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Corporate Power blog
Captive Audience Meetings and the 2024 NLRB Decision Against Them What captive audience meetings are, how employers like Amazon in Bessemer used them, why the labor board banned mandatory ones in November 2024, and where that ruling stands now. Insulin's Inventors Sold the Patent for a Dollar, and Then Prices Soared Insulin's inventors sold the patent for a token dollar in 1923. A century later Americans rationed it. How a gift became a scandal, and what the 2022 cap fixed. Pharmacy Benefit Managers, From Rebates to Spread Pricing In July 2024 the FTC's staff reported on the three largest pharmacy benefit managers. What these middlemen do, how rebates and spread pricing work, and why patients pay for it at the counter. Clair Patterson, the Geochemist Who Helped Get the Lead Out of Gasoline A scientist trying to measure the age of the Earth found lead contaminating everything, took on the industry that put it there, and helped drive the US phase-out of leaded gasoline completed in 1996. Farmers, Phones and Tractors: Why Right to Repair Crosses Party Lines Colorado's 2023 law gave farmers the right to fix their own equipment. Here's why repair rights unite rural and urban voters, what the industry argues, and how the movement keeps winning. Google Lost Its Search Monopoly Case, and the Remedy Still Left Chrome in Place A federal judge found in 2024 that Google illegally kept its search monopoly, then in 2025 declined to break it up. What the remedy requires, what it rejected, and why it matters. How Workers at Amazon's Staten Island Warehouse Won Their Union Vote How an independent union with no national backing won the 2022 vote at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse, why a first contract never followed, and what later drives took from it. Lina Khan's Amazon Paper and the Revival of Anti-Monopoly Thinking How a 2017 law student's note on Amazon challenged forty years of antitrust orthodoxy, carried its author to the head of the FTC, and changed what both parties say about monopoly. Starbucks Workers in Buffalo and the Long Road to a First Contract How a 19-8 vote at one Buffalo cafe in December 2021 started a union campaign across hundreds of Starbucks stores, and why a first contract has proved so slow to arrive. The Breakup of Ma Bell and What Antitrust Can Do When It Means It The 1982 AT&T settlement split the largest company on earth into pieces and unleashed competition in phones and networks. What structural remedies can teach today's tech fights. The First Ten Drugs and How Medicare Price Negotiation Works In August 2023 Medicare named the first ten drugs whose prices it would negotiate, from Eliquis to Jardiance. Here is how drugs get picked, how the bargaining runs, and what changed in 2026. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and the 1999 Repeal Still Argued Over Roosevelt signed the law separating ordinary banking from Wall Street dealmaking in June 1933. What it did, how it was dismantled, and what its 1999 repeal did and did not have to do with 2008. The Homestead Strike of 1892 and the Pinkerton Barges on the Monongahela In July 1892 barges of armed Pinkerton agents came up the Monongahela to break a steel union. The battle at Homestead kept American steel nonunion for forty-five years. The Pecora Hearings of 1933 and the Bankers Who Testified Under Oath A Sicilian-born prosecutor questioned the most powerful bankers in America in 1933 and turned their answers into the securities laws, deposit insurance and the SEC. The Sherman Act Passed the Senate 51 to 1. Monopoly Was Once Common Ground How farmers, workers and both parties united against the trusts in 1890, why the Sherman Act passed almost without dissent, and what its history teaches about building a coalition against monopoly. The UAW's Stand Up Strike Against All Three Detroit Automakers In September 2023 the UAW struck GM, Ford and Stellantis at once, plant by plant. How the rolling strategy worked, what the contracts won and what other unions took from it. United States v. Microsoft and the Browser War That Made Room for Google The 1998 antitrust suit against Microsoft ended without a breakup, yet it changed how the company behaved just as Google and a new web were taking shape. Here is how. What Exxon's Own Scientists Projected About Warming in the 1970s and 1980s Exxon's in-house scientists modeled global warming in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and a 2023 study found their projections largely accurate. What the company knew, and said. When Big Tech Brought Left and Right Together on Antitrust How a 2020 House investigation of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google found a Colorado Republican agreeing with Democrats on monopoly power, and why that alliance still matters. Who Gained the Most From the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act The 2017 tax law cut the corporate rate to 21 percent for good and individual rates for eight years. Here is how its gains were divided, and the strongest case its supporters make. Who Pays to Clean Up Superfund Sites, and Why the Polluter Tax Lapsed Superfund's taxes on oil and chemical companies expired in 1995, shifting toxic cleanup costs to taxpayers for a generation. How Congress brought them back. Why the FTC Lost Its Bid to Unwind Meta's Instagram and WhatsApp Deals In November 2025 a judge ruled for Meta, finding the FTC had not proved a present-day monopoly. The strongest arguments on both sides, and what the loss means for merger law.