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Organized Money

Organized Money

Rock Creek Sound

BusinessNewsGovernment

Organized Money is a podcast about how the business world really works, and how corporate consolidation and monopolies are dominating every sector of our economy. The series is hosted by writers and journalists Matt Stoller and David Dayen, both thought leaders in the antimonopoly movement. Organized Money is a fresh spin on business reporting, one that goes beyond supply and demand curves or odes to visionary entrepreneurs. Each week Matt and David break down the ways monopolies control everything from the food we eat, to the drugs we take, the way we communicate and even how we date. You’ll hear from workers, business leaders, antitrust lawyers, and policymakers who are on the front lines of the fight for open markets and fair competition. If you care about an economy that is free and open, one not controlled by a handful of corporations, Organized Money is for you. New episodes out every week until the end of the year. Organized Money is a Rock Creek Sound production, from executive producers Ari Saperstein and Ellen Weiss, and senior producer Benjamin Frisch.

Episodes

Robbing Them Blind, Baby: The Live Nation Case

Robbing Them Blind, Baby: The Live Nation Case

In a shocking turn of events, the federal government settled their longstanding anti-trust action against Live Nation after a week of in-court proceedings. This process was described as “mind-boggling” by the judge, and surprised counsel on both sides along with many states’ attorneys generals who are also suing Live Nation. Today on the show we break down the case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster (which it acquired back in 2010) with two guests: Gigi Liman, who is reporting on the...
56min•Mar 16, 2026
Why Your Lamp Sucks

Why Your Lamp Sucks

This week we discuss the recently rediscovered history of midcentury lighting, the elegant modernist style of lamps and fixtures that emerged in small design firms and flourished from the 1940s through the 70s. By that point, they were being consumed by megacorporations that flattened their products’ quality and style, and they gradually drifted out of fashion, and memory. This style was spearheaded by a company called Modeline, but until recently dealers and scholars alike often misatt...
53min•Mar 11, 2026
Emergency Pod: The Paramount Takeover

Emergency Pod: The Paramount Takeover

In a shocking move this week, Netflix declined to raise its bid against Paramount for control of Warner Bros. After months of corporate tug-of-war, Paramount and David Ellison have taken a giant step towards controlling Warner Bros’ linear television assets, including CNN, its streaming service HBO Max, and its film studio, which just had a blockbuster year. Without question, this deal will lead to mass layoffs, fewer shops to sell work to in Hollywood, and leverage massive debt against Param...
35min•Feb 28, 2026
How Private Equity Is Driving Up Your Electric Bill

How Private Equity Is Driving Up Your Electric Bill

Besides data centers, climate change, and regulatory capture, there is yet another reason utility rates are far outpacing inflation: private equity! On this episode, we try to understand why investor-owned utilities, which provide electricity to the majority of Americans, continue to reap profits at the expense of their customers. These entities are supposed to be regulated by state governments, but why is enforcement often so toothless? And why does venture capital want to get involved in so...
50min•Feb 25, 2026
The Epstein Class War

The Epstein Class War

The Epstein files lay bare the impunity the rich and powerful possess as a social class: The Epstein class. Today on the show, Matt and David dig into the Epstein files with one of the congressmen responsible for their release: Representative Ro Khanna. We discuss what the Epstein files tell us about the influence that wealth affords the people who run our economy and institutions: People like Bill Gates, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, Elon Musk, and countless less-famous people who structure t...
55min•Feb 13, 2026
The End of United Healthcare For All

The End of United Healthcare For All

After the government announced new regulations for Medicare Advantage, the market-based alternative to traditional Medicare, the stocks of healthcare companies that participate in the program plummeted. But why is this popular program in the crosshairs? And are these new Trump Administration rules actually...good? Today on the show, Olivia Kosloff, senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project and creator of the newsletter Acute Condition, joins Matt and David to discuss Medicare A...
52min•Feb 11, 2026
White Collar Crime Enforcement In The Age Of ICE

White Collar Crime Enforcement In The Age Of ICE

As The Department and Homeland Security and ICE see their budget balloon, anything unrelated to to immigration is getting short shrift. Today on the show, Matt and David talk to Richard Powers, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at The Justice Department, and the former Acting Assistant Attorney General at the Antitrust Division, to discuss the consequences of ignoring antitrust and white collar crime. They discuss the post-DOGE state of The Justice Department, the culture of prosecut...
48min•Feb 4, 2026
The Monopolists Who Gatekeep the Court System

The Monopolists Who Gatekeep the Court System

We tend to think of the law as a public asset - centuries of statutes, common law, and legal precedents that shape how society governs itself. So why is the law itself so hard and so expensive to access? Matt and David talk with Mike Lissner of the Free Law Project about the quiet duopoly that controls legal information, how Westlaw and LexisNexis turned public court records into pricey commodities, and why even the federal government charges by the page to read your own laws. Along the...
47min•Jan 28, 2026
The New Frontier in Price Discrimination

The New Frontier in Price Discrimination

This week Matt and David talk with pricing expert Lindsay Owens about Google's plan to turn its Gemini AI into your personal shopping assistant. It sounds convenient until you realize it's actually a massive surveillance pricing operation. Google just announced partnerships with Walmart, Visa, MasterCard, and others to use everything they know about you (emails, photos, calendar, searches) to help retailers personalize prices and steer you toward higher-priced products. Lindsay, who went vira...
1h 1min•Jan 23, 2026
The Secret Scam Driving Up Food Prices

The Secret Scam Driving Up Food Prices

In the twilight of the Biden Administration, FTC Chair Lina Khan filed a price-fixing case against Pepsi, using the powerful but little-enforced Robinson-Patman Act. A few months into Trump’s 2025 term, that lawsuit was dead and buried by the new regime, leaving only a bunch of redacted documents and a lot of questions for the public to pore over. Our guest today is Stacy Mitchell, the co-executive director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, who recently convinced a judge to rele...
50min•Jan 14, 2026
The Enshitification Life Cycle With Cory Doctorow

The Enshitification Life Cycle With Cory Doctorow

As a holiday treat, we bring you a new conversation with author and Organized Money alum Cory Doctorow about his new book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. Recorded earlier this year at a live book event, David asks Cory to expand on the thesis of the book: that digital platforms are now locked in a cycle of decay, seeing our technology become less intuitive, less useful, and less private. For Cory, this cycle is a choice, driven by government policy...
1h 1min•Dec 23, 2025
When Billionaires Go Rogue

When Billionaires Go Rogue

The Warner Bros. deal could decimate the film industry in California, and yet almost no state-level politicians have spoken out about it. Today on the show, Matt and David talk to a California gubernatorial candidate who has vocally opposed the deal: Tom Steyer. Tom is a former financier, 2020 presidential candidate, and billionaire, who happens to be the most vocally anti-monopoly candidate in the race. Tom's background in business and personal wealth makes him an unusual candidate, but it a...
50min•Dec 16, 2025
The Shadowy Puppet Masters Who Control College Athletics

The Shadowy Puppet Masters Who Control College Athletics

College sports is a multibillion dollar business, but until a few years ago the athletes didn't see a penny of it. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA, the organization that governs college sports, had violated antitrust laws, and athletes gained the right to monetize their appearances and endorsements. This year, for the first time, athletes will receive revenue sharing from NCAA, the result of another lawsuit. After decades of generating billions for everyone but themselves, athl...
46min•Dec 10, 2025
The AI Bubble Everyone Wants To Pop

The AI Bubble Everyone Wants To Pop

With its promise to displace jobs and disrupt daily life, AI and large language models have formed a unique market and social bubble: one that nearly everyone hates. Despite little revenue, billions of dollars are promised by hyperscalers like Google and Meta to help build out AI data centers in increasingly arcane financing schemes that are propping up the otherwise meager economy. Today on the show Matt and David invite two guests: Advait Arun, Senior Associate for Capital Markets a...
55min•Dec 2, 2025
Big Tech and Fascism

Big Tech and Fascism

On today's show, David and Matt sit down with Tim Wu, the man who coined the term “net neutrality”, about his new book, The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity. They discuss how tech platforms went from scrappy innovators, enabled by a robust regulatory state, to the massive, extractive platforms we know today. Wu walks through the early idealism of the internet, the missed warnings about platform power from the likes of Bill Ga...
54min•Nov 18, 2025
The Bad Seed: Another Side Of The Farmer Revolt

The Bad Seed: Another Side Of The Farmer Revolt

It’s one of the most surprising and least understood stories in American agriculture: the monopoly over the seeds that grow our food. Farmers are facing a “seed squeeze,” where two companies, Bayer and Corteva, control 90% of the seed corn market, driving up prices even as crop profits fall. Matt and David speak with Independent seed producer John Latham and industry veteran Todd Martin about how intellectual property, patents, and corporate consolidation have turned seeds into billion-dollar...
50min•Nov 11, 2025
The Election And Tariffs At The Supreme Court

The Election And Tariffs At The Supreme Court

From Zohran Mamdani in New York City, to Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, Democratic candidates are putting populist economic messages at the center of their campaigns. On today’s show, Matt and David break down the dynamics of this week’s elections and share their predictions. Then, they’re joined by Organized Money alum Lori Wallach, director of Rethink Trade at the American Economic Liberties Project, to preview Wednesday’s Supreme Court arguments on Trump’s tariffs. They discuss whether the...
45min•Nov 4, 2025
The Dark Side Of The McDonald's Monopoly Contest

The Dark Side Of The McDonald's Monopoly Contest

Today on the show, Matt and David sit down with Sam Levine and Stephanie Nguyen, formerly of the FTC under Lina Khan, to discuss the dark side of customer loyalty programs like frequent flyer miles, corporate discount cards, and ordering apps from chains like Starbucks and McDonalds. Their new paper, The Loyalty Trap: How Loyalty Programs Hook Us with Deals, Hack our Brains, and Hike Our Prices, exposes the lengths these programs go to to get you into their ecosystem in order to harvest your...
56min•Oct 30, 2025
Snitching As A Service - The Antifraud Company

Snitching As A Service - The Antifraud Company

This week on Organized Money, David and Matt sit down with Sahaj Sharda and David Barclay, co-founders of The Anti-Fraud Company, a scrappy new startup aiming to turn corporate whistleblowing into a business model. Sharda, a 27-year-old anti-monopolist and author of The College Cartel, and Barkley, a former FTC attorney known for busting healthcare fraud, explain how they’re using data tools, lawsuits, and a solid dose of nerve to tackle the half-trillion dollars in government fraud tha...
45min•Oct 21, 2025
The AI Bubble: More Subprime Than Dot Com

The AI Bubble: More Subprime Than Dot Com

Investment in AI infrastructure has exploded over the last few years, with big players like Google, Meta, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Oracle, striking deals involving hundreds of billions of dollars to build out AI data centers. These deals are single-handedly buoying the otherwise-flailing US economy, but where are these billions actually coming from? And why do all these deals seem to involve the same players in increasingly circular arrangements? Even the most optimistic observers are starting to...
49min•Oct 14, 2025