Organized Money

Americans lose over $150 billion annually to state lotteries, casinos, and online gambling—that’s $300,000 every minute. How did gambling become so entrenched in American life? And how are FanDuel and DraftKings driving this crisis?

In this episode, we’re joined by Les Bernal, National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling, and Dr. Kavita Fisher, a psychiatrist whose life was deeply affected by online gambling addiction. Together, they uncover how corporate giants and state governments profit at the expense of millions, fueling addiction and financial ruin.

Check out the Al Jazeera documentary " The Big Gamble": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ9qp9UftEE.           

And the New York Times investigation into online sports betting: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/podcasts/the-daily/sports-betting-lobbying-laws-states.html

When Laura Modi launched Bobby in 2020, it was the first infant formula company to enter the U.S. market in over six years. At the time, the U.S. baby formula industry was dominated by two major players (Abbott and Reckitt) they controlled 80% of the market. Two years later, that monopoly would lead to a crisis when Abbott Labs shut down its main production facilities because of contamination. Modi explains the significant barriers to entry in the industry, and how the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program's state-by-state exclusive contracts with formula manufacturers have historically reinforced market concentration.

In the battleground state of Arizona, voters are telling campaigns that they want more antitrust! Earlier this year, state Attorney General Kris Mayes sued a bunch of corporate landlords and a software company called RealPage for illegally raising rents in Phoenix and Tucson using an algorithm, hiking the cost of renting by as much as 20%. Her lawsuit went viral. And now, voters are telling campaign staff at the doors that they love what Mayes did and want more of it. Rent, antitrust, corporate power, and elections, all in one episode.

We hear a lot about how Big Tech uses algorithms to serve up information - but on this episode, we have a story about how they also use their power to control what you can see and hear. After independent journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote a story sharing a dossier about J.D. Vance, allegedly obtained in an Iranian hack of the Trump campaign, X suspended his account and blocked links to his Substack. People that shared his post on X had their  accounts suspended and were told to take down the post if they wanted their accounts reinstated. This is a cautionary tale about how Big Tech uses its power to limit speech, and how that's not limited to going after one political party or persuasion.

Check out Ken's site here: https://www.kenklippenstein.com

Maggie Goodlander is running for Congress from New Hampshire by running against monopolies. What's it like to mount a political campaign built on antitrust, and can you win with that kind of messge? We speak with Maggie and hear from other candidates who taking a similar message to the voters in their districts.

Check out the candidates we spoke to in this episode:
https://maggiefornh.com
https://willrollinsforcongress.com
https://www.monicatranel.com

In Part 1, we heard how pharmacists are trying to push back against the monopolistic and harmful practices of PBMs. Today, we hear from another avenger who is taking the battle against PBMs to his workplace on Capitol Hill. Representative Jake Auchicloss is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan Pharmacists Fight Back Act, the most comprehensive PBM reform ever introduced at the federal level. He tells David and Matt that you've got to delink the money that a PBM earns to the price of a drug or the volume of drugs that are sold. And he's not willing to settle for less. 

What would you do if you owned an independent pharmacy and you discovered that the only way to actually make money would be to stop filling most prescriptions? This is what our guest Benjamin Jolley sees everyday. As a third generation independent pharmacist, he's watched as an industry of middlemen have taken control over a transaction that they literally have nothing to do with. Pharmacy Benefit Managers, PBMs decide which drugs, the pricing and the supply between patients trying to fill prescriptions and what a pharmacist gets paid. As a result, some 2000 plus pharmacies have closed this year. How did we get here? Matt and David go behind the pharmacy counter to break it all down with Benjamin Jolley. 

Today, just four companies—Walmart, Kroger, Costco and Albertsons—account for about half of all grocery sales in the country. And two of them, Kroger and Albertsons, want to merge. If approved, it would be the largest supermarket merger in history. Together they employ 700,000 people across some 5,000 stores. But regulators are fighting back, arguing that a merger would be bad for consumers and for workers.

In this episode we go inside the courtroom to hear the case for and against the merger with Laurel Kilgour, an attorney and the research manager at the American Economic Liberties Project.

Google just lost the biggest tech antitrust court ruling since the 1990s. And now the fate of Google’s search preeminence is TBD. But the question we’re asking in this episode; What took so long? This trial could have happened 11 years ago, but didn’t. Why not? How did Google avoid the antitrust arm of the government for so long? How did the case against Google get squashed back in 2012 and who did the squashing? And exactly how many times a week were Google executives meeting with the Obama administration over its eight years in office? 

David and Matt speak with journalists, brothers and co-authors Luke and Brody Mullins. In their new book The Wolves of K Street, they unpack the public and private campaign Google and its cast of lobbyists and political friends waged to protect the company and the consequences of that delay for all of us.

On Organized Money, Matt Stoller & Dave Dayen break down the ways monopolies control the food we eat, the drugs we take, the way we communicate – and so much more. Coming October 15th.