The Sling

Are @ezraklein.bsky.social and @dkthomp.bsky.social right on "abundance?" Is GDP a good measure for welfare?

TL:DR-No. What really matters (both in terms of empirics and ethical theory) is distribution.

Glick, Lozada, and Bush describe the literature and the data.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

You are missing a bunch of people being hostile without reading the paper and outraged at my Monday early morning characterization of the work.

It's incredibly hard to get people to understand how income inequality is strangling our economy because the wealthy with disposable income are bidding up paper assets rather than investing in actual production.

A Celebration of Concentration: Reply to Shapiro’s and Yurukoglu’s “Trends in Competition in the United States” - The Sling You don’t have to be an economist to recognize that we are living through an era of diminished competition. You simply must open your eyes and ears. And wallet. Whether paying for airline tickets, gro...

My reply to Shapiro’s and Yurukolgu’s new paper on what to make of more concentration and higher price/cost markups is available at @theslingutah.bsky.social

www.thesling.org/a-celebratio...

If you want to see the difference between Blue Sky and X starkly contrasted, read the replies to my post there and compare to here.

x.com/TheSlingUtah...

Table of contents and into

Are @ezraklein.bsky.social and @dkthomp.bsky.social right on "abundance?" Is GDP a good measure for welfare?

TL:DR-No. What really matters (both in terms of empirics and ethical theory) is distribution.

Glick, Lozada, and Bush describe the literature and the data.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

A Celebration of Concentration: Reply to Shapiro’s and Yurukoglu’s “Trends in Competition in the United States” - The Sling You don’t have to be an economist to recognize that we are living through an era of diminished competition. You simply must open your eyes and ears. And wallet. Whether paying for airline tickets, gro...

In The Sling today, @HalSinger has some thoughts and a Reply to Shapiro’s and Yurukoglu’s “Trends in Competition in the United States." Check it out!

www.thesling.org/a-celebratio...

Union-Busting as an Unfair Method of Competition - The Sling Monopolization comes in many flavors. As we have seen over the years, firms use assorted and creative methods to acquire or maintain dominant positions. Exclusive dealing, predatory pricing, and tying...

Sandeep Vaheesan argues in @TheSlingUtah that antitrust enforcers should challenge large-scale union-busting and other lawbreaking using the Sherman and FTC Acts.

Check it out!

www.thesling.org/union-bustin...

Can Private Equity Save Athletics at the University of Utah? - The Sling In December, Dennis Romboy and Art Raymond of Deseret News reported that the University of Utah’s board of trustees approved a first-of-its-kind private equity deal between the school and Otro Capital...

The University of Utah (a non-profit institution) wants to work directly with a for-profit private equity firm in college sports.

I explain at @theslingutah.bsky.social why it seems both the university and the firm don't truly understand the college business.
www.thesling.org/can-private-...

Can Private Equity Save Athletics at the University of Utah? - The Sling In December, Dennis Romboy and Art Raymond of Deseret News reported that the University of Utah’s board of trustees approved a first-of-its-kind private equity deal between the school and Otro Capital...

Check out @wagesofwins.bsky.social's new piece in @TheSlingUtah. "Can Private Equity Save Athletics at the University of Utah?"

www.thesling.org/can-private-...

The Pathology of Surveillance Pricing: The Role of Oligopoly and Market Failure - The Sling In recent months, public attention has returned to a business practice that many consumers intuitively recognize as unfair and has provoked varying attempts to regulate: surveillance pricing. Investig...

Thanks to @halsinger.bsky.social and @theslingutah.bsky.social for publishing my latest piece on the market structure implications of surveillance pricing:

Slingshot Episode 27 - The Sling Basel Musharbash of the Antimonopoly Counsel explains the cause of skyrocketing prices for groceries and housing.

In the latest Slingshot Podcast, @halsinger.bsky.social and Darren Bush interview @basel.bsky.social on all things eggs, beef, housing, and abundance.

Check it out!

www.thesling.org/video/slings...

The Netflix-Warner Brothers Merger Would Harm Streaming Subscribers. It Should Be Blocked. - The Sling Warner Bros. Discovery (“Warner Brothers”) announced on Wednesday that it is poised to reject a takeover bid by Paramount, clearing the way for Netflix to acquire Warner Brother’s studio and subscript...

New in @theslingutah.bsky.social, @halsinger.bsky.social and Jacob Linger examines how antitrust enforcers and courts will think about market definition in the pending Netflix-Warner Brothers merger.

www.thesling.org/the-netflix-...

I have a new piece on The Sling explaining how algorithms on Amazon work to "raise prices 24/7". Key point: repricers "wait their turn" to get the Buy Box, then hike prices while matching each other. Who loses? Consumers.
www.thesling.org/how-algorith...

The Antitrust Case Against Airbnb - The Sling Airbnb isn’t just facilitating a data exchange; it is incentivizing or coercing homesharers on its platform to participate in a common pricing scheme. A coercion-based approach to enforcement should o...

In his latest, @halsinger.bsky.social explores how Airbnb provides homeshares a common pricing algorithm, called “Smart Pricing,” that serves to coordinate pricing of rental units on its platform.

Check it out!

www.thesling.org/the-antitrus...

The Antitrust Case Against Airbnb - The Sling Airbnb isn’t just facilitating a data exchange; it is incentivizing or coercing homesharers on its platform to participate in a common pricing scheme. A coercion-based approach to enforcement should o...

In his latest, @halsinger.bsky.social explores how Airbnb provides homeshares a common pricing algorithm, called “Smart Pricing,” that serves to coordinate pricing of rental units on its platform.

Check it out!

www.thesling.org/the-antitrus...

This @nytimes.com article adds useful context to the trend I discussed in @theslingutah.bsky.social . Well worth a read.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/t...

Slingshot Episode 26 - The Sling Tim Wu, Professor at Columbia Law School, former advisor in the Biden White House is the author of the new book, The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future...

In our latest Slingshot, @halsinger.bsky.social and Darren Bush interview @superwuster.bsky.social about his new book, The Age of Extraction, and Tim’s recent NY Times opinion piece on the Facebook-Instagram decision.

Go give it a listen—and then go read his book!

www.thesling.org/video/slings...

The Attack on Judge Boasberg Burns the FTC’s Credibility - The Sling With each unprofessional, craven political stunt Chair Ferguson pulls with the FTC—from investigating Elon Musk’s political opponents to threatening Google over allegedly “partisan” email filtering to...

“[W]ith each unprofessional, craven political stunt Chair Ferguson pulls with the FTC…Chair Ferguson burns the FTC’s credibility.” I wrote in @theslingutah.bsky.social about the FTC’s recent comments about Judge Boasberg. www.thesling.org/the-attack-o...

A 50-Year Mortgage Is a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea - The Sling Home affordability is a pressing issue. Young people often enter the workforce saddled with student debt, limited work options, and faced with exorbitant housing costs. For the millennial generation, ...

Ted Tatos has a new piece in @theslingutah.bsky.social explaining why a 50-year mortgage, the new proposal from the White House, doesn't create more home owners, just maybe more mortgages and more interest payments.

Check it out!

www.thesling.org/a-50-year-mo...

Deciphering the Meaning of This Year’s Nobel Prize in Economics - The Sling Advocates of all stripes will pounce on a Nobel prize in economics to promote their particular policy agenda. They find a strand of the work by the winning economist, or a snippet from the Nobel commi...

Advocates will pounce on a Nobel prize in economics to promote their policy agenda. They find a strand of the work by the winners, spin it into their narrative, and voila, their pet theory is proven right. My latest on the meaning of this year’s Nobel prize.

www.thesling.org/deciphering-...

To Preserve Railroad Competition, the STB Should Separate the Track from the Train - The Sling Not only the UK, but many other countries have public ownership of their rail systems. Early in the development of America’s railroad system, states were often the owners of the lines that operating c...

In a new piece, Peter Carstensen, Emeritus U. of Wisconsin Law Professor, explains that if the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger is allowed, there should be separation between ownership of the tracks and operation of the freight services on those tracks.

www.thesling.org/to-preserve-...

Slingshot Episode 24 - The Sling Erik Peinert, assistant professor of political science at Boston University, discusses his book, “Monopoly Politics: Competition and Learning in the Evolution of Policy Regimes” and recent LPB Blog Po...

The latest Slingshot features Erik Peinert, professor of political science at BU and author of the new book, Monopoly Politics. We discussed whether antitrust enforcement will go dormant again, or whether anti-monopoly politics are here to stay. Enjoy!

www.thesling.org/video/slings...

The Hollowness of Growth as an Objective - The Sling While degrowth as a framework has been around for a while, its extremely limited presence in the zeitgeist is a relatively recent phenomenon. Modern progressives are not anti-growth; they simply recog...

No, progressives aren't pushing degrowth.

Read our @dylangyauchl.bsky.social's latest in @theslingutah.bsky.social!

www.thesling.org/the-hollowne...

Why Did Hotel Rates Surge in Vegas? (Hint: It’s Wasn’t the Demand) - The Sling If I had a dollar for every New York Times business story that attributed an industry-wide price hike in the post-Covid era to an outward shift in demand—that is, a story that blamed consumers for hig...

I am on a mission to get the business press to stop blaming consumers for industrywide price hikes, and instead look at the companies actually setting prices. Or in the case of Vegas hotels, companies turning over their pricing decisions to a common pricing agent.

www.thesling.org/why-did-hote...

Will Google’s AI Overviews Swallow the News? - The Sling Google’s August 2024 launch of AI Overviews has reshaped online search and upended the original bargain between publishers and Google. Google places its own AI Overviews at the top of its search resul...

Will Google’s AI Overviews swallow the news?

www.thesling.org/will-googles...

Standing with Small Business in the Fight for a Fair Economy - The Sling To reclaim our democracy from oligarchs and billionaires, we need to build a system that working people can believe in. That means reshaping an economy that is insurmountably stacked against working p...

New on The Sling:
Seth Frotman writes about the common interest of small business, workers, and consumers: Fighting corporate abuse.

Check it out!

www.thesling.org/standing-wit...

"Letting Google keep right on engaging in most of its harmful conduct entails real costs for consumers and society at large. This remedies opinion consciously chooses to inflict those costs based on a “hope” of good things happening in the future" 🙈

DDC Judge Sooknanan rightfully blocked the FTC’s CID to @mmfa.bsky.social as unconstitutional. The opinion is worth a read ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show...