jill Aitoro, “Meet L3 Harris Technologies: The CEOs Explain Their Merger Plan,” Defense News, October 14, 2018, www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/10/14/meet-l3-harris-technologies-defense-rms-unveil-merger-plan.

173 only U.S.-based supplier The Capitol Forum, “Harris/L3: Merger Would Leave One U.S.-Based Maker of Military-Grade Night Vision Goggles, Army Official Says,” November 1, 2018.

173 cornered half the global production Akshat Rathi, “One Chinese Company Now Controls Most of the Metal Needed to Make the World’s Advanced Batteries,” Quartz, May 30, 2018.

173 market for rare earth metals Michael Silver, “China’s Dangerous Monopoly on Metals,” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2019.

173 America pioneered the development Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, “Advanced Aircra  Materials,” www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/rare-earth.

173 the plant closed Jeffrey St. Clair, “The Saga of Magnequench,” Counterpunch, April 7, 2006, www.counterpunch.org/2006/04/07/the-saga-of-magnequench.

173 China bought the entire company Andrew Leonard, “How G.M. Helped China to World Magnet Domination,” Salon, August 31, 2010.

173 2017 Interior Department report U.S. Department of the Interior, “Groundbreaking Report: U.S. Reliant on China, Russia, Other Foreign Nations for Many Critical Minerals,” December 18, 2017, www.doi.gov/pressreleases/groundbreaking-report-us-reliant-china-russia-other-foreign-nations-many-critical.

173 state-run newspapers implied Ben Blanchard, Michael Martina, and Tom Daly, “China Ready to Hit Back at U.S. with Rare Earths: Newspapers,” Reuters, May 28, 2019.

173 toured a rare earths factory Zhou Xin, Wendy Wu, and Kinling Lo, “Chinese President Xi Jinping Sounds Long March Rallying Call as US Trade War Tensions Rise,” South China Morning Post, May 20, 2019.

173 rare earths export ban Keith Bradsher, “Amid Tension, China Blocks Crucial Exports to Japan,” New York Times, September 24, 2010.

173 There are conflicting assessments Eugene Gholz, “Rare Earth Elements and National Security,” Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, October 17, 2014, www.cfr.org/report/rare-earth-elements-and-national-security; Michael Silver, “China’s Dangerous Monopoly on Metals,” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2019.

173 secure alternative sources in Japan Yen Nee Lee, “A Massive, ‘Semi-Infinite’ Trove of Rare-Earth Metals Has Been Found in Japan,” CNBC, April 12, 2018.

173 once-mothballed rare earth mine Rhiannon Hoyle, “U.S. Rare Earths Revival Planned amid Trade Conflict,” Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2019.

173 efforts are in the early stages Ernest Scheyder, “China Set to Control Rare Earth Supply for Years Due to Processing Dominance,” Reuters, May 29, 2019.

174 continuing problems with the F-35 Valerie Insinna, “The Pentagon Is Battling the Clock to Fix Serious, Unreported F-35 Problems,” Defense News, June 12, 2019, www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/12/the-pentagon-is-battling-the-clock-to-fix-serious-unreported-f-35-problems.

174 delivered without the elevators Anthony Capaccio, “U.S. Navy’s Costliest Carrier Was Delivered Without Elevators to Lift Bombs,” Bloomberg, November 2, 2018.

174 report on the subject of manufactures Alexander Hamilton’s Final Version of the Report on the Subject of Manufactures, December 5, 1791, founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-10-02-0001-0007.

174 through three private equity firms Robin Sidel, “Warburg Pincus to Acquire TransDigm for $1.1 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2003.

174 buy around seventy companies Scott Suttell, “TransDigm Group to Acquire Aerospace Company Extant for $525 Million,” Crain’s Cleveland, March 19, 2018.

174 seeks “private-equity-like returns” “TransDigm Group’s (TDG) CEO Nick Howley on Q4 2016 Results—Earnings Call Transcript,” Seeking Alpha, November 14, 2016, seekingalpha.com/article/4023263-transdigm-groups-tdg-ceo-nick-howley-q4-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript.

175 “special dividend” TransDigm press release, “TransDigm Group Declares a Special Cash Dividend of $24.00 Per Share and Announces Successful Completion of Incremental Term Loan,” PR Newswire, October 14, 2016.

175 TransDigm’s profits keep rising TransDigm annual report, 2018, eproxymaterials.com/interactive/tdg2018.

175 took home $61 million “The Highest-Paid C.E.O.s in 2017,” New York Times, May 25, 2018.

175 TransDigm’s 2016 annual report TransDigm annual report, 2016, eproxymaterials.com/interactive/tdg2016.

175 razor market is an oligopoly Kaitlyn Tiffany, “Gillette Owner Procter & Gamble Is Acquiring One of Its Razor Startup Competitors,” Vox, December 12, 2018; Erica Pandey, “Shaving Giants Sweep Up the Disrupters,” Axios, May 11, 2019.

176 other former employees allege Memo from House Committee on Oversight and Reform, May 15, 2019, oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2019-05-15.COR%20Supplemental%20Memo-5-15-19%20Hearing%20DOD%20 IG%20Rept.%20on%20Excess%20Profits%20by%20TransDigm%20Group%20Inc_ .pdf.

176 comes from military sales “Nick Howley on Q4 2016 Results.”

176 dinged back in 2006 Department of Defense Inspector General, “Acquisition: Spare Parts Procurement from TransDigm, Inc.,” February 23, 2006, media.defense.gov/2018/Oct/10/2002049899/-1/-1/1/D-2006-055.PDF.

178 former employee told staff Memo from House Committee on Oversight and Reform, May 15, 2019.

178 kept dropping out of the sky Craig Whitlock, “More Air Force Drones Are Crashing than Ever as Mysterious New Problems Emerge,” Washington Post, January 20, 2016.

178 another inspector general’s report Department of Defense Inspector General, “Procuring Noncompetitive Spare Parts Through an Exclusive Distributor,” February 6, 2008, media.defense.gov/2008/Feb/06/2001713062/-1/-1/1/08-048.pdf.

178 With the understated title The Capitol Forum, “Military Revenues at Risk from Promised Trump Administration Crackdown on Military Contract Costs,” January 17, 2017.

179 finding prices increasing more The Capitol Forum, “TransDigm: Capitol Forum Analysis of Contract Data Indicates Prices Increase at a Higher Rate After TransDigm’s Acquisitions,” February 3, 2017.

179 submitted incorrect information The Capitol Forum, “TransDigm: Twelve TransDigm Group Incorporated Subsidiaries Appear to Have Submitted Incorrect Ownership Information in Federal System for Award Management Database,” March 3, 2017.

179 highlighted “channel stuffing” The Capitol Forum, “TransDigm: Former Managers at Subsidiaries Explain  at Channel Stu ng Was a Strategy to Meet Revenue Goals,” March 14, 2017.

179 reported on the quarterly sales meetings The Capitol Forum, “TransDigm: A Closer Look at TransDigm’s Corporate Training and Strategies to Avoid Government Scrutiny of Price and Cost Data,” March 27, 2017.

179 with the not-so-understated title Citron Research, “Could TransDigm Be the Valeant of the Aerospace Industry,” January 20, 2017, citronresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/TDG-nal-b.pdf.

179 he wrote a letter Letter from Rep. Ro Khanna to Glenn Fine, Acting Inspector General, Department of Defense, March 20, 2017, khanna.house.gov/sites/khanna.house.gov/files/032117_TransDigm_Letter.pdf.

179 business press highlighted Aishwarya Venugopal, “U.S. Congressman Asks DoD to Investigate TransDigm’s Practices,” Reuters, March 21, 2017.

179 Zach Carter called TransDigm Zach Carter, “Meet the Martin Shkreli of Defense Contracting,” Huffington Post, March 23, 2017.

180 stock was right back David Dayen, “Contractor Whose Business Model Is Price Gouging the Pentagon Has Powerful Wall St. Backers,” The Intercept, April 13, 2017.

180 single TransDigm debt offering Luke Millar, “TransDigm Unveils $950M Triple-C High Yield Bond Deal Backing Data Service Corp,” Forbes, May 25, 2016.

180 Barclays and Royal Bank of Canada Jayson Derrick, “Barclays: TransDigm a ‘Victim of Its Own Success,’ Moves to Top Pick in Aerospace & Defense,” Benzinga, March 27, 2017, www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/17/03/9219230/barclays-transdigm-a-victim-of-its-own-success-moves-to-; “RBC Capital Starts TransDigm (TDG) at Outperform,” RBC Capital press release, January 11, 2017, www.streetinsider.com/Analyst+Comments/RBC+Capital+Starts+TransDigm+(TDG)+at+Outperform/12417875.html.

180 Twitter user named “Aces and Faults” Screenshot of tweets from @AcesAndFaults, March 2017.

180 someone impersonating a reporter Bill Alpert, “Exploiting Our Good Name,” Barron’s, April 8, 2017.

180 joined Khanna to ask Seema Mody, “Sen. Elizabeth Warren Joins the Call for an Investigation into TransDigm’s business,” CNBC, June 12, 2017.

181 “the most hated man in the Pentagon” Ellen Mitchell, “Meet the Most Hated Man in the Pentagon,” Politico, April 11, 2016.

181 a dramatic expansion David Dayen, “Congress Trying to Sneak  rough Major Giveaway to Defense Contractors,” The Intercept, July 14, 2017.

181 repeatedly blocked reforms Jared Serbu, “Armed Services Chairman Challenges DoD on New Rule for Commercial Acquisition,” Federal News Network, September 14, 2015; Scott Amey, “Congress Locks Pentagon into Commercial Item Ripoffs,” Project on Government Oversight, December 23, 2015, www.pogo.org/analysis/2015/12/congress-locks-pentagon-into-commercial-item-ripoffs.

181 telling CEOs at an industry conference Sandra I. Erwin, “Frustrated by Industry Behavior, Defense Officials Put CEOs on Notice,” National Defense, March 27, 2017.

181 released in February 2019 Department of Defense Inspector General, “Review of Parts Purchased from TransDigm Group, Inc.,” February 25, 2019, www.dodig.mil/reports.html/Article/1769041/review-of-parts-purchased-from-transdigm-group-inc-dodig-2019-060.

182 created the illusion Carter, “Meet the Martin Shkreli.”

182 nearly five thousand contracts Memo from House Committee on Oversight and Reform, May 15, 2019.

182 review obtained by Bloomberg Tony Capaccio, “Pentagon Contractor’s 9,400% Profit on Half-Inch Pin Challenged,” Bloomberg, May 14, 2019.

182 Committee staff interviewed Memo from House Committee on Oversight and Reform, May 15, 2019.

182 hauled in TransDigm CEO House Committee on Oversight and Reform, “Committee Held Hearing on Defense Contractor’s Excess Profits,” May 15, 2019, oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-held-hearing-on-defense-contractor-s-excess-profits.

182 lead of the Defense Department Tony Capaccio, “Military Pushes Parts Maker TransDigm to Return ‘Excess Profit,’” Bloomberg, February 27, 2019.

182 sending a $16.1 million refund House Committee on Oversight and Reform, “TransDigm to Refund $16 Million to DOD as a Result of Committee Investigation,” press release, May 24, 2019, oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/transdigm-to-refund-161-million-to-dod-as-a-result-of-committee-investigation.

183 seek a deeper investigation Joe Gould, “Lawmakers Order Deeper TransDigm Probe by DoD Watchdog,” Defense News, June 6, 2019, www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/06/06/lawmakers-order-deeper-transdigm-probe-by-dod-watchdog.

183 calls for more refunds Equanimity Investing, “Sell Transdigm: Product Pricing Risk, up to 40% Downside,” Seeking Alpha, June 19, 2019, seekingalpha.com/article/4270892-sell-transdigm-product-pricing-risk-40-percent-downside.

184 Assad was reassigned Marcus Weisgerber, “Hard-Nosed Pentagon Negotiator Removed from Job; Racked Up Huge Travel Costs,” Defense One, December 21, 2018, www.defenseone.com/politics/2018/12/shay-assad/153591.

184 Assad retired Martin de Beaumont and Sharon Weinberger, “Trump Tweeted ‘Billions of Dollars’ Would Be Saved on Military Contracts. Then the Pentagon Fired the Official Doing That,” Yahoo News, October 1, 2019.

184 right after he proposed Aaron Gregg, “Pentagon Policy to Withhold Cash Sends Defense Industry Scrambling,” Washington Post, September 21, 2018.

184 the rule would be rescinded Aaron Gregg, “Pentagon Walks Back Plan to Withhold Cash from Defense Contractors After Pressure from Lawmakers,” Washington Post, October 2, 2018.

184 Shanahan spent his entire career Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, “From Boeing to E-Ring: Shanahan Is Industry’s Man in the Pentagon,” American Conservative, May 14, 2019.

184 later become acting defense secretary Connor O’Brien, David Brown, and Eliana Johnson, “Trump Taps Shanahan to Be Next Pentagon Chief,” Politico, May 9, 2019.

184 decamped to the General Dynamics board Bryan Pietsch, “Former Defense Secretary Mattis Rejoins General Dynamics Board,” Reuters, August 7, 2019.

184 domestic violence incidents Zachary Cohen, Curt Devine, Drew Griffin, and Michael Warren, “Shanahan Withdraws as Trump’s Defense Pick as Domestic Incidents Resurface,” CNN, June 18, 2019.

184 Esper took over the Pentagon Helene Cooper, “Trump Nominates Mark Esper as Next Defense Secretary,” New York Times, June 21, 2019.

184 did force a divestiture Department of Justice, “Justice Department Requires TransDigm Group to Divest Airplane Restraint Businesses Acquired from Takata,” December 21, 2017, www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-transdigm-group-divest-airplane-restraint-businesses-acquired.

184 allowed to purchase Esterline TransDigm press release, “TransDigm Completes Acquisition of Esterline Technologies,” March 14, 2019, transdigmgroupinc.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/transdigm-completes-acquisition-esterline-technologies.

184 only maker of chaff Valerie Insinna, “The US Military’s Chaff and Flare Industry Is on Fragile Ground,” Defense News, November 13, 2018, www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/11/13/the-militarys-chaff-and-flare-industry-is-on-fragile-ground.

184 Kevin Stein told investors The Capitol Forum, “TransDigm/Esterline: House Armed Services Committee Member Jackie Speier Expresses Concern About Merger, Expects to Send Letter to DOD,” October 22, 2018.

185 even authored an amendment David Dayen, “Ro Khanna’s Continuing Fight Against Defense Contractor Rip-Offs,” American Prospect, June 18, 2019.

185 Pentagon memo stated Jared Serbu, “New DoD Policy Aims to Crack Down on Alleged Price Gouging by TransDigm,” Federal News Network, June 20, 2019.

Interlude

187 Walmart had 5,362 U.S. locations Walmart Location Facts, corporate.walmart.com/our-story/locations/united-states#/united-states.

187 the nation’s largest employer Michael B. Sauter and Grant Suneson, “Who Is the Largest Employer in Your State? Walmart Top in Nation with Amazon Second,” USA Today, March 30, 2019.

187 the world’s largest company 2019 Fortune 500, Fortune, fortune.com/global500/walmart.

187 report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance Stacy Mitchell, “New Report: Walmart’s Monopolization of Local Grocery Markets,” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, June 26, 2019, ilsr.org/walmarts-monopolization-of-local-grocery-markets.

187 economy would be bigger than Norway’s Vincent Trivett, “25 US Mega Corporations: Where They Rank if They Were Countries,” Business Insider, June 27, 2011.

187 nearly six times as many outlets Arthur Delaney, “Dollar Stores Sell More Food than Whole Foods,” Huffington Post, December 7, 2018.

187 three thousand of these things Joy Diaz, “In Rural and Low-Income Communities, Dollar Stores Are a Growing Presence,” Texas Standard, February 12, 2019.

187 place outlets where Walmart won’t Chris McGreal, “Where Even Walmart Won’t Go: How Dollar General Took Over Rural America,” The Guardian, August 13, 2018.

187 stores concentrate in low-income communities Marie Donahue and Hannah Bonestroo, “New Maps Show Alarming Pattern of Dollar Stores’ Spread in U.S. Cities,” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, February 20, 2019, ilsr.org/new-maps-dollar-stores-spread.

187 maximize subsidies and tax breaks McGreal, “Where Even Walmart Won’t Go.”

187 demand a lower-cost alternative Helaine Olen, “Dollar Stores Understand the Age of Inequality Better than Almost Any Other Business,” Washington Post, December 18, 2018.

187 continuing to create more Sarah Nassauer, “How Dollar General Became Rural America’s Store of Choice,” Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2017.

188 Dollar General bought up dozens Hadley Malcolm, “Dollar General Buys 41 Walmart Express Stores,” USA Today, July 28, 2016.

188 2018 Institute for Local Self-Reliance report Marie Donahue and Stacy Mitchell, “Dollar Stores Are Targeting Struggling Urban Neighborhoods and Small Towns. One Community Is Showing How to Fight Back,” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, December 6, 2018, ilsr.org/dollar-stores-target-cities-towns-one-fights-back.

188 Few employers want to run Julie Turkewitz, “Who Wants to Run That Mom- and-Pop Market? Almost No One,” New York Times, July 26, 2017.

188 three times as many employees McGreal, “Where Even Walmart Won’t Go.”

188 command an upper-middle-class salary Abha Bhattarai, “Walmart Store Managers Average $175,000 a Year. Many Employees Still Earn Below the Poverty Line,” Washington Post, May 9, 2019.

188 managers make $40,000 a year Mya Frazier, “Dollar General Hits a Gold Mine in Rural America,” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 11, 2017.

188 the tragedy of food deserts Donahue and Mitchell, “Dollar Stores Are Targeting.”

188 serial acquirer of smaller companies Hadley Malcolm, “Dollar Tree Buying Family Dollar for $8.5 Billion,” USA Today, July 28, 2014.

188 Starboard Value took a stake Cara Lombardo, “Activist Investor Starboard Seeks Changes at Dollar Tree,” Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2019.

188 duopoly could move to monopoly Elizabeth Winkler, “In Dollar Store Wars, Dollar Tree Needs a Trim,” Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2019.

188 The dollar store resistance Arthur Delaney, “Meet the Dollar Store Resistance,” Huffington Post, November 21, 2018.

188 city council put a moratorium Sam Bloch, “Tulsa Says No More Dollar General, Curbing Exploitation of Black Neighborhoods,” The New Food Economy, April 12, 2018, newfoodeconomy.org/tulsa-dollar-general-stores-food-insecurity.

188 passed a similar zoning ordinance “New Mesquite Ordinance Will Limit Number of Dollar Stores,” Fox 4 News Dallas Fort Worth, August 13, 2018.

188 restrictions on chain stores Stacy Mitchell, “Formula Business Restrictions,” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, December 1, 2008, ilsr.org/rule/formula-business-restrictions.

188 Buhler, Kansas, rejected McGreal, “Where Even Walmart Won’t Go.”

8. Monopolies Are Why a Small Business Owner and His Girlfriend Had to Get Permission from Amazon to Live Together

191 2019 annual shareholder letter Jeff Bezos annual shareholder letter, 2019, amazonir.gcs-web.com/static-files/4f64d0cd-12f2-4d6c-952e-bbed15ab1082.

191 most valuable public company Lauren Feiner, “Amazon Is the Most Valuable Public Company in the World After Passing Microsoft,” CNBC, January 7, 2019.

192 at least 2.5 million third-party sellers Marketplace Pulse, “Number of Sellers on Amazon Marketplace,” www.marketplacepulse.com/amazon/number-of-sellers.

192 nearly half of all online sales Matt Day and Jackie Gu, “The Enormous Numbers Behind Amazon’s Market Reach,” Bloomberg, March 27, 2019.

192 rose to 81 percent Lauren Thomas, “Retail Is Having Its Best Holiday Season in 6 Years,” CNBC, December 26, 2018.

193 cashless convenience stores Jeanette Settembre, “After Backlash, Amazon Go’s New York City Store Finally Accepts Cash,” CBS Marketwatch, May 8, 2019.

193 stores that sell popular items Day One Staff, “Introducing Amazon 4-Star,” Amazon blog, September 26, 2018, blog.aboutamazon.com/shopping/amazon-4-star.

193 grocery store chain Esther Fung and Heather Haddon, “Amazon to Launch New Grocery-Store Business,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2019.

193 over 100 million Don Reisinger, “Amazon Prime Has More than 100 Million U.S. Subscribers,” Fortune, January 17, 2019.

193 encourages them to buy more Adam Clark Estes, “I’m Starting to Have Serious Doubts About Amazon Prime,” Gizmodo, June 26, 2018.

193 $119 annual fee Elizabeth Weise, “Amazon to Raise Annual Prime Subscription to $119, a 20% Increase,” USA Today, April 26, 2018.

193 Bezos said Todd Bishop, “Jeff Bezos: Amazon’s Goal Is to Make It ‘Irresponsible’ to Not Be a Prime Member,” Geekwire, May 17, 2016, www.geekwire.com/2016/annual-meeting-jeff-bezos-touts-amazons-3-pillars-prime-aws-marketplace.

193 skew the nation’s retail sales figures Patti Domm, “Amazon Is Skewing the Whole Country’s Retail Sales Data and Is Likely Behind Last Month’s Drop,” CNBC, September 15, 2017.

193 Alexa controls two-thirds Day and Gu, “Enormous Numbers.”

193 the Kindle represents 84 percent Day and Gu, “Enormous Numbers.”

193 an astonishing portion of the internet Jake Swearingen, “When Amazon Web Services Goes Down, So Does a Lot of the Web,” New York, March 2, 2018.

193 U.S. financial infrastructure Tanaya Macheel, “Amazon Is a Threat to Banks— Just Not in the Way You Think,” Tearsheet, August 28, 2017, tearsheet.co/data/amazon-is-a-threat-to-banks-just-not-in-the-way-you-think.

193 upward of $7 billion Eugene Kim, “Amazon on Pace to Spend $7 Billion on Video and Music Content This Year, According to New Disclosure,” CNBC, April 26, 2019.

193 third-largest online advertiser Lara O’Reilly and Laura Stevens, “Amazon, with Little Fanfare, Emerges as an Advertising Giant,” Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2018.

193 major shipping and logistics company Erica Pandey, “Amazon Sets Eyes on Its Next Target,” Axios, April 29, 2019.

193 furniture seller Brian Baskin and Laura Stevens, “Amazon Makes Major Push into Furniture,” Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2017.

193 mattress seller Dave Gershgorn, “Amazon Is Now a Mattress Company,” Quartz, October 1, 2018.

193 largest online fashion designer The Fashion Law, “Amazon Just Launched a 500-Piece Fast Fashion Collection,” September10, 2017, www.thefashionlaw.com/home/amazon-is-preparing-to-launch-a-500-piece-fast-fashion-collection.

193 online pharmacy Sharon Terlep and Laura Stevens, “Amazon Buys Online Pharmacy PillPack for $1 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2018.

193 medical supply business Carolyn Y. Johnson, “Amazon’s Entry into Health Care Starts with Gloves, Dental Bonding Agents and Syringes,” Washington Post, February 13, 2018.

193 health care company Angelica LaVito and Jeff Cox, “Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase to Partner on US Employee Health Care,” CNBC, January 30, 2018.

193 pushing Amazon Pay AnnaMaria Andriotis, Laura Stevens, and Emily Glazer, “Amazon Pay Accepted Here? Web Giant Aims to Put Digital Wallet in Stores,” Wall Street Journal, November 21, 2018.

193 lending to its small business Alex Rolfe, “Is Amazon a Bank: Ramps Up Lending in Challenge to Big Banks,” Payments Card and Mobile, June 12, 2017, www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/is-amazon-a-bank.

193 have experts come to your house Kia Kokalitcheva, “Amazon Wants to Compete with Best Buy’s Geek Squad,” Axios, July 10, 2017.

193 registered a trademark Anita Balakrishnan, “Blue Apron Hits All-Time Low as Amazon Suggests It Will Get into the Meal-Kit Business,” CNBC, July 17, 2017.

194 As Scott Galloway has put it Scott Galloway, “Silicon Valley’s Tax-Avoiding, Job-Killing, Soul-Sucking Machine,” Esquire, February 8, 2018.

194 dozens of companies evaporate Ben Unglesbee, Cara Salpini, and Kaarin Vembar, “The Running List of 2018 Retail Bankruptcies,” Retail Dive, November 21, 2018, www.retaildive.com/news/the-running-list-of-2018-retail-bankruptcies/516864.

194 according to frequent Amazon critic Stacy Mitchell, “Amazon Doesn’t Just Want to Dominate the Market—It Wants to Become the Market,” The Nation, February 15, 2018.

194 independent business survey Institute for Local Self-Reliance, “New Survey: Independent Businesses See Major Threats in Amazon, Corporate Concentration,” August 6, 2019, ilsr.org/2019-independent-business-survey.

194 Analysts at Swiss bank UBS Lauren Thomas, “75,000 More Stores Need to Close Across the US, UBS Estimates, as Online Sales and Amazon Grow,” CNBC, April 9, 2019.

194 Stress on doormen aside Erica Pandey, “A Doorman in the Age of Amazon,” Axios, October 19, 2018.

194 did not design our cities Andrew Zaleski, “Cities Seek Deliverance from the E-Commerce Boom,” CityLab, April 20, 2017, www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/04/cities-seek-deliverance-from-the-e-commerce-boom/523671.

194 spews more carbon Erica Pandey, “The Climate Stakes of Speedy Delivery,” Axios, June 21, 2019.

195 quietly ended that initiative Brian Merchant, “Amazon Is Aggressively Pursuing Big Oil as It Stalls Out on Clean Energy,” Gizmodo, April 8, 2019.

195 reportedly destroys many returns “Report: Amazon Destroys Large Amount of New, Returned Goods,” Associated Press, June 12, 2018.

195 sells 42 percent of all books Day and Gu, “Enormous Numbers.”

195 Amazon threatened to abandon Matt Day and Daniel Beekman, “Amazon Issues Threat over Seattle Head-Tax Plan, Halts Tower Construction Planning,” Seattle Times, May 2, 2018.

195 Amazon pulled out Joshua McNichols, “Remember Amazon’s Head Tax ‘Threat’? Now It’s Pulling Out of the Rainier Square Tower Anyway,” KOUW, February 27, 2019.

195 plucks tax subsidies Good Jobs First, “Will Amazon Fool Us Twice?,” December 2016, www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/amazon-subsidies.pdf.

195 reeling in at least $2.7 billion Good Jobs First, “Amazon Tracker,” www.goodjobsfirst.org/amazon-tracker.

195 There’s no evidence Good Jobs First, “Will Amazon Fool Us Twice?”

195 nationwide procurement contract David Dayen, “Amazon Is One Step Closer to Taking a Cut on Literally Every Economic Transaction,” In These Times, July 10, 2018.

195 controversial facial recognition software Isobel Asher Hamilton, “A US Police Force Is Running Suspect Sketches Through Amazon’s Facial Recognition Tech and It Could Lead to Wrongful Arrests,” Business Insider, May 2, 2019.

195 on federal procurement Brett Bachman, “The US Government Is the World’s Largest Purchaser of Consumer Goods. Amazon Wants a Piece,” Vox, May 1, 2019.

195 and data storage Karen Weise, “Amazon and Microsoft Are 2 Finalists for $10 Billion Pentagon Contract,” New York Times, April 10, 2019.

195 spends more money lobbying David McCabe and Erica Pandey, “Explore Amazon’s Wide Washington Reach,” Axios, March 13, 2019.

195 access to valuable data David Dayen, “ e HQ2 Scam: How Amazon Used a Bidding War to Scrape Cities’ Data,” In These Times, November 8, 2018.

195 in a suburb of Washington David Fontana, “Amazon’s D.C. Move Threatens the Founders’ Vision for America,” Politico, April 13, 2019.

196 developed a $100 million Alexa Fund Emily Parkhurst, “Amazon Makes $100M Available to Fund Voice-Control Tech,” Puget Sound Business Journal, June 25, 2015.

196 even transmitting some of that sound Eugene Kim, “Amazon Reportedly Has Thousands of People Listening to Snippets of Alexa Conversations,” CNBC, April 10, 2019.

196 Alexa even transcribes what it hears Alfred Ng, “Amazon Alexa Transcripts Live On, Even After You Delete Voice Records,” CNET, May 9, 2019.

196 the company retains records Alfred Ng, “Amazon Alexa Keeps Your Data with No Expiration Date, and Shares It Too,” CNET, July 2, 2019.

196 So do Facebook Sarah Frier, “Facebook Paid Contractors to Transcribe Users’ Audio Chats,” Bloomberg, August 13, 2019.

196 and Microsoft, through Skype Alyse Stanley, “Microsoft Confirms Your Cortana and Skype Recordings Aren’t Private Either, Surprising No One,” Gizmodo, August 15, 2019.

196 also stores and transmits Sam Biddle, “For Owners of Amazon’s Ring Security Cameras, Strangers May Have Been Watching Too,” The Intercept, January 10, 2019.

196 working with property managers Christopher Mims, “Amazon’s Plan to Move In to Your Next Apartment Before You Do,” Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2019.

197 read a customer’s expression Pindrop, “Amazon Plans Move to Facial Recognition for Purchases,” www.pindrop.com/blog/amazon-plans-move-to-facial-recognition-for-purchases.

197 can read human emotions Matt Day, “Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions,” Bloomberg, May 23, 2019.

197 in the middle of every Mitchell, “Amazon Doesn’t Just Want.”

197 seems dog-eat-dog Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld, “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace,” New York Times, August 15, 2015.

197 many of them at Foxconn Elizabeth Weise, “Amazon’s Echo Dot, Kindles Made in Foxconn Factory Rife with Labor Abuses, Rights Group Says,” USA Today, June 11, 2018.

197 workers’ every move is monitored Julie Bort, “Amazon’s Warehouse-Worker Tracking System Can Automatically Pick People to Fire Without a Human Supervi- sor’s Involvement,” Business Insider, April 25, 2019.

197 a labor force of nervous temps Alexander Sammon, “Elwood, Illinois (Pop. 2,200), Has Become a Vital Hub of America’s Consumer Economy. And It’s Hell,” New Republic, January 9, 2019.

197 “voluntary time off” Bryan Menengud, “On Amazon’s Time,” Gizmodo, June 13, 2018.

197 fired for the crime Alfred Ng and Ben Fox Rubin, “Amazon Fired These 7 Pregnant Workers. Then Came the Lawsuits,” CNET, May 6, 2019.

197 one of America’s most unsafe employers Industrial Safety and Hygiene News, “Amazon, Tesla Named to Most Unsafe Employers List,” April 26, 2018, www.ishn.com/articles/108502-amazon-tesla-named-to-most-unsafe-employers-list.

197 despair and even death Max Zahn and Sharif Padget, “‘Colony of Hell’: 911 Calls from Inside Amazon Warehouses,” Daily Beast, March 11, 2019; Dave Jamieson, “The Life and Death of an Amazon Warehouse Temp,” HuffPost Highline, October 22, 2015.

197 had to reassure people Nandita Bose, “Amazon Dismisses Idea Automation Will Eliminate All Its Warehouse Jobs Soon,” Reuters, May 1, 2019.

197 it rolled out machines Jeffrey Dastin, “Exclusive: Amazon Rolls Out Machines at Pack Orders and Replace Jobs,” Reuters, May 13, 2019.

198 low-wage nonunion workforce Jake Bittle, “Postal-Service Workers Are Shouldering the Burden for Amazon,” The Nation, February 21, 2018.

198 less lucrative than advertised Alana Semuels, “I Delivered Packages for Amazon and It Was a Nightmare,” The Atlantic, June 25, 2018.

198 not classified as Amazon employees Amazon.com, “Amazon Raises Minimum Wage to $15 for All U.S. Employees,” October 2, 2018, blog.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-to-15-for-all-us-employees.

198 offered warehouse employees $10,000 Jennifer Smith and Kimberly Chin, “Amazon, in Need of Drivers, Turns to Its Employees,” Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2019.

198 illegal activity under labor law David Dayen, “Thousands of Amazon Delivery Drivers Won’t Be Eligible for the $15 Wage,” In These Times, October 12, 2018.

198 Atlas pays its pilots Abha Bhattarai and Kevin Williams, “The Amazon Air Pilots Who Deliver Your Parcels Are Prepared to Strike,” Washington Post, April 11, 2019.

198 crashed in Texas Leslie Josephs, “NTSB Investigators Search for Clues in Deadly Amazon Cargo Jet Crash,” CNBC, February 25, 2019.

199 watch union-busting videos Bryan Menengus, “Amazon’s Aggressive Anti-Union Tactics Revealed in Leaked 45-Minute Video,” Gizmodo, September 26, 2018.

199 bring in union-busting consultants Verne Kopyto , “How Amazon Crushed the Union Movement,” Time, January 16, 2014.

199 teach managers antiunion tactics Steven Greenhouse, “Amazon.com Is Using the Web to Block Unions’ Effort to Organize,” New York Times, November 29, 2000.

199 shut down workplaces Steven Greenhouse, “Unions Pushing to Organize Thousands of Amazon.com Workers,” New York Times, November 23, 2000.

199 Lisa Pendry told Abha Bhattarai, “Thousands Line Up to Work for Amazon: ‘I Just Need a Job,’” Washington Post, August 2, 2017.

199 Big Tech has constructed barriers Timothy B. Lee, “The End of the Internet Startup,” Vox, July 11, 2017.

199 Amazon acquired online retailers Sarah Lacy, “Amazon Buys Zappos,” Techcrunch, July 22, 2009; Dan Primack, “Amazon to Buy Diapers.com for $540 Million,” Fortune, November 6, 2010.

199 bought an Israeli data-security app Deepa Seetharaman and Betsy Morris, “Facebook’s Onavo Gives Social-Media Firm Inside Peek at Rivals’ Users,” Wall Street Journal, August 13, 2017.

199 Apple obtains a smaller company Lauren Feiner, “Apple Buys a Company Every Few Weeks, Says CEO Tim Cook,” CNBC, May 6, 2019.

199 as high as one a week Leena Rao, “Eric Schmidt: Google Is Buying One Company a Week,” Techcrunch, December 7, 2011.

199 Seed funding has slowed Heather Somerville, “Seed Funding Slows in Silicon Valley,” Reuters, July 31, 2017.

200 less than 1 percent of all sellers Marketplace Pulse, “Number of Sellers on Amazon Marketplace.”

200 has made thousands of dollars Julia Glum, “This Couple Figured Out a Way to Make  ousands Reselling Trader Joe’s ‘Everything But the Bagel’ Seasoning. Here’s How,” Money, Feburary 15, 2019.

201 grew to nearly $43 billion Amazon.com, Inc., 2018 annual report, Securities and Exchange Commission, ir.aboutamazon.com/node/32656/html, 67.

201 according to one Morgan Stanley estimate Dan Gallagher, “Amazon’s Third Party Needs to Keep Raging,” Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2018.

201 third-party sellers must invest Karen Weise, “Amazon Knows What You Buy. And It’s Building a Big Ad Business from It,” New York Times, January 20, 2019.

201 agree to sell their brand Jon Emont, “Amazon Offers Sellers a Leg Up, with a Catch,” Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2019.

201 abruptly stopped buying directly Spencer Soper, “Amazon Suppliers Panic amid Purge Aimed at Boosting Profits,” Bloomberg, March 7, 2019; Spencer Soper, “Amazon Is Poised to Unleash a Long-Feared Purge of Small Suppliers,” Bloomberg, May 28, 2019.

201 sign a mandatory arbitration agreement David Dayen, “The Biggest Abuser of Forced Arbitration Is Amazon,” American Prospect, July 10, 2019.

201 get Amazon to delist them Jason Koebler, “Amazon Is Kicking All Unauthorized Apple Refurbishers off Amazon Marketplace,” Motherboard, November 9, 2018, www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjexb5/amazon-is-kicking-all-unauthorized-apple-refurbishers-off-the-site.

202 get hurt in a million different ways Josh Dzieza, “Prime and Punishment: Dirty Dealing in the $175 Billion Amazon Marketplace,” The Verge, December 19, 2018.

202 caught the Federal Trade Commission’s attention Matt Binder, “FTC Fines Company for Fake Amazon Reviews in First Case of Its Kind,” Mashable, February 27, 2019.

202 write phony reviews Nicole Nguyen, “Inside Amazon’s Fake Review Economy,” BuzzFeed, May 7, 2018.

202 buy a competing product Dzieza, “Prime and Punishment.”

202 knockoffs are everywhere Alana Semuels, “Amazon May Have a Counterfeit Problem,” The Atlantic, April 20, 2018; David Streitfeld, “What Happens After Amazon’s Domination Is Complete? Its Bookstore Offers Clues,” New York Times, June 23, 2019; Naseem S. Miller, “Dietary Supplements: How to Avoid Fake Products,” Spokesman-Review, August 21, 2019.

202 recommended in 2018 Ari Levy, “Some Amazon Sites Should Be Added to ‘Notorious Markets’ List Because of Counterfeits, Apparel Industry Group Says,” CNBC, October 1, 2018.

203 noticed a series of bad reviews David Pierson, “Extra Inventory. More Sales. Lower Prices. How Counterfeits Benefit Amazon,” Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2018.

203 other returned fakes Wade Shepard, “Fuse Chicken vs. Amazon Is the David vs. Goliath Lawsuit to Watch in 2018,” Forbes, January 14, 2018.

203 this is pretty common Izabella Kaminska, “Amazon (sub)Prime?,” Financial Times, March 20, 2019.

203 2015 federal court decision Milo & Gabby, LLC et al. v. Amazon.com, Inc., United States District Court, Western District of Washington, Ruling of Judge Ricardo Martinez, July 16, 2015, law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/wawdce/2:2013cv01932/196710/44.

203 A circuit court ruling Martina Barash, “Amazon Faces Liability as Market- place ‘Seller,’ 3d Cir. Rules,” Bloomberg Law, July 3, 2019.

203 A Wall Street Journal investigation Alexandra Berzon, Shane Shifflett, and Justin Scheck, “Amazon Has Ceded Control of Its Site. The Result: Thousands of Banned, Unsafe or Mislabeled Products,” Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2019.

204 notice from a fake law firm Eugene Kim, “Amazon Was Tricked by a Fake Law Firm into Removing a Hot Product, Costing This Seller $200,000,” CNBC, September 7, 2017.

204 85 percent of counterfeit goods Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Global Trade in Fake Goods Worth Nearly Half a Trillion Dollars a Year—OECD & EUIPO,” April 18, 2016, www.oecd.org/industry/global-trade-in-fake-goods-worth-nearly-half-a-trillion-dollars-a-year.htm.

204 Amazon recruits Chinese sellers Ari Levy, “Amazon’s Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse,” CNBC, July 8, 2016.

204 offers financing to them Eugene Kim, “Amazon Just Launched a Lending Service in China While Shuttering Its Local Marketplace,” CNBC, May 8, 2019.

205 Amazon since changed its policy Eugene Kim, “Amazon’s Updated Suspension Policy Still Has Sellers Worried About Getting Inexplicably Booted,” CNBC, July 20, 2019.

205 Amazon still holds the inventory Ari Levy, “Amazon Sellers Say They Were Unfairly Suspended Before Prime Day, and Now Have Two Bad Choices,” CNBCf, July 17, 2018.

207 have allegedly unbanned accounts Dzieza, “Prime and Punishment.”

207 ever since Stine revealed Dzieza, “Prime and Punishment.”

208 grew to 138 product lines Gartner Research, “Amazon Private Label 2019,” March 26, 2019, www.gartner.com/en/marketing/research/amazon-private-label-2019.

208 There are also house brands Alison Griswold, “Secret Amazon Brands Are Quietly Taking Over Amazon.com,” Quartz, October 5, 2018.

208 built a skin care line Cheryl Wischhover, “Amazon Made a Skin Care Line Based on What Users Search For,” Vox, April 12, 2019.

208 preferential treatment in searches Julie Creswell, “How Amazon Steers Shoppers to Its Own Products,” New York Times, June 23, 2018.

208 lower prices than competitors Leticia Miranda, “Amazon Sellers Say the Tech Giant Is Crushing Them with Competitive Pricing,” BuzzFeed, June 7, 2018.

208 freebies of its house brand products Spencer Soper, “Amazon Doles Out Freebies to Juice Sales of Its Own Brands,” Bloomberg, October 16, 2018.

208 promotes its own products Eugene Kim, “Amazon Has Been Promoting Its Own Products at the Bottom of Competitors’ Listings,” CNBC, October 2, 2018.

2208 Amazon adjusted its algorithm Dana Mattioli, “Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products,” Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2019.

208 In a 2014 paper Feng Zhu and Qihong Liu, “Competing with Complementors: An Empirical Look at Amazon.com,” Harvard Business School Technology and Operations Management Unit, December 4, 2014, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2533616.

209 Williams-Sonoma accused Amazon Taylor Telford, “Williams-Sonoma Sues Amazon over Knockoffs and ‘Strikingly Similar’ Products,” Washington Post, December 19, 2018.

209 commonplace for Amazon Erica Pandey, “The Amazon Advertising Mafia,” Axios, October 9, 2018.

209 gives Amazon higher search rankings The Capitol Forum, “Amazon and Google: Williams Sonoma Lawsuit Highlights How Amazon and Google Mutually Reinforce and Benefit from Each Other’s Dominance,” January 25, 2019.

209 kept the case alive Law360, “Amazon Must Face Williams-Sonoma TM Suit Over Site Layout,” May 3, 2019.

209 Birkenstock quit the site Ari Levy, “Birkenstock Quits Amazon in US After Counterfeit Surge,” CNBC, July 20, 2016.

209 Nike has also quit Khadeeja Safar and Dana Mattioli, “Nike to Stop Selling Directly to Amazon,” Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2019.

209 “modern-day piracy” Abha Bhattarai, “Birkenstock CEO Accuses Amazon of ‘Modern-Day Piracy,’” Washington Post, July 25, 2017.

209 the most notorious example Brad Stone, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (New York: Little, Brown, 2013); Brad Stone, “The Secrets of Bezos: How Amazon Became the Everything Store,” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 10, 2013.

210 shutting down Quidsi Matt Weinberger, “Amazon Is Shutting Down a Division It Bought for $545 Million, Escalating a Feud Between Jeff Bezos and His Walmart Rival,” Business Insider, March 29, 2017.

210 products no longer arrive Mark Wilson, “Amazon Prime Is Getting Worse, and It’s Making Me Question the Nature of Reality,” Fast Company, December 19, 2018.

210 Amazon sells a book Tweet from Steve Randy Waldman (@interfluidity), January 1, 2019, twitter.com/interfluidity/status/1080205536128167936.

210 get bizarre substitutions Heather Haddon, “Amazon to Whole Foods Online Delivery Customers: We’re Out of Celery, How’s Kale?,” Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2019.

210 move to one-day shipping Eugene Kim, “Amazon to Spend $800 Million This Quarter to Make Free One-Day Shipping the Default for Prime Members,” CNBC, April 25, 2019.

210 has listed fake higher prices Jade Scipioni, “Amazon Jacked Up Prime Day Prices, Misleading Consumers, Says Vendor,” Fox Business, July 24, 2017.

210 has charged more for Kindles Phillip Longman, “Big Tech Is Spying on Your Wallet,” Washington Monthly, April–June 2019.

210 steered people to higher-priced products Julia Angwin and Surya Mattu, “Amazon Says It Puts Customers First. But Its Pricing Algorithm Doesn’t,” ProPublica, September 20, 2016.

210 become a real-world laboratory Hermann Simon, “Whole Foods Is Becoming Amazon’s Brick-and-Mortar Pricing Lab,” Harvard Business Review, September 12, 2017.

210 forces sellers to raise prices Spencer Soper, “Amazon Squeezes Sellers That Offer Better Prices on Walmart,” Bloomberg, August 5, 2019.

210 Amazon’s own written policies Shaoul Sussman, “How Amazon Controls Its Marketplace,” American Prospect, July 26, 2019.

211 declined to charge sales tax Darla Mercado, “The Holiday Is Over: Amazon Will Collect Sales Taxes Nationwide on April 1,” CNBC, March 24, 2017.

211 building a business model Brian Baugh, Itzhak Ben-David, and Hoonsuk Park, “Can Taxes Shape an Industry? Evidence from the Implementation of the ‘Amazon Tax,’” Fisher College of Business Working Paper, April 10, 2014, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2422403.

211 pay no federal taxes Matthew Gardner, “Amazon Inc. Paid Zero in Federal Taxes in 2017, Gets $789 Million Windfall from New Tax Law,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, February 13, 2018, itep.org/amazon-inc-paid-zero-in-federal-taxes-in-2017-gets-789-million-windfall-from-new-tax-law.

211 “Can’t Realize a Profit” Laura Stevens, Sharon Terlep, and Annie Gasparro, “Amazon Targets Unprofitable Items, with a Sharper Focus on the Bottom Line,” Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2018.

211 Amazon will only advertise Eugene Kim, “Amazon Is Aggressively Blocking Ads for Unprofitable Products as Part of a Plan to Bolster Its Bottom Line,” CNBC, March 20, 2019.

211 forces sellers to take discounts Laura Stevens, “How Amazon Picks Its Seemingly Random Deals of the Day,” Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2017.

211 raise spending on marketing Jason Del Rey, “An Amazon Revolt Could Be Brewing as the Tech Giant Exerts More Control over Brands,” Recode, November 29, 2018, www.vox.com/2018/11/29/18023132/amazon-brand-policy-changes-marketplace-control-one-vendor.

211 raising shipping and transportation fees Spencer Soper, “Amazon Is Squeezing Suppliers to Curb Losses in Price Wars,” Bloomberg, March 20, 2018.

211 forcing them to reshape Annie Gasparro, “Amazon Pushes Brands to Be Less Boxy,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2019.

211 wrote an attention-grabbing paper Shaoul Sussman, “Prime Predator: Amazon and the Rationale of Below Average Variable Cost Pricing Strategies Among Negative-Cash Flow Firms,” Journal of Antitrust Enforcement 7, no. 2 (2019): 203–219.

211 the Walmart effect Robert Siegel, “Understanding ‘the Wal-Mart Effect,’” NPR News, January 31, 2006.

212 all versions of Amazon Matt Stoller, “WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism,” Substack, September25, 2019, mattstoller.substack.com/p/wework-and-counterfeit-capitalism.

212 at best as outright fraud Scott Galloway, “NYU Professor Scott Galloway Says WeWork and Theranos Have a Lot in Common: Their Boards Let Them Get Away with ‘Massive Fraud,’” Business Insider, September 27, 2019.

212 Warren Buffett bought Katherine Chiglinsky, “Buffett’s Berkshire Pegs Its Amazon Wager at $860.6 Million,” Bloomberg, May 15, 2019.

Interlude

213 156.1 million such websites VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief Q2 2019, August 2019, www.verisign.com/assets/domain-name-report-Q22019.pdf.

213 VeriSign got the go-ahead VeriSign 8-K, “Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement,” Securities and Exchange Commission, October 26, 2018, www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1014473/000101447318000042/vrsn-form8xkx102918.htm.

213 stock leaped 17 percent Tomi Kilgore, “VeriSign’s Stock Rockets Back to Dot-Com Bubble Levels After ICANN Agreement,” CBS Marketwatch, November 2, 2018.

213 $1 billion in free money Kevin Murphy, “Trump Gives Verisign Almost $1 Billion in Free Money,” Domain Incite, November 5, 2018, domainincite.com/23641-trump-gives-verisign-almost-1-billion-in-free-money.

213 VeriSign’s operating income Securities and Exchange Commission, Veri- Sign quarterly report, Q1 2019, www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1014473/000101447319000015/vrsn-2019331x10q.htm.

213 owns nearly 13 million shares Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker, holdings as of June 30, 2019, CNBC, www.cnbc.com/berkshire-hathaway-portfolio.

213 have consistently offered Daniel Negari, “XYZ’s Comments on the Proposed Amendment to the .COM Registry Agreement,” August 12, 2016, forum.icann.org/lists/comments-com-amendment-30jun16/msg00085.html.

213 ICANN responded ICANN, “Determination of the Board Governance Com- mittee (BGC) Reconsideration Request 16-9,” July 21, 2016, www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/reconsideration-16-9-ruby-glen-radix-bgc-determination-21jul16-en.pdf.

214 but it failed RubyGlen, LLC v. Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Num- bers, United States District Court, Central District of California, July 26, 2016, domainnamewire.com/wp-content/icann-donuts-tro.pdf.

214 Nu Dot Co won ICANN, “Results Available for 27 July 2016 New gTLD Program Auction,” July 28, 2016, www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2016-07-28-en.

214 VeriSign issued a brief press release “Verisign Statement Regarding .Web Auction Results,” August 1, 2016, investor.verisign.com/news-releases/news-release-details/verisign-statement-regarding-web-auction-results.

214 Donuts unsuccessfully sued Kevin Murphy, “Donuts Loses to ICANN in $135 Million .Web Auction Appeal,” Domain Incite, October 16, 2018, domainincite.com/23581-donuts-loses-to-icann-in-135-million-web-auction-appeal.

214 then quietly closed it Andrew Allemann, “Department of Justice Closes Investigation on Verisign Running .Web,” Domain Name Wire, January 11, 2018, domainnamewire.com/2018/01/11/department-justice-closes-investigation-verisign-running-web.

214 filed for an independent review Andrew Allemann, “Afilias Files for Independent Review on .Web, Further Delaying Domain Name,” Domain Name Wire, December 4, 2018, domainnamewire.com/2018/12/04/afilias-files-for-independent-review-on-web-further-delaying-domain-name.

214 announced a deal to buy Jay Peters, “The Org that Doles Out .Org Websites Just Sold Itself to a For-Profit Company,” The Verge, November 13, 2019.

214 Price caps for .org Andrew Allemann, “Domain Overseer Lifts All Price Caps on .Org Domain Names,” Domain Name Wire, June 30, 2019, domainnamewire.com/2019/06/30/domain-overseer-lifts-all-price-caps-on-org-domain-names.

214 CEO of Public Interest Registry “Jonathon Nevett Named CEO of Public Interest Registry,” December 4, 2018, thenew.org/jonathon-nevett-named-ceo-of-public-interest-registry/.

9. Monopolies Are Why Hospitals Can Give Patients Prosthetic Limbs and Arti cial Hearts but Not Salt and Water in a Bag

216 which produces about half Data from the Open Markets Institute, concentrationcrisis.openmarketsinstitute.org/industry/iv-solution.

216 crippled during Hurricane Maria Peter Loftus and Jonathan D. Rocko , “Baxter Says Saline Shipments Disrupted in Hurricane-Wracked Puerto Rico,” Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2017.

216 shortage list since 2013 Erika Fry, “There’s a National Shortage of Saline Solution. Yeah, We’re Talking Salt Water. Huh?” Fortune, February 5, 2015.

216 had already been investigating Bowdeya Tweh, “Justice Department Investigating Baxter over Saline Shortage,” Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2017.

217 made GoFundMe pages Mark Zdechlik, “Go Fund My Doctor Bills: Americans Ask for Help Paying for Health Care,” Minnesota Public Radio, July 2, 2018.

217 third-leading cause of death Tait Shanafelt, Christine A. Sinsky, and Stephen Swensen, “Preventable Deaths in American Hospitals,” NEJM Catalyst, January 23, 2017.

217 Aetna announced Anna Wilde Mathews, Liz Hoffman, and Dana Mattioli, “With Merger Deal, Aetna, Humana Get Ahead of the Pack,” Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2015.

217 Cigna laid out its own Carolyn Y. Johnson, “With Anthem-Cigna Deal Near, the Health Insurance Industry Is Headed Toward a ‘Big Three,’” Washington Post, July 22, 2015.

217 frightened patients and advocates Sarah Kliff, “Will Massive Mergers Make Health Insurance as Bad as Cable?” Vox, July 24, 2015.

217 prices jumped 7 percent Leemore Dafny, Mark Duggan, and Subramaniam Ramanarayanan, “Paying a Premium on Your Premium? Consolidation in the US Health Insurance Industry,” American Economic Review 102, no. 2 (2012): 1161–1185.

217 soared 14 percent José R. Guardado, David W. Emmons, and Carol K. Kane, “The Price Effects of a Large Merger of Health Insurers: A Case Study of UnitedHealth-Sierra,” Health Management, Policy and Innovation 1, no. 3 (2013): 16–35.

218 a gold-standard report Office of Attorney General Martha Coakley, “Investigation of Health Care Cost Trends and Cost Drivers,” January 29, 2010, www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/08/ub/prelim-2010-hcctcd.pdf.

218 tragedy of Nataline Sarkisyan “Nataline Sarkisyan’s Parents Come Face-to-Face with Former CIGNA Executive Wendell Potter,” Dateline, NBC, January 25, 2010.

218 data from the Kaiser Family Foundation Rachel Fehr, Cynthia Cox, and Larry Levitt, “Insurer Participation on ACA Marketplaces, 2014–2019,” Kaiser Family Foundation, November 14, 2018, www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/insurer-participation-on-aca-marketplaces-2014-2019.

218 exclusive Obamacare policy arrangements Berkeley Lovelace Jr., “Joshua Kushner’s Start-up Oscar Health Sues Florida Blue for Allegedly Running Obamacare Insurance Monopoly,” CNBC, November 13, 2018.

218 abandoned their plans Aaron Smith and Jackie Wattles, “Aetna-Humana & Anthem-Cigna: Two Mergers Die in One Day,” CNN, February 14, 2017.

218 Justice Department had sued Carolina Humer and Carl O’Donnell, “U.S. Moves to Block Massive Health Insurer Deals Led by Anthem, Aetna,” Reuters, July 21, 2016.

219 expected the merger wave Kathleen O’Toole, “Merger Mania in Medical Care Not Likely to Continue, Economist Says,” Stanford News, March 17, 1997, news.stanford.edu/pr/97/970317mergers.html.

219 1,667 hospital mergers Martin Gaynor, “Diagnosing the Problem: Exploring the Effects of Consolidation and Anticompetitive Conduct in Health Care Markets,” Statement Before the House Committee on the Judiciary, March 7, 2019, docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190307/109024/HHRG-116-JU05-Bio-GaynorM-20190307.pdf.

219 admission rates have actually dropped Jeff Byers, “The Care Delivery Times Are ‘A-Changin’:  e Need for Competition in a Consolidating Hospital Industry,” Healthcare Dive, May 3, 2017, www.healthcaredive.com/news/hospital-competition-consolidation-macra/441679.

219 “certificate of need” laws Christine Khaikin, Lois Uttley, and Aubree Winkler, “When Hospitals Merge: Updating State Oversight to Protect Access to Care,” The MergerWatch Project, 2016, static1.squarespace.com/static/568ad532cbced6b473f20732/t/57962bcc414fb5c7c3766775/1469459434906 /MergerWatch_CON_report_June2016.pdf.

219 research published by Cal Berkeley’s Brent D. Fulton, “Health Care Market Concentration Trends in the United States: Evidence and Policy Responses,” Health Affairs 36, no. 9 (2017): 1530–1538.

219 one or two hospital networks Martin Gaynor, Farzad Mostashari, and Paul Ginsburg, “Health Care’s Crushing Lack of Competition,” Forbes, June 28, 2017.

219 Dignity Health combined to form Alex Kacik, “Catholic Health Initiatives, Dignity Health Combine to Form CommonSpirit Health,” Modern Healthcare, February 1, 2019.

220 teamed up in 2018 Guy Boulton, “Merger of Aurora Health Care and Advocate Health Care Is Completed,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, April 2, 2018.

220 successful transaction signaled Clare Baldwin and Alina Selyukh, “HCA IPO Prices at $30, Sells More Shares: Sources,” Reuters, March 8, 2011.

220 closing and selling off hospitals Meg Bryant, “CHS Completes Sale of 9 Hospitals,” Healthcare Dive, May 2, 2017, www.healthcaredive.com/news/chs-completes-sale-of-9-hospitals/441700.

220 a recent deal with IASIS Les Masterson, “Steward Could Become Largest Private For-Profit Hospital System with $2B Merger,” Healthcare Dive, May 21, 2017, www.healthcaredive.com/news/steward-health-care-will-be-largest-private-for-profit-with-2-billion-merg/443195.

220 then closed the facility Mike Elk, “Private Equity’s Latest Scheme: Closing Urban Hospitals and Selling Off the Real Estate,” American Prospect, July 11, 2019.

220 which is in a “gateway location” Jacob Adelman, “As Hahnemann Enters Bankruptcy, ‘Gateway’ Development Site Could Open up in Center,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 1, 2019.

221 jumped to 38 percent Gaynor, Mostashari, and Ginsburg, “Health Care’s Crushing Lack of Competition.”

221 according to Fulton’s research Fulton, “Health Care Market Concentration.”

221 referrals stay in the family Anna Wilde Mathews and Melanie Evans, “The Hidden System That Explains How Your Doctor Makes Referrals,” Wall Street Journal, December 27, 2018.

221 owned by two companies Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, “Dialysis,” May 14, 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw_nqzVfxFQ.

221 routinely play down Dylan Matthews, “John Oliver Targets Dialysis, a Procedure That’s Exhausting, Deadly, and Very Profitable,” Vox, May 15, 2017. Andrew Conte and Luis Fabregas, “Many on Debilitating Dialysis Not Told About Transplantation Option,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 27, 2009.

221 charge four times as much Alexander Sammon, “The Dialysis Duopoly Spends Big to Protect Profits in California,” American Prospect, August 23, 2019.

221 funnel $250 million a year American Kidney Fund, Inc., “Financial State- ments, Years Ended December 31, 2018 and 2017,” www.kidneyfund.org/assets/pdf/about-us/akf-2018-audit-report.pdf.

221 steers patients over Roddy Boyd, “DaVita Inc.: Warren and Charlie’s Excellent Insurance Gambit,” Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation, September 22, 2017, sirf-online.org/2017/09/22/davita-inc-warren-and-charlies-excellent-insurance-gambit.

221 higher mortality rates Yi Zhang, Dennis J. Cotter, and Mae Thamer, “The Effect of Dialysis Chains on Mortality Among Patients Receiving Hemodialysis,” Health Services Research 46, no. 3 (2010): 747–767.

221 Critics have accused Paul Sisson, “Are Dialysis Centers Unsafe, Profit-hungry Facilities that Need Stricter Regulation?” San Diego Union-Tribune, May 24, 2017.

221 made $231 million in a day Liz Moyer, “Warren Buffett Scores a Quick $230 Million with DaVita Deal,” CNBC, December 6, 2017.

222 concentration forces prices higher Reed Abelson, “When Hospitals Merge to Save Money, Patients Often Pay More,” New York Times, November 14, 2018.

222 increased up to $2,000 Mike Cummings, “Hospital Prices Show ‘Mind-Boggling’ Variation Across U.S. Driving up Health Care Costs,” Yale News, December 15, 2015, news.yale.edu/2015/12/15/hospital-prices-show-mind-boggling-variation-across-us-driving-health-care-costs.

222 Another found monopoly hospitals Zack Cooper, Stuart Craig, Mar- tin Gaynor, and John Van Reenen, “The Price Ain’t Right? Hospital Prices and Health Spending on the Privately Insured,” Health Care Pricing Project, May 2015, healthcarepricingproject.org/papers/paper-1.

222 have reported quadrupling of rates Anna Wilde Mathews, “Same Doctor Visit, Double the Cost,” Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2012.

222 boasted to investors Bob Herman, “When a Hospital Wields Monopoly Power,” Axios, July 1, 2019.

222 settled a lawsuit Reed Abelson, “Sutter Health to Settle Antitrust Lawsuit,” New York Times, October 16, 2019.

222 all-or-nothing bargaining model Jenny Gold, “Hospital Giant Sutter Health Faces Legal Reckoning over Medical Pricing,” Los Angeles Times, September 7, 2019.

222 more medical professionals Phillip Longman, “How Big Medicine Can Ruin Medicare for All,” Washington Monthly, November–December 2017.

222 the cartel-like behavior Jonathan Tepper, “The Doctor Monopoly Is Killing American Patients,” American Conservative, August 1, 2019.

222 doesn’t post prices at all Reed Abelson, “Many Hospitals Charge Double or Even Triple What Medicare Would Pay,” New York Times, May 9, 2019.

222 a Trump administration proposal Stephanie Armour, “Trump Administra- tion Releases Transparency Rule in Hospital Pricing,” Wall Street Journal, November 15, 2019.

222 one in five emergency room visits Christopher Garmon and Benjamin Chartock, “One in Five Inpatient Emergency Department Cases May Lead to Surprise Bills,” Health Affairs 36, no. 1 (2017): 177–181.

223 Congress considered doing Jennifer Habekorn, “Surprise Medical Bills Could Prompt Rare Bipartisan Action in Congress,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 2019.

223 $28 million ad campaign Margot Sanger-Katz, Julie Creswell, and Reed Abelson, “Mystery Solved: Private-Equity-Backed Firms Are Behind Ad Blitz on ‘Surprise Billing,’” New York Times, September 13, 2019.

223 studies find that lack of competition Austin Frakt, “Hospital Mergers Improve Health? Evidence Shows the Opposite,” New York Times, February 11, 2019.

223 A 2018 report Thomas Koch, Brett Wendling, and Nathan E. Wilson, “Physician Market Structure, Patient Outcomes, and Spending: An Examination of Medicare Beneficiaries,” Health Services Research 53, no. 5 (2018): 3549–3568.

223 Older studies have found N. Sari, “Do Competition and Managed Care Improve Quality?,” Health Economics 11, no. 7 (2002): 571–584; Daniel P. Kessler and Mark McClellan, “Is Hospital Competition Socially Wasteful?,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 115, no. 2 (2000): 577–615.

223 lost over five hundred hospitals Byers, “The Care Delivery Times.”

223 at least eighty-five closures Jack Healy, “It’s 4 A.M. The Baby’s Coming. But the Hospital Is 100 Miles Away,” New York Times, July 17, 2018.

223 more than twenty miles away Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, “Report to the Congress: Medicare and the Health Care Delivery System,” June 2018, medpac.gov/docs/default-source/reports/jun18_medpacreporttocongress_sec.pdf.

223 have fared more poorly Michael Braga, Jennifer F. A. Borresen, Dak Le, and Jonathan Riley, “Leaving Billions of Dollars on the Table,” GateHouse News, July 28, 2019.

223 must travel further Peiyin Hung, Katy B. Kozhimannil, Michelle M. Casey, and Ira S. Moscovice, “Why Are Obstetric Units in Rural Hospitals Closing Their Doors?” Health Services Research 51, no. 4 (2016): 1546–1560.

223 A 2016 study iVantage Health Analytics, “Rural Relevance—Vulnerability to Value,” 2016, www.chartis.com/resources/files/INDEX_2016_Rural_Relevance _Study_FINAL_Formatted_02_08_16.pdf.

223 demonstrable effects on income George M. Holmes, Rebecca T. Slifkin, Randy K. Randolph, and Stephanie Poley, “The Effect of Rural Hospital Closures on Commu- nity Economic Health,” Health Services Research 41, no. 2 (2006):467–485.

223 largest health outcome gap Carolyn Y. Johnson, “America Is a World Leader in Health Inequality,” Washington Post, June 5, 2017.

223 when two hospitals were merging WSAZ-TV (Huntington, WV), “Hospital Acquisition Deal Finalized in Huntington,” May 3, 2018.

224 Eli Saslow’s portrait Eli Saslow, “Who’s Going to Take Care of  ese People?,” Washington Post, May 11, 2019.

224 A 2019 study Raksha Kopparam, “Evidence Indicates  at Mergers Directly Suppress Wage Growth for Hospital Workers in the United States,” Washington Center for Equitable Growth, February 26, 2019, equitablegrowth.org/evidence-indicates-that-mergers-directly-suppress-wage-growth-for-hospital-workers-in-the-united-states.

224 is largely responsible Julie Creswell, Reed Abelson, and Margot Sanger-Katz, “The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills,” New York Times, July 24, 2017.

224 uses the threat Zack Cooper, Fiona Scott Morton, and Nathan Shekita, “Surprise! Out-of-Network Billing for Emergency Care in the United States,” Yale University, March 2018, isps.yale.edu/sites/default/files/publication/2018/03 /20180305_oon_paper2_tables_appendices.pdf.

224 with the private equity industry Eileen Appelbaum, “Private Equity Is a Driving Force Behind Devious Surprise Billing,” The Hill, May 16, 2019.

224 improperly denied or delayed coverage Chad Terhune, “Coverage Denied: Medicaid Patients Suffer as Layers of Private Companies Profit,” Kaiser Health News, January 3, 2019, khn.org/news/coverage-denied-medicaid-patients-suffer-as-layers-of-private-companies-profit.

224 Secret contract terms Anna Wilde Mathews, “Behind Your Rising Health-Care Bills: Secret Hospital Deals  at Squelch Competition,” Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2018.

224 Two recent antitrust lawsuits Office of the Attorney General, State of California, “Attorney General Becerra Sues Sutter Health for Anti-competitive Practices that Increase Prices for California Families,” March 30, 2018, oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-becerra-sues-sutter-health-anti-competitive-practices-increase; United States Department of Justice, U.S. and the State of North Carolina v. Carolinas Healthcare System, June 9, 2016, www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-and-state-north-carolina-v-charlotte-mecklenburg-hosptial-authority-dba-carolinas.

224 also blocked clinical data Stefaan Verhulst, “Digital Health Data and Information Sharing: A New Frontier for Health Care Competition?” Living Library, April 17, 2019, thelivinglib.org/digital-health-data-and-information-sharing-a-new-frontier-for-health-care-competition.

224 massive global trading business Adam Tanner, “The Hidden Global Trade in Patient Medical Data,” YaleGlobal Online, January 24, 2017, yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/hidden-global-trade-patient-medical-data.

224 a 2016 merger Kristen Hallam and Zachary Tracer, “IMS Health to Buy Quintiles in $9 Billion Pharma Data Deal,” Bloomberg, May 3, 2016.

224 launching a generic drug company Bob Herman, “Hospitals to Launch Generic Drug Company,” Axios, January 18, 2018.

224 jumping into hospice care Reed Abelson, “When a Health Insurer Also Wants to Be a Hospice Company,” New York Times, June 22, 2018.

224 Big Tech snapping up Natasha Singer, “How Big Tech Is Going After Your Health Care,” New York Times, December 26, 2017.

225 He broke the story Phillip L. Zweig, “Learning Old Lessons from a New Scandal,” New York Times, Feburary 2, 2002.

225 to quip in a hearing Eric Dash, “If It’s Too Big to Fail, Is It Too Big to Exist?,” New York Times, June 20, 2009.

225 Zweig wrote a book Phillip L. Zweig, Belly Up: The Collapse of the Penn Square Bank (New York: Crown, 1985).

225 Retractable was the brainchild Mariah Blake, “Dirty Medicine,” Washington Monthly, July–August 2010.

226 goes for as high as $800 Norm Sinclair, “Medical Monopoly,” D Business, November 27, 2018, www.dbusiness.com/business-features/medical-monopoly.

226 between 10 and 15 percent cheaper Robert R. Litan and Hal J. Singer, “Broken Compensation Structures and Health Care Costs,” Harvard Business Review, October 6, 2010.

226 eventually find a contract VHA Inc. patronage agreement, nebula.wsimg.com/6eb25b3cf3aabd2595285b2ae11 a1c?AccessKeyId=62BC662C928C06F7384C&disposition=0&alloworigin=1.

226 bluntly stated in 2013 Thomas Finn, “Premier’s IPO Rumors Confirmed—Is MedAssets Being Cast as the Industry’s Torch Bearer,” Healthcare Matters, July 22, 2013, web.archive.org/web/20150226165331/http://hcmatters.com/2013/07/premiers-ipo-rumors-con rmed-is-medassets-being-cast-as-the-industrys-torch-bearer.

227 decided to write a story Phillip L. Zweig and Wendy Zellner, “Locked Out of the Hospital,” Businessweek, March 15, 1998.

227 winning $440 million in settlements David Dayen, “Bring Back Antitrust,” The American Prospect, November 9, 2015.

227 even made a movie Puncture, Safety Point Productions, 2011.

227 controls nearly two-thirds Data from the Open Markets Institute, concentrationcrisis.openmarketsinstitute.org/industry/syringes-injection-needle-manufacturing.

227 they estimate 385,000 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Stop Sticks Campaign, web.archive.org/web/20190417030834/https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/stopsticks/sharpsinjuries.html.

227 series of congressional hearings United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, “Hospital Group Purchasing: Lowering Costs at the Expense of Patient Health and Medical Innovation?” April 30, 2002, masimo.com/livewire/KohlGPOHearing.pdf.

227 which concluded William J. Scanlon, “Group Purchasing Organizations: Pilot Study Suggests Large Buying Groups Do Not Always Offer Hospitals Lower Prices,” Government Accountability Office, April 30, 2002, www.gao.gov/assets/90/81813.pdf.

227 safe-harbor provision Blake, “Dirty Medicine.”

228 Zweig found a bio Georgia Society of Health-System Pharmacists, “2012 Annual Meeting Faculty,” 2012, nebula.wsimg.com/6ca8b2cd77320485df07ed203008e617?Ac cessKeyId=62BC662C928C06F7384C&disposition=0&alloworigin=1.

228 Zweig pulled one report Ben Venue Laboratories report, January 2007, nebula.wsimg.com/c15ea9a527af70ceaaaf434f3cd3ce0e?AccessKeyId=6 2BC662C928C06F7384C&disposition=0&alloworigin=1.

228 control the overwhelming majority William Barnett and Phil Zweig, “Con- gress Should Repeal ‘Safe Harbor’ Provision,” Bend Bulletin, March 12, 2017.

228 98 percent of all hospitals William E. Bruhn, Elizabeth A. Fracica, and Martin A. Makary, “Group Purchasing Organizations, Health Care Costs, and Drug Shortages,” Journal of the American Medical Association 320, no. 18 (2018): 1959–1860.

228 Zweig noticed a story Gardiner Harris, “Obama Tries to Speed Response to Shortages in Vital Medicines,” New York Times, October 31, 2011.

228 near the peak Peter Loftus, “Drug Shortage Leaves Patients Without Immune-Disorder Treatment,” Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2019.

229 Government Accountability Office report Government Accountability Office, “Drug Shortages: Public Health Threat Continues, Despite Efforts to Help Ensure Product Availability,” February 2014, www.gao.gov/assets/670/660785.pdf.

229 discloses in slide presentations Erin R. Fox, “Drug Shortages,” University of Utah, 2017, www.apsf.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2018-stoelting/Drug-Shortages-Erin-Fox.pdf.

230 November 2018 conference Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy, “Identifying the Root Causes of Drug Shortages and Finding Enduring Solutions,” November 27, 2018, healthpolicy.duke.edu/events/drug-shortage-task-force.

230 revoked a no-bid $4.2 million grant Carolyn Y. Johnson, “FDA Reverses Course on a $4.2 Million No-Bid Grant to a Former Commissioner,” Washington Post, May 16, 2018.

230 paid board member Sarah Jane Tribble, “Top Policy Expert’s Ties to Giant Drugmaker Often Go Unstated,” Washington Post, June 29, 2018.

231 previously cited GPO middlemen Linda A. Johnson, “FDA to More Aggressively Tackle Disruptive Drug Shortages,” Associated Press, July 12, 2018.

231 FDA’s drug shortage database Food and Drug Administration, “Drug Shortages Database,” www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/drugshortages/dsp_Active IngredientDetails.cfm?AI=Sodium Chloride 0.9per Injection Bags&st=c&tab=tabs-1.

231 leading manufacturers to raise the price Karen Weintraub, “Hospitals Strug- gle with Intravenous Saline Shortage,” USA Today, January 27, 2014.

231 make around 86 percent Data from the Open Markets Institute, concentrationcrisis.openmarketsinstitute.org/industry/iv-solution.

231 recalled an entire lot in 2015 Jennifer Walker-Journey, “Hospira Recalls Saline Injection Due to Human Hair Contamination,” Righting Injustice, January 25, 2015, www.rightinginjustice.com/news/2015/01/25/hospira-recalls-saline-injection-due-to-human-hair-contamination.

231 as Zweig explained Phillip L. Zweig and Frederick C. Blum, “Where Does the Law Against Kickbacks Not Apply? Your Hospital,” Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2018.

232 began investigating Baxter Bowdeya Tweh, “Justice Department Investigating Baxter over Saline Shortage,” Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2017.

232 were investigating whether Baxter David Crow, “Saline Investigation Highlights the Cost of American Healthcare,” Financial Times, March 4, 2018.

232 equaling roughly half Andrés M. Patiño et al., “Facing the Shortage of IV Fluids—A Hospital-Based Oral Rehydration Strategy,” New England Journal of Medicine 378 (2018): 1475–1477.

232 lost “multiple production days” Peter Loftus and Jonathan D. Rocko , “Baxter Says Saline Shipments Disrupted in Hurricane-Wracked Puerto Rico,” Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2017.

232 import saline from Brazil and Mexico Julie Steenhuysen, “Baxter to Import IV Saline Bags from Mexico to Ease U.S. Shortage,” Reuters, January 24, 2018.

232 All the news headlines “IV Bags in Short Supply After Hurricane Maria Disrupted Production in Puerto Rico,” CBS News, October 25, 2017; Laurie McGinley, “Hospitals Scramble to Avert Saline Shortage in Wake of Puerto Rico Disaster,” Washington Post, October 11, 2017; Linda A. Johnson, “IV Bag Shortage Has Hospitals Scrambling to Treat Flu,” Associated Press, January 9, 2018; Stephanie Armour and Thomas M. Burton, “Hospitals Wrestle with Shortage of IV Bags, Linked to Hurricane,” Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2018; Mark Zdelchik, “Facing Shortage of IV Bags, What’s a Hospital to Do?,” Minnesota Public Radio, February 13, 2018; Stacey Burling, “As They Fight Flu, Hospitals Cope with Shortage of IV Fluids,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 14, 2018; Kenny Goldberg, “San Diego Hospitals Grappling with Shortage of IV Bags,” KPBS, November 27, 2017.

233 led to shortages Steenhuysen, “Baxter to Import.”

233 Ben tweeted Tweet from Ben Boyer (@sleezsisters), December 28, 2017, twitter.com/sleezsisters/status/946443100712460288.

233 Reporters from Newsweek and Snopes Kate Sheridan, “After Hurricane Maria, IV Bags Are Still in Short Supply. This Man Saw That First-Hand,” Newsweek, December 30, 2017; Arturo Garcia, “Did Hurricane Maria Cause an IV Bag Shortage Across the United States?,” Snopes, December 29, 2017, www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-maria-cause-an-iv-bag-shortage.

234 among the biggest opponents Adam Cancryn and Rachel Roubein, “‘Medicare for All’ Backers Find Biggest Foe in Their Own Backyard,” Politico, May 25, 2019.

Interlude

235 CEO Craig Jelinek admitted Clark Howard, “Costco CEO Shares Tips with Clark Howard to Help You Save Money,” WSB-TV Atlanta, November 11, 2016.

235 Kirkland coffee is roasted Hip2Save, “Money-Saving Secrets: These Store Brand Items Are Actually Made by Name Brands,” April 11, 2017, https://hip2save.com/2017/04/11/money-saving-secrets-these-store-brand-items-are-actually-made-by-name-brands.

235 Kirkland canned tuna Hip2Save, “Money-Saving Secrets.”

235 Walmart’s Great Value brand “Bread Recall Including Sara Lee, Kroger, Great Value & More,” WRAL, August 29, 2015; Business Wire, “Peter Pan Peanut Butter and Great Value Peanut Butter Products Beginning with Product Code 2111 Recalled for Possible Salmonella Contamination,” February 14, 2007.

235 facility stricken with listeria Food and Drug Administration, “Growers Express Issues Voluntary Recall of Multiple Fresh Vegetable Products Due to Potential Contamination of Listeria monocytogenes,” July 1, 2019, www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/growers-express-issues-voluntary-recall-multiple-fresh-vegetable-products-due-potential.

235 Most of Trader Joe’s beloved store-brand products Vince Dixon, “What Brands Are Actually Behind Trader Joe’s Snacks?,” Eater, August 9, 2017.

236 One enterprising science podcaster Randy Schueller, “Is Store Brand Mouthwash as Good as Name Brands? Episode 153,” The Beauty Brains, October 4, 2016, thebeautybrains.com/2016/10/is-store-brand-mouthwash-as-good-as-name-brands-episode-153.

236 most mergers in fifteen years Amelia Lucas, “Consumer Companies, Desperate for Growth, Drove Dealmaking to a 15-Year High in 2017,” CNBC, July 9, 2018.

10. Monopolies Are Why A Woman Found Her Own Home Listed for Rent on Zillow

238 merged with Starwood Waypoint Ben Lane, “Invitation Homes, Starwood Waypoint Homes Merge to Create Largest Single-Family Landlord,” Housing Wire, November 16, 2017, www.housingwire.com/articles/41839-invitation-homes-starwood-waypoint-homes-merge-to-create-largest-single-family-landlord.

238 largest landlord in Sacramento Amherst Capital, “An Update on Institutional Single-Family Rental Activity—2017/2018 U.S. Market Trends Support Long-Term Growth & Opportunity,” April 2018, www.amherstcapital.com/documents/20649/22737/Amherst+Capital+Market+Commentary+-+April+2018+vF/f06bd51a-44c7 -4f8f-87e3-ca8d795bf42a.

238 at a Facebook page Tenants of Invitation Waypoint Homes, Facebook, www.facebook.com/groups/TenantsofInvitationWaypointHomes.

239 The media nicknamed Stoller, Goliath, 391.

239 called that “greenmail,” Stoller, Goliath, 399.

240 Only $15 million Jerry Knight, “KKR Using Only $15 Million of Its Own in Nabisco Buyout,” Washington Post, December 2, 1998.

240 RJR-Nabisco deal Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco (New York: HarperCollins, 1988).

240 the whole game went south Steven N. Kaplan and Per Stromberg, “Leveraged Buyouts and Private Equity,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 22, no. 4 (2008): 121–146.

240 media and the public recoiled Frederick Ungeheuer and Ross Johnson, “If I Fail, I’m on the Hook: Ross Johnson,” Time, December 5, 1988.

240 junk bond market crashed Gheorghe Hurduzeu and Maria-Floriana Popescu, “The History of Junk Bonds and Leveraged Buyouts,” Procedia Economics and Finance 32 (2015): 1268–1275.

241 fees have gone up Javier Espinoza, “The Rise of ‘Super Carry’ Unsettles Private Equity Investors,” Financial Times, April 21, 2019.

241 actual returns for investors Miriam Gottfried, “Private-Equity Firms Are Raising Bigger and Bigger Funds. They Often Don’t Deliver,” Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2019.

241 a record $2.5 trillion Javier Espinoza and Eric Platt, “Private Equity Races to Spend Record $2.5tn Cash Pile,” Financial Times, June 26, 2019.

242 Casinos Iris Dorbian, “Golden Entertainment Agrees to Buy American Casino for $850 mln,” PE Hub, June 12, 2017, www.pehub.com/2017/06/golden-entertainment-has-agreed-to-acquire-american-casino-entertainment-properties-llc-for-850-million-american-casino-owns-several-properties-in-las-vegas-which-includes-the-stratosphere-casin.

242 Crunch Fitness Jaewon Kang, “TPG to Buy Gym Chain Crunch Fitness,” Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2019.

242 Smarte Cartes Ryan Dezember, “Buyout Firm Pushes into U.S. Infrastructure with Baggage Cart Deal,” Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2017.

242 Election Systems & Software Jonathan Levin, “One Winner in Florida Recount Is Omaha-Based Private Equity Firm,” Bloomberg, November 12, 2018.

242 private equity firm gobbled up Danny King, “Melding Snow:  e Consolida- tion of the Ski Resort Industry,” Travel Weekly, November 8, 2017.

242 Global rugby leagues Paul Rees, “Summer Squeeze Asks Questions of Rugby’s A air with Private Equity,” The Guardian, May 30, 2019.

242 Taylor Swift’s back catalog Dan Primack, “Taylor Swift Unloads on Scooter Braun’s Big Machine Deal,” Axios, July 1, 2019.

242 the biggest payday lending firms Private Equity Stakeholder Project and Americans for Financial Reform, “Private Equity Piles into Payday Lending and Other Subprime Consumer Lending,” December 11, 2017, pestakeholder.org/report/private-equity-piles-into-payday-lending-and-other-subprime-consumer-lending.

242 has been dinged repeatedly Federal Trade Commission, “MoneyGram Agrees to Pay $125 Million to Settle Allegations  at the Company Violated the FTC’s 2009 Order and Breached a 2012 DOJ Deferred Prosecution Agreement,” November 8, 2018, www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2018/11/moneygram-agrees-pay-125-million-settle-allegations-company; Federal Trade Commission, “Protecting Older Consumers, 2017–2018,” report to Congress, October 18, 2018, www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/protecting-older-consumers-2017-2018-report-congress-federal-trade-commission/protecting_older_consumers_-_ftc_report_10-18-18 .pdf.

242 Geithner orchestrated a ripoff Peter Whoriskey, “‘A Way of Monetizing Poor People’: How Private Equity Firms Make Money Offering Loans to Cash-Strapped Americans,” Washington Post, July 1, 2018.

242 only for-profit detention camp Dan Primack, “America’s Only For-Profit Detention Center for Migrant Children,” Axios, June 27, 2019.

242 raised funds for a ballot measure Peter Whoriskey, “Private-Equity Money Backs an Effort to Overturn California Law Intended to Help the Poor,” Washington Post, October 29, 2018.

242 network of for-profit colleges Private Equity Stakeholder Project, “Endeavour Capital’s Failing Grade,” November 2018, pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Endeavour-Capitals-Failing-Grade-PESP-112118.pdf.

242 has a large stake Hayley Brown, “Private Equity in Higher Education: A Full Ride at Student and Taxpayer Expense?,” Center for Economic and Policy Research, July 9, 2019, cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/private-equity-in-higher-education-a-full-ride-at-student-and-taxpayer-expense.

243 bought Necco for $57 million Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou, “Only Candy-Eating Rats Survived Private Equity’s Necco Takeover,” Bloomberg, October 31, 2018.

243 research on leveraged buyouts Brian Ayash and Mahdi Rastad, “Leveraged Buyouts and Financial Distress,” Social Science Research Network, July 20, 2019, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3423290.

243 led to unconscionable neglect Peter Whoriskey, “Overdoses, Bedsores, Broken Bones: What Happened When a Private-Equity Firm Sought to Care for Society’s Most Vulnerable,” Washington Post, November 25, 2018.

243 responsible for one-quarter of all mergers Wylie Fernyhough and Darren Klees, 2018 annual M&A report, PitchBook, files.pitchbook.com/website/files/pdf/PitchBook_2018_Annual_MA_Report.pdf.

244 2019 merger of McGraw-Hill and Cengage Cara Lombardo, “McGraw-Hill to Merge with Rival Textbook Publisher,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2019.

244 controlling stake or major investment Dana Mattioli, “Roark Capital Makes Offer to Buy Buffalo Wild Wings,” Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2017.

244 which Arby’s took over Julie Jargon, “Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings Merge to Compete in Fast-Changing Industry,” Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2018.

244 Sonic and then Jimmy John’s Uday Sampath, “Arby’s Owner to Buy Drive-in Chain Sonic for $1.57 Billion,” Reuters, September 25, 2018; Heather Haddon, “Arby’s Parent to Acquire Jimmy John’s,” Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2019.

244 merged for $11.9 billion Dan Kedmey, “Burger King and Tim Hortons Tie the Knot,” Time, August 26, 2014.

244 bought fried chicken chain Popeyes Paul R. La Monica, “Whopper of a Deal: Burger King Owner Buys Popeyes,” CNN, February 21, 2017.

244 tie up Kraft and Heinz “H.J. Heinz Company and Kraft Foods Group Sign De nitive Merger Agreement to Form the Kraft Heinz Company,” March 25, 2015, ir.kraftheinzcompany.com/static-files/2303265e-a98f-4082-bfc1-fc90f462742f.

244 1,400 jobs at Anheuser-Busch Daniel Roberts, “Here’s What Happens When 3G Capital Buys Your Company,” Fortune, March 25, 2015.

244 600 more at Heinz Jennifer Reingold, “Squeezing Heinz,” Fortune, October 10, 2013.

244 350 at Tim Hortons Sophia Harris, “Tim Hortons Confirms 350 Layoffs as Workers Say They Were Blindsided,” CBC News, January 29, 2015.

244 3G earns 45¢ Steven Davidoff Solomon, “Can 3G Capital Keep Thriving on Acquisitions and Cost Cutting?,” New York Times, March 7, 2017.

245 proposed takeovers of Mondelez and Unilever Antonio José Vielma, “Mondelez Climbs After Report  at Kraft-Heinz Is Planning to Acquire It,” CNBC, December 14, 2016; Evelyn Cheng, “3G and Buffett’s Berkshire Behind What Could Be the Largest US Purchase of a Foreign Company,” CNBC, February 17, 2017.

245 Kraft Heinz swung to losses Sarah Whitten and Christina Cheddar Berk, “Kraft Heinz Has Lost the One Thing That Distinguished It from General Mills and Mondelez,” CNBC, February 22, 2019.

245 an SEC fraud investigation Jeremy C. Owens, “Kraft Heinz Earnings Reveal SEC Investigation and Massive Write-offs, Stock Plunges,” CBS Marketwatch, February 21, 2019.

245 3G sold more than 25 million Thomas Franck, “Kraft Heinz Falls After Second-Largest Shareholder 3G Capital Sells More than 25 Million Shares,” CNBC, September 17, 2019.

245 chains filed for bankruptcy Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt, “Private Equity Pillage: Grocery Stores and Workers at Risk,” American Prospect, October 26, 2018.

245 with almost sixteen thousand stores Marc Levinson, The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011).

245 saw reduced pensions Peter Whoriskey, “As a Grocery Chain Is Dismantled, Investors Recover Their Money. Worker Pensions Are Short Millions,” Washington Post, December 28, 2018.

245 Haggen went bankrupt Shan Li, Samantha Masunaga, and Ivan Penn, “Grocer Haggen Files for Bankruptcy and Replaces Executive After Failing to Win Over Shoppers,” Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2015.

245 who bought thirty-three of them Anna Marum, “Albertsons to Buy 33 Haggen Stores, Including 4 in Oregon,” The Oregonian, November 13, 2015.

245 Walmart captures 50 percent Stacy Mitchell, “Walmart’s Monopolization of Local Grocery Markets,” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, June 2019, ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Walmart_Grocery_Monopoly_Report-_final_for_site.pdf.

245 Apollo buying Smart & Final Harry Brumpton and Greg Roumeliotis, “Buyout Firm Apollo to Buy Smart & Final Stores for $1.1 Billion,” Reuters, April 16, 2019.

245 Cerberus-led Albertsons struggling Appelbaum and Batt, “Private Equity Pillage.”

246 A 2018 report Ben Unglesbee, “Retail and Private Equity: An In-Depth Look at the Risky Relationship,” Retail Dive, November 9, 2018, www.retaildive.com/news/an-in-depth-look-at-the-risky-relationship/540852.

246 wound up in default Eric Platt and Anna Nicolaou, “US Retail’s Turbulent Relationship with Private Equity,” Financial Times, December 29, 2017.

246 More than two-thirds of retail bankruptcies ABI Journal, “Private Equity Has a Retail Problem,” January 2018, insolvencyintel.abi.org/i/924776-private-equity-has-a-retail-problem/3.

246 A 2019 report United for Respect, “Pirate Equity: How Wall Street Firms are Pillaging American Retail,” July 2019, united4respect.org/pirateequity.

247 Claire’s Tamara Mathias and Aishwarya Venugopal, “Girls’ Accessories Chain Claire’s Files for Bankruptcy,” Reuters, March 19, 2018.

247 Wet Seal Daphne Howland, “How Wet Seal Washed Up on the Rocks,” Retail Dive, January 24, 2017, www.retaildive.com/news/how-wet-seal-washed-up-on-the-rocks/434476.

3247 Charlotte Russe Nathan Bomey and Kelly Tyko, “Charlotte Russe Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Will Close 94 Stores,” USA Today, February 4, 2019.

247 Sun Capital’s Shopko Lauren Coleman-Lochner and Eliza Ronalds-Hannon, “Private Equity Retail ‘Abuses’ Spur Senator to Plan Legislation,” Bloomberg, June 20, 2019.

247 paid themselves $700 million Lillian Rizzo, “Private Equity Takes Fire as Some Retailers Struggle,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2017.

247 closing all its stores Hillary George-Parkin, “Payless Creditors Criticize Hedge Fund Owner for Role in the Retailer’s Second Bankruptcy,” Footwear News, April 29, 2019, footwearnews.com/2019/business/legal-news/payless-shoesource-bankruptcy-alden-global-capital-1202775738.

247 dissolved the company Lillian Rizzo, “Gymboree Seeks Bankruptcy Loan, May Close Most of Its Stores,” CBS Marketwatch, December 19, 2018.

247 triggered a self-destruct provision David Dayen, “‘She Lied to My Face’: Inside the Hectic Last Days of Gymboree’s Retail Bankruptcy,” The Intercept, March 25, 2019.

248 financial engineering destroyed retail mainstays David Dayen, “How Sears Was Gutted by Its Own CEO,” American Prospect, October 17, 2018.

248 Lampert drastically reduced investment John D. Stoll, “Edward Lampert’s Non-Strategy to Save Sears,” Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2018.

248 pit three dozen management divisions Jeff Spross, “How Vulture Capitalists Ate Sears,” The Week, October 16, 2018.

248 Sears made it through bankruptcy Rachel Siegel, “Sears Survives Bankruptcy Auction and Will Keep 400 Stores Open,” Washington Post, January 16, 2019.

248 stripped Sears suppliers Lisa Fickenscher, “Sears’ Bankruptcy Has Burned Thousands of Vendors Worldwide,” New York Post, June 2, 2019.

248 produced interest cash flow Nathan Bomey and Charisse Jones, “Sears, Kmart Stores Ailing as CEO Eddie Lampert’s Hedge Fund Gets Hundreds of Millions,” USA Today, June 18, 2018.

248 two-thirds controlled by ESL Bomey and Jones, “Sears, Kmart Stores Ailing.”

248 owned by Lampert’s hedge fund Nathan Bomey, “How Sears CEO Lampert Cashes In as Stores Cash Out,” USA Today, March 22, 2017.

248 paid Seritage nearly $400 million Sears Holding Corporation, 2017 annual report, Securities and Exchange Commission, February 3, 2018, searsholdings.com/docs/investor/SHC_2017_Form_10-K.pdf.

248 properties are worth billions Seritage, “Seritage Growth Properties Provides Business Update with Respect to Recent Events Regarding Sears Holdings,” October 15, 2018, ir.seritage.com/file/Index?KeyFile=395346869.

248 over 250,000 Sears workers Rich Duprey, “Sears Survives as Judge Approves Sale to Lampert,” The Motley Fool, April 17, 2019.

248 sued Lampert in 2019 Abha Bhattarai, “Sears Is Suing Steven Mnuchin and Other Former Board Members,” Washington Post, April 19, 2019.

249 a leveraged buyout in 2005 Pharija Bhatnagar, “Group to Buy Toys ‘R’ Us for $6.6B,” CNN, March 17, 2005.

249 $5.3 billion in debt Adam Hartung, “Toys R Us—How Bad Assumptions Fed Bad Financial Planning Creating Failure,” Forbes, September 20, 2017.

249 actually grew operating income David Dayen, “The Cause and Consequences of the Retail Apocalypse,” New Republic, November 14, 2017.

249 one out of every five toys Alina Selyukh, “Game Over for Toys R Us: Chain Going Out of Business,” NPR News, March 14, 2018.

249 cutting staff and underinvesting Ben Unglesbee, “Inside the 20-Year Decline of Toys R Us,” Retail Dive, June 26, 2018, www.retaildive.com/news/inside-the-20-year-decline-of-toys-r-us/526364.

249 Toys “R” Us filed for bankruptcy Jodi Xu Klein, Matthew Townsend, and Eliza Ronalds-Hannon, “Toys ‘R’ Us Plans Bankruptcy Filing amid Debt Struggle,” Bloomberg, September 18, 2017.

249 closed all eight hundred U.S. stores Abha Bhattarai, “Toys R Us to Close All 800 of Its U.S. Stores,” Washington Post, March 14, 2018.

249 demanded liquidation Gretchen Morgenson and Lillian Rizzo, “Who Killed Toys ‘R’ Us? Hint: It Wasn’t Only Amazon,” Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2018.

249 Bain and KKR made back their investment Marielle Segarra, “Toys R Us and Why the Retail Downturn Is All About Debt,” Marketplace, March 14, 2018, www.marketplace.org/2018/03/06/business/toys-r-us-and-how-retail-downturn-story-about-debt.

249 paid out before the bankruptcy Abha Bhattarai, “‘How Can  ey Walk Away with Millions and Leave Workers with Zero?’: Toys R Us Workers Say They Deserve Severance,” Washington Post, June 1, 2018.

249 participated in mass actions David Dayen, “Toys ‘R’ Us Workers Take on Private-Equity Barons: ‘You Should Be Ashamed,’” The Nation, June 5, 2018.

249 bolstered by pension fund criticism Michael Corkery, “Pensions Get Bolder in Challenging Private Equity on Investments’ Human Cost,” New York Times, October 8, 2018.

249 set aside $20 million Abha Bhattarai, “Toys R Us Owners Set Aside Millions of Dollars for Laid-off Workers After Bankruptcy,” Washington Post, October 1, 2018.

249 workers won $2 million Eliza Ronalds-Hannon and Lauren Coleman-Lochner, “Toys ‘R’ Us Workers Win $2 Million Settlement on Severance,” Bloomberg, June 27, 2019.

250 brought the store brand back Rachel Siegel, “Toys R Us Brings Back Geoffrey the Giraffe—and Its Laid Off Employees Are Furious,” Washington Post, October 8, 2018.

250 half dozen new physical stores Matt Townsend and Joe Deaux, “Toys ‘R’ Us, Back from the Dead, Will Open U.S. Stores in 2019,” Bloomberg, June 21, 2019.

[vas-ncrmandy]

B A S I C S :

FULL NAME: Emery Alexander Parkinson

NICKNAME(S): Emery, to one and all. 

DATE OF BIRTH / AGE: June 19th / 23

ORIENTATION: Bisexual, largely not interested. 

OCCUPATION: Necromancer.

SPECIES: Wizard, pureblood.

ETHNICITY: Scandinavian, some Irish descendants.

NATIONALITY: English.

P H Y S I C A L :

FACE CLAIM: Paul Wesley

HEIGHT: 6′1′’

WEIGHT: 172lbs

EYES: Green

HAIR: Light brown, tending to blonde.

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: A few deep scars along arteries - remnants of what the sacrifices demanded, and a large black tattoo along his neck that states his profession and lifestyle as a necromancer. 

B A C K G R O U N D :

HOMETOWN: In what was once Kungahälla, in the more modern Bohuslän.

CURRENT RESIDENCE: Blackstone - what is a ruin of a castle to muggles, one that repels, is actually a soaring castle of obsidian settled over a vast kingdom of catacombs and tombs beneath the earth.

LANGUAGES: Necromancer sign language, english, gaelic, and old viking. 

EDUCATION: Five years of magical education at Hogwarts, a lifetime of learning necromancy. 

PARENT: Adalrico Parkinson

PARENT: Christine Parkinson

SIBLING(S): Iolite Parkinson (older sister), Jasper Parkinson (younger brother)

ROMANTIC STATUS: Single. 

PET(S): None.

T H E A B S T R A C T :

FEARS: Inadequacy - to be a chosen of Death is no small feat. Through a series of exchanges, sacrifices, and negotiations, Emery learned not to fear the things those living a normal life fear. The dark is the friend of the dead, and to fear one’s own end is to fear everything. The only thing Emery fears is not fulfilling his duty - speaking or interfering where it is forbidden. He is beholden to powers far greater than any walking the earth at this moment - and thus a betrayal of those powers would reap far greater consequences than anyone can imagine. 

GENERAL LIKES: The cool side of the pillow when he lays down his head to rest his eyes, the soothing press of darkness on his senses as he steps into the Catacombs, and the sweet heady scent of Death. Deep red wines, the sticky feel of summer fruit in his hands, and a fireplace burning late into the night casting warm light over a chiseled jaw and dangerous hands. The sound of laughter in the distance as he walks towards Pack grounds, and the sense of belonging he feels when the tower’s of Blackstone soar over the horizon as he heads home after a long night out. The color blue, smooth marbles and obsidian under his palm, and the scent of vanilla and cloves.  

GENERAL DISLIKES: The hope in people’s voices when they ask him the only question every one asks him, and the disappointment when he shakes his head no. The loneliness he feels sometimes when he watches the Pack or the Order laughing with each other. Melancholy instead of gravitas, fear of death, and metals with no purpose other than that of looking beautiful. Liars, and people who climb the ladder of influence on the backs of those they love. Empty promises and the cloying taste of too much sugar.

USUAL MOOD / EXPRESSION: Stoic to a fault, he’s prone to small smiles through his usual unchanging demeanor. His lack of expression can throw some off, but once they understand his sign language they can see the small hints of body language that betray his mood. 

POSITIVE TRAITS: Lack of speech, and an interest in the lives of those around him, have lead to him being an extraordinary listener. Necromancy requires an infinite patience, and a deep understanding of human behavior. His neutrality allows him to see both sides of every conflict. Emery has a dry sense of humor, and a fondness for his family that makes him warm to those who pay attention. 

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Loyal to a fault to his calling, Emery will never take sides. This can frustrate those who expect him to fight for them because they are friends. That and he can be incredibly judgmental. First impressions are hard for him to shake. He is prideful, and tends to forget that time does not move as slowly for others as it does for him. He’ll sometimes show up late to appointments or forget them entirely. 

HABITS: He has a small, smooth stone he carries with him everywhere, and fiddles with in his pocket. Its a safety net, a reminder of home even when he is very far from Blackstone’s walls. Emery also tends to run his hands through his hair when he is uncomfortable - usually its an indicator he’s seeing a Death he does not like. 

HOBBIES: He is a gifted sculptor, like all Parkinsons, and enjoys creating new pieces in his free time.  He also loves to walk. Apparating makes him feel like he’s going to slip from one world to the next and forget how  to find his way back, so he tends to talk a walk at least once in the day.     

MORNING ROUTINE: He rarely sleeps, but he does like to find himself in either his bed or a bed for at least an hour in the night so he can meditate. When the sun rises, he wakes with it. He’ll eat a piece of fruit for breakfast, usually while walking the grounds of Blackstone, and watch the sun rising. He’ll then decide who to visit that day, and begin his trek to their residences. Some days he simply heads into Diagon Alley and spends his day observing the world and marking notable Deaths. 

NIGHTLY ROUTINE: The night is deep and full of shadows, and Emery usually finds himself staying awake long into the wee hours of the early morning. If he is at home, he’ll wander the Catacombs under the cover of the darkness the Dead find most comfortable. If he is elsewhere, he’ll seek out those who find comfort in the hours most ignore and listen to them - finding the roles they play in the drama of the current times. 

DEADLY SIN: Pride

ZODIAC: Gemini

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Lawful Neutral

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Ravenclaw. 

CLASS & SPECIALIZATION: Necromancer, duh.

S T A T U S :

DEVELOPMENT: In progress.

SHIPPING: None, as of yet.

CANON VERSE: Marauders era AU OC. 

AU VERSE: None yet. 

R E L A T I O N S H I P S :

RALEIGH FIELDSWORTHY: There are few people who respect Death the way Raleigh does, and thus Raleigh provides an eye of the storm for Emery to be calm. The blood on Raleigh’s hands does not offend, but intrigue, and Raleigh’s quiet pride matches Emery’s own in a way that leaves him breathless. 

PASHA BESMERTNY: Where Raleigh is an embodiment of the calm of Death, Pasha is life. Emery finds himself drawn to the man. He does nothing but listen, and still isn’t entirely sure Pasha knows what he is saying when he signs it, but Pasha is blood pumping in Emery’s ears, a heartbeat racing against his ribs, and sweat on his brow running down his sternum - a reminder that, first and foremost, Emery is still alive. 

MARY MACDONALD: She is kissed by Death, caressed by Life, and a magnet for Emery’s attention. A woman who stands as a perfect mix of the two poles of existence, who throws herself with wild abandon into Death’s embrace and yet will remain Alive long after the one’s she protects are gone. Emery adores being around her, and finds any excuse to watch her life unfold.  

PETER PETTIGREW: A complicated man with complicated reasons and too many eyes for Emery to be ever completely relaxed in his presence. Peter will be the cause of many Death’s that Emery has seen, and that makes him irresistible. He is also the only man to know Emery’s language almost as intimately as Emery’s own family. That creates a draw that cannot be ignored. 

H I S T O R Y :

“Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.”

The Parkinson family pledged itself to Death many ancient centuries ago.

When the Kunghälla still bustled, teeming with generations upon generations all living and dying in the same homes as those who came before; when Blackstone still soared above the countryside, proud and strong, and the people still looked to their lords to lead them out of the cold dark of the long winters into the light of spring; the Third Lord of the Blackstone sought knowledge above all else.

He spent decades scanning horizons, mapping the surrounding lands, and taking down history after history of the families that lived in the Kunghälla. He wrote volumes on the traditions and the beliefs of the people he loved and protected and wrote even more on the things he learned from the celestial heavens above. Strange, the other pureblood families would murmur, to take such an interest in the muggles – its bizarre. But Cobalt Parkinson never heard them.

Year by year, the Parkinsons grew more remote in their home of black obsidian. They came to fewer and fewer gatherings, until the only time they emerged was Walpurgis night – but who in their right mind would miss the Walpurgis celebration after all?

They say he must have found the rituals at Durmstrang – where else would magic so Dark be found? But some still say he found them in one of his travels to the South American jungles. Death magic was strong there, they said, he must have heard a whisper and brought its foulness here.

In truth, Cobalt would laugh to himself at the irony, the rituals and their ceremonies had always been in England. Who else would seek to conquer Death, but those who thought themselves the conquerors of the world?

It seemed the obvious next step for a man such as he – one who had learned all he could from the world of the living and burned with the desire to learn from the land of the dead. So, he found them, each and every one, and, with the aid of his wife – once an Innes daughter, now a Parkinson made of stone – Cobalt traded his voice, his life, and his birth-rite to learn the secrets of Death.  

Cobalt Parkinson saw Death and knew its secrets. He walked among the purebloods and knew their faults, knew their virtues, and knew their ends. He saw them, as they were without their gilded robes and magic, and he pledged that the Parkinsons would, from now and forever more, be separate from their games and their machinations.

They would be Deaths own, and no more.

For some time, they remained that way. In their distance the family built their crypts and their Catacombs. Deeper they dug, and families traveled far and wide to reserve their space in the great City of the Dead with its silent caretakers, and reverent rituals. As their renown grew, so too did their influence, and as their influence spread across the Wizarding World, so too did the greed of the new Caretakers.

As the centuries marched on and Cobalt’s intent was forgotten, the Parkinsons slowly rejoined the rest of the world, allowing themselves to bring their influence to the meetings of the Great Houses. As they allowed themselves to twine more closely with the secular world of the living, fewer and fewer Parkinson sons allowed themselves to become Necromancers as Cobalt did.

The City was still cared for – what did it matter if they could not speak to the Dead? What could they have to offer anyway? Did their ancestors not keep detailed records? Could they not find all they needed in those?

The old paths grew dusty, the ritual circles lay dormant, and, bit by bit, the books were set aside.

This was the world in which Emery was born – one of influence and design, one of the old mixing with the new.

A voracious learner from the start, his father doted. Cobalt reborn, he would boom with pride, running a hand along his wife’s hair, He’ll walk the old paths, mark me.

And walk them he did. His father hid nothing from him, and Emery grew up knowing the names of his ancestors long gone better than the names of the Aunts and Uncles who visited for the holidays. By the time he could walk, he knew every twist and turn of the Catacombs below Blackstone as though the map were imprinted in his very soul. Emery Parkinson grew up with the knowledge imprinted deep in his bones that he belonged, completely and utterly, to the old magic.

When he came home, his third year and began the transitions, his parents were hardly surprised. His elder sister, Ionite, was always the heir, so Emery was hardly needed. His mother helped him learn the sign language – she had always had a gift for languages, born of the Lestrange’s affinity for codes, doubt – and his father held him steady to the pledge of truth.

His fourteenth year of life was spent speaking only to three people – each chosen for their symbolic presence in his life. By the time Emery reached the year of silence, he knew he had chosen the right path.

His year amongst the Dead – locked in the Catacombs alone – is a year he does not dwell on. It is for him and those who came before to know, and not for the world of the Living. The first time Cobalt rose from his tomb and wandered the twists and turns with him, Emery thought he was going mad – by the time he walked the paths for the last time, he found himself loathe to leave.

Now, three years past his initiation as a Necromancer, Emery finds himself watching the world plunge into madness. It is a dangerous time to be bound to neutrality – especially when his own family name is pledged to the side of a man who seeks to defile Death.

Conflicted in his choices, bound by rituals that cannot be broken, and utterly surrounded by visions of the inevitable deaths of the ones he is coming to love; Emery must find a way to navigate this war as a port in the storm.

He must find a way to ensure that all does not descend into Darkness. The world must remain balanced, and he is the only one who can see where that balance might yet still shift.

[gaminghardware0]

Minecraft Gilded Blackstone: how to get Blackstone in Minecraft

Minecraft Blackstone is to Cobblestone what Batman is to Superman. That is to say that it’s much cooler, edgier, and way more fashionable. It writes poetry in the corners of philosophy books, it gets embarrassed by its parents a lot because they just don’t 'get it', and it's always talking about the abyss and the heat death of the universe. It’s basically what happens when you take Cobblestone and make it cool, and to be honest, we’re very much here for it.

Like all blocks in Minecraft, it could be an excellent part of any Minecraft houses you build, or make for a particularly imposing Minecraft castle. Minecraft Blackstone was added in snapshot 20w15a of Java Edition 1.16, so it's a very new type of block that's not available to all Minecraft players just yet.

Assuming that you too want to be in vogue, we thought we’d share the secrets of Blackstone with you. That’s right, this is an elite club, and we’re telling you how you can get in. You can finally live your dreams of having an all-black house on an all-black hill with an all-black desk. So, here’s absolutely everything you need to know about Minecraft Blackstone.

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RELATED LINKS: Minecraft console commands, Minecraft skins, Minecraft mods from https://www.pcgamesn.com/minecraft/gilded-blackstone