Stacy Mitchell

Working to decentralize economic power. Antimonopoly. Pro-local. Co-Exec Director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance @ILSR.

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

1. Boy, Amazon is in a heap of trouble. Evidence made public today by California AG @AGRobBonta shows blatant price fixing. And there are so many examples. Here's Amazon scheming with a pet food supplier to get Chewy to raise its prices.

[Aaron Regunberg @AaronRegunberg]

Wow, well what’s not to trust about this AI initiative “for workers” that’s funded by Google and Amazon!

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

If we want faster antitrust, we need enforcers to read the @TheProspect. This reporting powerhouse is always way ahead of the game. I believe this may have been the first national expose on Dollar General's overcharging way back in January 2024.

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

I got my wish! "The scope of Dollar General’s pricing misconduct is staggering," the complaint notes. "Dollar General is well aware it routinely charges consumers more at the register than the price... on the shelf." 🧵

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

Hats off to @MorePerfectUS and the @guardian for their terrific investigations, which alongside the work of advocates like @ilsr, helped spotlight this predatory corporate abuse. https://t.co/fWx0l0VIzS

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

I got my wish! "The scope of Dollar General’s pricing misconduct is staggering," the complaint notes. "Dollar General is well aware it routinely charges consumers more at the register than the price... on the shelf." 🧵

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

We need a RICO act for corporate crime. Dollar General routinely overcharges customers. In NY, it's paying $1.9M after it failed 43% of price inspections & overcharged on 14% of items. Many states have found the same. But it keeps happening, because the fines are too small.

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

The complaint details the 29,000+ customer complaints of overcharging received by Dollar General, the huge number of state enforcement actions for repeatedly failing price inspections, and the company's routine internal acknowledgment of the problem and unwillingness to act.

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

https://t.co/amV6k18uct

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

Toast is facing a joint city, state, and federal lawsuit for screwing over restaurants with hidden fees and a near-impossible cancellation process. It would be an incredible thing for independent businesses if enforcers actually cracked down on all of these digital gatekeepers.

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

Just last month, DoorDash couldn’t seem to find the money to pay their deliveristas — until our administration forced them to give back $131M+ in stolen wages and penalties.

This week, they’ve managed to find $17 billion to acquire one of their main competitors.

Corporate consolidation means higher prices, harsher exploitation, and greater economic inequality for New Yorkers.

We’ve stood up to these giants before. That doesn’t stop now.

[Lindsay Owens @owenslindsay1]

A grocery company that experiments on shoppers to see how much it can overcharge them is merging with a delivery company that tracks their every click and scroll to do the same.

Two of America's biggest ripoff machines should not become one.

The FTC must block this merger.

[Jonathan Kanter @JKBustertruster]

When I ran the Antitrust Division, we went up against the biggest companies in the world, and the teams across the table were always bigger than ours. What we had were great lawyers who knew their cases and the law cold. I kept thinking about what those lawyers could accomplish with technology that really understood their work, knew what they were trying to achieve, and met our exacting standards for judgment and intellectual rigor. Nothing on the market was fit for purpose, so we built it with an incredible team. Breakthrough tech for private and public enforcers.https://t.co/cAeQuli5kT

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

I agree with much here, but this piece misses the key driver of local businesses selling out to PE: policies that have gutted small banks, the main source of loans to buy businesses. It imagines that investment firms that care about place can somehow fill a financing void worth hundreds of billions. https://t.co/WDbgQmRaqY

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

The Trump Administration continues to gut the Small Business Administration. It was never a strong agency, and always small, but with half of its staff gone and many of its field offices being relocated, it's a skeleton of its former self.

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

Here's more on the 2023 Merger Guidelines and what they do: https://t.co/iDeydVld86

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

A win here: PlayPower, a private equity-backed playground maker that has been rolling up rivals, abandoned its latest acquisition after the @FTC and 12 states sued to block it. This is also a win for the 2023 Khan/Kanter merger guidelines, which targeted serial acquisitions.

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

The FTC and 12 states are suing to stop the playground maker Power Play from rolling up yet another rival. The case draws on the 2023 Khan/Kanter merger guidelines, which call for scrutinizing the cumulative effects of serial acquisitions. https://t.co/ADYXiHod8h

[Josh Miller-Lewis @jmillerlewis]

2.5 years ago we published a video detailing how Dollar General was quietly stealing from its customers by charging a different price at the register than they displayed on the shelf.

Today, the FTC and 20 states sued Dollar General for exactly that. https://t.co/fIOxTdz2L8

[tatere.🦑 @tatere]

When will we have a political party that is coming for private equity?

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

https://t.co/EsOMR9NUlF

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

“I think Americans feel like the corporate class would feed us sawdust if they could and charge a premium." Private equity is coming for local restaurants.

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

https://t.co/qfjSL9eGEQ

[Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell]

We need a RICO act for corporate crime. Dollar General routinely overcharges customers. In NY, it's paying $1.9M after it failed 43% of price inspections & overcharged on 14% of items. Many states have found the same. But it keeps happening, because the fines are too small.