“Welcome to BIG, a newsletter about the politics of monopoly. If you’d like to sign up, you can do so here. Or just read on…Today’s issue is on an unusual type of story – it’s about how politics can work to fix a major social problem. Ten days ago, the House of Representatives passed a bill called the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2021, which will re-regulate the shipping industry. I’m going to explain what this law does and why it’s necessary to address the supply chain problems at the ports. The most interesting question I hope to answer is this. Why did Congress do the right thing here? Plus:

• In a hot labor market, workers are showing the same disloyalty to big business that they’ve been shown for forty years.
• Is there an oligopoly in the obscure corner of the legal world that controls dispute resolution?
• There’s a battle over all the money in the world as anti-monopolists and Wall Street fight over bank mergers.

First, some house-keeping. I was on the podcast What Bitcoin Did to debate a telecom turned crypto lobbyist, as well as Rising to talk about why I think crypto is a scam. I was also on the Off-Kilter podcast on the topic of inflation and monopoles…”