News.MikeCallicrate.com | A NoBull News Service

Pam Bondi got fired, Sysco buys Restaurant Depot, CBS lies about California gas prices, a private equity roll-up is killing bowling leagues, and Palantir will help the IRS do audits.

Lots of monopoly news, as usual. The pro-monopoly Attorney General Pam Bondi was fired, Sysco is buying Restaurant Depot in a crisis for restaurants, and rents are dropping in Arizona after RealPage’s algorithmic cartel arrangement was busted up.

There’s a lot more in the news round-up, but I want to focus on an announcement this week from former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. She is co-founding a new academic institute, the Center for Law and Economy, at Columbia University. The center will focus on the way “law and legal institutions structure the economy.” As such, it’s a useful moment to spend a bit of time looking at the long-term institution building of the anti-monopoly movement, and how it is addressing the democracy crisis in America.

Khan, of course, isn’t alone, she’s leading a movement. For instance, the Fordham Law Review just did an entire issue on Antitrust Law and Oligarchy, with articles by a host of former Biden officials. What these twin intellectual events show is that the movement to tame anti-democratic forces in America is growing, under the radar, in powerful ways.

Let’s get into it.