Gee, it kinda sorta seems like Lina Khan has gotten under the skin of the WSJ Editorial Board. What is it about young female Democrats enforcing anti-trust laws for the first time in decades that seems to really IRRITATE them. The gist of all of their rants is, “How dare she!” Yea, I get it. When corporations and private equity funds have had carte blanche to buy whatever they wanted to for so long, and then this young person comes along who isn’t even an Investment Banker or Big Law partner or even a lobbyist for crying out loud. The Journal is properly outraged. Their delicate sensibilities have been… ruffled.
And so to show everyone how pathetic and desperate and clueless they are about anti-trust, they published an editorial.
I did not make this up:
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is breaking sundry regulatory norms in her rush to remake modern antitrust law, as commissioner Christine Wilson details nearby in explaining her resignation. Ms. Khan’s norm-busting ironically may make the FTC more vulnerable to legal challenges that eventually weaken its powers.
President Biden first broke political norms by installing Ms. Khan as FTC Chair immediately after the Senate confirmed her by a 69-28 vote to serve on the commission. It’s customary for a President when nominating members to independent agencies to announce at the same time if they will serve as chair. Mr. Biden didn’t.
The Chair has considerable power to control hiring, direct investigations and set the agenda. Many Senate Republicans might have opposed Ms. Khan as Chair because of her long record agitating to replace the antitrust consumer-welfare standard that Robert Bork helped develop in the 1970s.
Hide the women and children! She’s BREAKING SUNDRY NORMS!!!
Really? That’s the best you’ve got?!
For the benefit of the cobwebby Editorial Board and anyone duped by their “time capsule” op-eds from 1985, allow me to ‘splain something.
No one who supported Donald Trump can ever again complain about breaking norms, established practices, assurances, or anything that isn’t a LAW. By supporting Donald Trump for President in two successive elections the Journal has lost any credibility on the subject of norms. Attempts to do so despite this can only be interpreted as satire.
Lina Khan is using every legal tool she has to overcome the entire Wall Street establishment, armies of $2k/hour Big Law corporate flaks, a judicial system instinctively pro-merger, the US corporate lobby, most of the knee jerk pro-big business GOP and many in her own party to FINALLY enforce anti-trust laws. With a tiny budget and staff, thanks to Republicans and the WSJ lying about what she’s doing.
Unlike Donald Trump and the lapdogs who supported him, she is not breaking the law. Wake me up if she does but otherwise take two Advil and have a sad nap until your vapours pass.
From where I sit, American industry looks far more concentrated today than it was at any time over the last several decades. The GOP chants daily about their deep love of “free markets”. Um… what free markets would those be? Can anyone name 5 industries in the United States which are mostly “free” in the US? Industries where the #1 and #2 players have less than 50% share combined?
As Adam Smith understood and wrote, businessmen naturally push to consolidate the industries they operate in until they dominate it and as a result must be constrained by government. You cannot be “pro-business” and pro-free markets. They are opposites.
If you believe in the power of free markets, an active FTC that’s willing to take on powerful interests is ESSENTIAL. And having an FTC head who actually DOES SOMETHING to counterbalance the astonishing wealth and market dominance of Big Tech has my support all day long.
Or to put it another way, if the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal is squealing like a little b*tch about the FTC, I rest easy knowing that Lina Khan is on the job, smashing norms left and right. Go get ’em Lina.