Organized Money
Organized Money
Rock Creek Sound
Organized Money is a podcast about how the business world really works, and how corporate consolidation and monopolies are dominating every sector of our economy. The series is hosted by writers and journalists Matt Stoller and David Dayen, both thought leaders in the antimonopoly movement. Organized Money is a fresh spin on business reporting, one that goes beyond supply and demand curves or odes to visionary entrepreneurs. Each week Matt and David break down the ways monopolies control everything from the food we eat, to the drugs we take, the way we communicate and even how we date. You’ll hear from workers, business leaders, antitrust lawyers, and policymakers who are on the front lines of the fight for open markets and fair competition.If you care about an economy that is free and open, one not controlled by a handful of corporations, Organized Money is for you. New episodes out every week until the end of the year. Organized Money is a Rock Creek Sound production, from executive producers Ari Saperstein and Ellen Weiss, and senior producer Benjamin Frisch. 
Meta Is Dying
Last month, the veteran journalist Julia Angwin wrote an op-ed, “Meta Is Dying. It’s About Time,” which details the ways in which Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp have become a kind of zombie business: Think Yahoo, Myspace, and AOL after their dot-com peaks. On this episode, we invite Julia on the show to discuss her op-ed and dance on Meta's grave—just a little, because it turns out a dying company can still be a dangerous one. From Meta's money-burning forays into the metaverse, failed acq...
Jun 16
1 hr
California Dreamin'...Of A Slush Fund For Uber
California is known as a bastion of blue state values, but when you start to look at how the state’s legislative sausage gets made, you start to notice how completely borked America’s most populous regulatory state has become. Today on the show, we have Jamie Court, a consumer advocate and president and chairman of Consumer Watchdog, to break down California’s weirdness and some of his organization's recent work. First, we discuss how industries like insurance and ridesharing have cap...
Jun 9
53 min
Why Farmers and Filmmakers Both Face Monopoly
While David is out on vacation, Matt is joined by Organized Money alum Alvaro Bedoya as co-host this week. He's a former FTC commissioner and host of the new podcast The Fair Fight with Alvaro & Max.The idea for today's show came to us when Lance Lillibridge, an Iowa farmer and past president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, wrote on Facebook: "As a farmer, watching the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger debate sounds awfully familiar. A handful of dominant firms get bigg...
Jun 2
58 min
The Mechanic Vs. The Billionaire With Dan Osborne
Union steamfitter Dan Osborne nearly pulled off a Senate upset in Nebraska two years ago. Now he's back, facing billionaire heir and former governor Pete Ricketts in one of the quietly critical races for Senate control. David sat down with Osborne in Omaha to talk about what's changed and what hasn't. They cover the real squeeze on family farmers, why anti-monopoly messaging is starting to resonate with everyday voters, Citizens United, and what it actually costs a working person to run for o...
May 26
36 min
Who Killed Spirit Airlines?
Spirit Airlines is dead, and everyone is pointing fingers: Was it the war in Iran that killed Spirit? Joe Biden's Justice Department? Antitrust regulation? Jet fuel? Lina Khan!?? Today on the show we demystify Spirit's demise with William J. McGee, Senior Fellow for Aviation and Travel at the American Economic Liberties Project. William is a long-time consumer advocate in the air travel space and has watched as the deregulation project which began in the 1970s has slowly whittled down c...
May 12
56 min
The Conservative Who Torments Big Business
Ashley Keller is a pioneer in getting corporations to pay up. As an attorney and founding partner of the firm Keller Postman, only recently he pioneered an influential mass arbitration strategy, argued a case against Monsanto at the Supreme Court, and is fighting Google on behalf of several states in a major ad tech antitrust case. Keller is also an avowed conservative and originalist. For him, there's no contradiction between fighting for conservative principles and antitrust enforcement. ...
May 5
57 min
The Chatbot Will See You Now: Big Tech In Therapy
Today on the show Matt and David are joined by Linda Michaels, a psychologist and co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network, to discuss all the creepy ways technology companies are weaseling themselves into your therapist's office. From matching services like BetterHelp, to PMC middlemen, and potentially dangerous therapy chatbots, tech companies are seeking to exploit your therapist (and you) by using therapy data for advertising and AI training. They also discuss the business of ...
Apr 28
52 min
Big Oil And Big Plastic Are One And The Same
Yet another consequence of the war in Iran is a looming supply shock in plastics. Plastics, which are derived from oil byproducts, are everywhere, but their origins remain somewhat mysterious to the average consumer. Today on the show we demystify the plastics industry with Beth Gardiner, author of the new book Plastic Inc.: The Secret History and Shocking Future of Big Oil's Biggest Bet an expose of the industry that underlies modern consumer culture. Together with Matt and David, th...
Apr 21
55 min
Emergency Pod: The Live Nation Ticketmaster Verdict
Matt and David are live from a conference room in Chicago to break down the Live Nation Ticketmaster verdict! Live Nation was just found to be an illegal monopoly in a dramatic jury trial which saw the Trump administration drop out of the case with a surprise settlement. The states picked up the baton from there. Matt and David cover the decision, the history of Ticketmaster’s tangles with Pearl Jam and the Justice Department, and how the current case played out, and what the decision...
Apr 17
44 min
How AIPAC Tries to Dominate the Business of Politics
On March 17th, the candidate Daniel Biss defeated 15 other democratic challengers in the primary election for Illinois' 9th Congressional District. It was one of the most closely watched in the country, in which Biss, and other candidates, were up against millions of dollars in ad spending from dark money super pacs like "Elect Chicago Women", and "Chicago Progressive Partnership". These vaguely-named pacs were all fronts for AIPAC, the big-spending Pro-Israel lobbying group which threw money...
Apr 14
58 min
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