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Cory Doctorow | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 The reason Dayen is writing about Agri Stats now is that the #DoJ #AntitrustDivision has brought an antitrust suit against them. This is part of a *wave* of antitrust actions brought by Biden's DoJ and #FTC, who, along with his #NLRB, are shaping up to be the most pugnacious, public-interest force against corporate power since the Reagan administration:

https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/29124-doj-sues-agri-stats-for-complicity-in-meat-market-manipulation

All this enforcement isn't a coincidence. 

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Cory Doctorow | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 It comes from an explicit rejection of neoliberalism's core tenets: inequality reflects merit, monopolies are efficient, and government can't do anything. In Biden's DoJ, FTC and NLRB, they're partying like it's 1979:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

What's amazing about the Agri Stats conspiracy to raise prices is that it's been going *since the Reagan administration*. 

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Cory Doctorow | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 It's a smoking gun proof that "consumer welfare" *never* cared about price-fixing and robbing the public (can a gun still smoke after 40 years?). There was *never* a time when consumer welfare antitrust cared about consumer welfare. It was always and forever a front for "a conspiracy against the publick," a "contrivance to raise prices."

Big Meat has been robbing America for two generations. Some of those stolen funds were used to corrupt our political process. 

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