Warren urges more aggressive move against ag consolidation
WASHINGTON, July 6, 2016 - Two days after her highly
publicized appearance with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in
Ohio, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., delivered a little-noticed speech that
just might restore the issue of competition in food and agriculture to the
presidential radar.
Her address to the New America “Open Markets Program” in
Washington on June 29 raised the visibility of a subject that has been mostly
invisible during the presidential campaign but has been getting attention from
left-of-center “think tanks” including New America, the Center
for American Progress and the Roosevelt
Institute.
At the New America event, Warren ticked off a list of
industries in which “sector after sector” of the economy is succumbing to consolidation
and eroding competition. “Concentration threatens our markets, threatens our
economy, and threatens our democracy,” she said.
The meat industry is one of several sectors where lack of
competition is “hiding in plain sight,” she said. The financial sector tops
Warren’s list, but she also rued the continued consolidation of airlines,
health insurance companies and retail drug stores.
“Four companies control nearly 85 percent of the U.S. beef
market,” she said, “and three produce almost half of all chicken.”
Warren’s address and all three “think tank” reports offer at
least implicit criticism of the Obama administration’s lack of vigorous
enforcement of antitrust laws and call on the next president to ramp up efforts
to restrain consolidation. President Obama’s USDA and Department of Justice
(DOJ) held a series of highly publicized workshops to hear complaints about
agribusiness consolidation but disappointed critics by taking
little action.
Warren gave the president credit for his April 15 executive
order requiring all government agencies to identify ways that they can play
a role in increasing competition.
The next president, Warren said, should “require all
agencies to promote market competition and appoint agency heads who will do so.”
Alluding to proposed poultry contracting rules at USDA’s Grain Inspection,
Packers & Stockyards Administration, she noted that the department “has a
role to play in making sure that poultry farmers and produce growers aren’t
held hostage to the whims of giant firms.”
In addition to DOJ Antitrust Division responsibility for
enforcing specific antitrust laws, she said, “Promoting competition should be
taken seriously across the executive branch. The FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and
other agencies have a role to play in making sure that financial institutions
don’t become so large that their smaller competitors don’t have the opportunity
to serve American families and small businesses. The FCC and FTC both have a
role to play in making sure that small, innovative tech companies can develop
newer and better ways for us to connect with each other without being crushed
by the big guys.”
Warren said that, in addition to their economic impact, “concentrated
markets create concentrated political power.” Echoing remarks by Sen. Bernie
Sanders, I-Vt., during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination,
she said, “Over time, this means a closed, self-perpetuating, rigged system – a
playing field that lavishes favors on the big guys, hammers the small guys, and
fuels even more concentration.”
Her prepared remarks said the next president could reverse a
nearly 50-year trend of continued consolidation. “Strong executive leadership
could revive antitrust enforcement in this country and begin, once again, to fight
back against dominant market power and overwhelming political power,” she said,
adding, “Competition in America is essential to liberty in America, but the
markets that have given us so much will become corrupt and die if we do not
keep the spirit of competition strong.”
#30
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