FEATURES
Stacy Mitchell | May 16, 2019
|
|
In The Atlantic today, ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell writes about how the Democratic Party used to fight for independent businesses. From the 1930s until the 1970s, Democrats believed that a primary purpose for government was to disperse economic power. They saw the interests of organized labor and small businesses as aligned in this endeavor. Forming a union and starting a business, after all, were two avenues toward the same ends: checking corporate power and giving ordinary people economic agency and a fair share of the returns from their labor.
But then, in the 1970s, the party underwent an ideological shift. A group of newly elected lawmakers dismissed concerns about the power of big business. The party embraced economic consolidation and abandoned small businesses.
Today, there are signs, particularly in the campaign of Elizabeth Warren, that the left might be recovering its long-lost commitment to breaking monopolies and putting more economic power in the hands of people. Read Stacy's piece here.
|
|
FEATURES
ILSR | May 16, 2019
|
|
A robust economy and democracy require a banking system that works for all of us and delivers capital to the places where it can do the most good. Today, though, we have a highly consolidated banking industry that’s starving Main Street businesses, while fueling concentration. Our new charts provide a picture along some key metrics.
Since 2009, many of the same big banks that triggered the financial crisis continue to rake in profits, shut out competition, and bolster their portfolios with fees, high interest lending, and speculation. Policies adopted in the wake of this crisis, ostensibly to reign in these banks, have instead entrenched their positions.
Perhaps the most arresting graph in our new set is one that shows how almost no new banks have launched since 2010. Prior to that, about half of the local community banks lost to mergers each year were replaced by a new startup banks. That pipeline disappeared in 2010, in part because regulators imposed much higher hurdles for new banks.
This policy has accelerated the decline of community banks. That trend matters because these small institutions punch way above their weight in areas like small business lending. As our graphs show, community banks and credit unions control only 16 percent of the industry’s assets, but they supply more than half of lending to small businesses.
Take a look at our refreshed banking data here.
|
|
WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO
- Inspired in part by our recent report on dollar store chains, cities like Birmingham, Oklahoma City, and Columbus are taking action to limit their spread. Stacy Mitchell was quoted in a report from NPR’s Planet Money on the topic. Our research was also cited in Newsweek in their look at the political state of rural America.
- Stacy was also consulted for a piece in The Verge on Amazon’s dystopian algorithmic approach to HR, which includes firing workers via an app. And at Vox, ILSR’s research into government procurement provided context for their piece on Amazon’s push to capture that market.
- A piece at Open Markets’ Food & Power blog about the proposed BB&T-SunTrust bank merger looked at the disproportionate negative impact the deal will have on Black farmers and businesses, quoting Stacy: “Community bank failures have disproportionately been in African American communities.”
- In CommonWealth Magazine, ILSR’s is championed alongside our allies at Open Markets and the Roosevelt Institute as organizations challenging corporate consolidation.
- “It comes down to antitrust laws,” the co-owner of Ska Brewing told a crowd who’d gathered in Durango, Col., for a conversation about the future of independent businesses, informed by ILSR’s research and policy guides.
|
|
NEWS STORIES WE'RE FOLLOWING
- A legendary, 71-year-old hobby shop in Santa Monica is closing due to a sharp increase in the rent — even as more than 100 nearby spaces sit empty.
- A new indie bookstore in the Bronx fills in what a Barnes & Noble departure left behind.
- Independent bookstores get much of their stock from just two national wholesalers. Now one plans to shutter its wholesale business.
- There's good news in Church Hill, a Richmond, Va. neighborhood that has long lacked a full-service supermarket. A new locally owned grocery store has opened, focusing on local foods and featuring an independent pharmacy.
- How did the grocery sector become so consolidated, anyway? In the early-to-middle twentieth century, American populists came close to banning national chain grocery stores. What happened?
- Debt-fueled private equity buy-outs are responsible for some notable casualties in the retail downturn.
- Public Knowledge has released a primer on antitrust law. The guide includes a short history of American antitrust, plus tools citizens can use to take action and fight corporate concentration.
- One FTC Commissioner wants to curb abuse in small business lending practices.
- Iowa is the latest state to investigate shady skimming practices by pharmacy middlemen.
- Amazon bought online pharmacy PillPack last year as a way in to the prescription drug market. It may gain even more through the acquisition.
- Amazon is using an automated computer system to monitor, discipline, and fire workers at its warehouses.
- As if treating people like robots weren’t bad enough, now Amazon is debuting a robotic assembly line that will eliminate their jobs.
- Even kids aren’t exempt from the Amazon Echo’s relentless surveillance and data-gathering.
- In its quest to dominate shipping, Amazon has quietly emerged as a major broker of freight trucking.
- Amazon plans to unroll one-day shipping for Prime members — a costly move to maintain its dominance, financed by extracting more revenue from third-party sellers.
- Could an antitrust lawsuit check Amazon’s power? A law student at Fordham has published an intriguing paper about how to build a case.
|
|
|
From informing policymakers to shaping media coverage, ILSR's research is
making an impact. Please help us work to create an economy that's more
competitive, equitable, and prosperous by making a donation today.
|
|
|
|
