[Plura-list] Competition is Killing Us; Predatory lender seeks national bank charter; Militarizing cops was a failure

[Cory Doctorow]

Today's links

* Competition is Killing Us: Consumer harm considered harmful.

* Predatory lender seeks national bank charter: Oportun led America in
suing latinx borrowers during the pandemic.

* Militarizing cops was a failure: Water still wet.

* This day in history: 2006, 2016, 2020

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current
writing projects, current reading

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💅🏾 Competition is Killing Us

2020 was a shitty year for most things, but it was a banner year for
books about fighting monopolies, and for the fight itself.

It started (in Dec '19) with Matt Stoller's GOLIATH, a massive,
comprehensive history of monopolies in America.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/9781501182891

Then came books like Zephyr Teachout's BREAK 'EM UP, a political
thriller that zeroes in on the role monopolies play in today's brutal
and terrifying emergencies, from covid to climate:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

MONOPOLIES SUCK is Sally Hubbard's action-oriented book on monopolies,
drawing on her work with the Open Markets Institute, laying out a
practical program you can follow to help create structural changes and
end monopolism:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/27/peads-r-us/#sally-hubbard

LIBERTY FROM ALL MASTERS comes from Open Markets founder Barry C Lynn;
it's the culmination of a lifetime spent fighting monopolies, framing
the monopoly problem as a loss of freedom for workers, suppliers and
customers trapped by monopolists.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250240620

Over the break, I devoured an important contribution to the literature:
COMPETITION IS KILLING US, by Michelle Meagher, an ex-Thatcherite
competition lawyer who fought *for* corporate monopolies until she had a
Road to Damascus moment and switched sides.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/315/315772/competition-is-killing-us/9780241423011.html

Meagher opens with her conversion experience: as a British Bangladeshi
girl, she was swept up in Tory rhetoric about the market's power to
bring shared prosperity by rewarding the best among us.

But the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka showed her what the "free
market" delivers: a race to the bottom that ends with women who could be
Meagher herself, killed by the unbridled corporate quest for profit
above all else.

Shaken by the images from Dhaka, Meagher was prompted to reexamine her
own faith that markets were efficient forces for improving the world,
and her day-job, arguing on behalf of endless, anticompetitive mergers
between giant companies.

Her shaken faith was shattered by the scandals that followed, from
Cambridge Analytica's crimes to the relentless expansion of dangerous,
health-destroying sugary drinks, which the UK government seemed
powerless to stop.

COMPETITION IS KILLING US is both an account of how Meagher rebuilt her
understanding of markets, law and economics, and a smartly argued,
fast-moving history of the neutering of monopoly law, a plot hatched and
executed by the Chicago School of neoliberal economists.

These are the "scholars" who argued that monopolies were good, actually,
and the only time the government should intervene to block or punish
monopolistic conduct in which "consumer harm" (that is, higher prices)
could be proved.

This set a nearly impossible bar for antitrust enforcement and moved the
debate about monopolies from the democratic realm to the rarefied halls
of quantitative economists who would duel with equations to prove or
disprove the source of price-hikes.

The Chicago School put competition enforcement in chains. Meagher's book
shatters them. First, Meagher enumerates the many ways in which monopoly
harms us all - real harms, murderous harms, extinction-event harms -
that don't count as "consumer harms."

Second - and just as importantly - Meagher draws on her experience as a
UK and US lawyer to describe how the restrictions of "consumer harm" are
self-imposed. Neither US, nor UK, nor EU law requires a showing of
"consumer harm" before governments can fight monopolies.

Indeed, in many cases, existing anti-monopoly laws DEMAND action on the
part of regulators for corporate conduct that the "consumer harm"
framework declares to be beneficial.

All of that to say, we don't need Parliament or Congress or the EU to
pass new rules to get meaningful anti-monopoly enforcement. Like the
Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow, our governments have had
everything they need to fight monopolies all along.

Someone just needs to point it out to them, to make them take stock of
their existing arsenal and then spur them into using it to defend all of
us. COMPETITION IS KILLING US ends with a roadmap for this kind of action.
Nominally, this is counsel for political insiders, but it's also
ammunition for us activists, the everyday people who've been radicalized
by runaway monopolies and the harms they create.

It's a roadmap for winning arguments with the insiders who've presided
over the mounting crisis - a proof that this world is neither inevitable
nor immutable, but rather, something that we can and must transform.

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💅🏾 Predatory lender seeks national bank charter

"Partner with us today to build a better tomorrow" - that's the slogan
for Oportun, a predatory lender that sued more poor latinx people during
the pandemic than any other.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-loan-company-that-sued-thousands-of-low-income-latinos-during-the-pandemic

The company sued longtime customers who'd spent years in a debt-trap of
endless payments and refinancing, customers who lost their jobs and
missed some of those payments.

It was just an escalation of business-as-usual for a company that has
sued 30 customers a day, every day since May 2016. The company filed
10,000 lawsuits in the first five months of the pandemic. They are among
the nation's most litigious lenders.

No wonder. With APRs as high as 66.99%, Oportun has guaranteed that vast
numbers of borrowers will fail to meet their payments and end up trapped
in the company's lawsuit factory.

Now they want to go national. The company - which operates in 12 states
today - has applied for a nationwide banking charter. But thanks to
reporting from Propublica and the Texas Tribune, they may not get it.

https://www.propublica.org/article/a-lender-sued-thousands-of-lower-income-latinos-during-the-pandemic-now-it-wants-to-be-a-national-bank

40+ consumer rights and latinx groups cosigned a letter to the Office of
the Comptroller objecting to Oportun's application. Among the
signatories is Unidos US, who partnered with Oportun as recently as 2019.

https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20442556-coalition-letter

Oportun promises to draw down its campaign of legal terror against
victims of its predatory lending, but that's too little, too late. For
the sake of the 10,000+ covid-impoverished families they terrorized at
the pandemic's height, they should be shut down, not expanded.


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💅🏾 Militarizing cops was a failure

In 1997, the Clinton administration created the "1033" program, whereby
the Pentagon gave away its "surplus" equipment to local law enforcement
agencies, leading to the nationwide militarization of America's cops.

In the decades since, 1033 became a $5B industry: beltway bandits lobby
their pals in the DoD to place massive orders for weapons and materiel
which are immediately declared "surplus" and transfered to undertrained
cops nationwide.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/09/why-police-pay-nothing-for-military-equipment.html

Opponents of this program hypothesized that it would obey Checkhov's
Law: "A machine-gun in the police armory in Act One will go off by Act
Three. And then again, and again, and again."

They were right.

Empirical studies show that cops who get milspec penis surrogates
through 1033 murder the fuck out of the people who pay their salaries.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053168017712885

But 1033's defenders insisted (without any evidence) that turning Deputy
Dawg into a USMC Fallujah Street Patrol Cosplayer seriously improved the
quality of US policing.

They were wrong.

The Pentagon Inspector General's September 30, 2020 report on the
program is definitive: "firearms and tools ... were not supporting law
enforcement activities."

https://www.dodig.mil/reports.html/Article/2367955/audit-of-excess-property-issued-through-the-department-of-defense-law-enforceme/

What's more, they have a pretty good idea why these "tools" weren't
helping law enforcement: they were handed out like candy without regard
to need, without training, without supervision, and without accountability.

They gave out a *lot* of stuff. Snow camouflage pants. Grenades. MRAPs.
Assault rifles. And they gave 'em to everyone: local cops. Park rangers.
Campus police.

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/aug/15/we-have-pentagon-1033-program-data/

Here's some specifics of the giveaways:

* 391 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters

* 2,885 Humvees

* 1,105 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles

* More than 75,000 firearms

There's a lot of subtext in the IG's report, as Thom Dunn points out on
Boing Boing: for example, they lavish a lot of attention on the Selmer,
TN police department, which filed 1912 requests for military gear.

All in all, the Selmer PD received:

* 77 pairs of cold weather boots

* 58 digital cameras

* 115 hammers

* 154 screwdrivers

* 106 tape measures

* 15 aircraft maintenance tool kits

* 38 laptops

* 4 dump trucks

Number of officers employed by the Selmer Police Department: 18.

Why did Selmer need one dump truck for every 4.5 officers? It didn't.
"The official requested extra LESO property and stored it in case of a
future need because it was free."

But even that didn't work out.

"Selmer PD requested and obtained 30 generators between 2013 and 2017
for use in the event of a disaster, but the generators are no longer
available for use. The LEA official stated that some generators were not
maintained and their condition deteriorated over time."

Selmer's cops said yes to whatever was on offer. Other PDs got seriously
strapped:

* Alpena County MI Sheriff: 30 M16 rifles for 16 officers

* Meigs County TN, Sheriff: 25 M16 rifles for 18 officers

* Massillon OH PD: 49 M16 rifles and 49 M1911 pistols for 44 officers

1033 came to nationwide attention during the Ferguson uprising, when the
country boggled at the cops' bizarre, militarized presence in the
streets. In the years since, attention has waxed and waned.

But police militarization demands sustained attention. The cops didn't
get full battle-rattle by accident. It was a deliberate strategy, with a
name and an office...and a business model. It's time to end it.

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💅🏾 This day in history

#15yrsago Hollywood’s Canadian MP claims she’s no dirtier than the rest
https://web.archive.org/web/20060906162414/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task;=view&id;=1063&Itemid;=89⊄=

#15yrsago John McDaid’s brilliant sf story Keyboard Practice free online
https://web.archive.org/web/20060111055353/http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/fiction/jm01.htm

#5yrsago Gene Luen Yang’s inaugural speech as National Ambassador for
Young People’s Literature
https://memex.craphound.com/2016/01/08/gene-luen-yangs-inaugural-speech-as-national-ambassador-for-young-peoples-literature/

#1yrago A Public Service: a comprehensive, comprehensible guide to
leaking documents to journalists and public service groups without
getting caught
https://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/08/a-public-service-a-comprehensive-comprehensible-guide-to-leaking-documents-to-journalists-and-public-service-groups-without-getting-caught/

#1yrago Three years after the W3C approved a DRM standard, it’s no
longer possible to make a functional indie browser
https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

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💅🏾 Colophon

Today's top sources: Boing Boing (https://boingboing.net/).

Currently writing: My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel
about truth and reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 573 words (96805
total).

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 26)
https://craphound.com/news/2020/12/14/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-26/

-tickets-132831910821">https://www.eventbrite.com/e/william-gibson-cory-doctorow-agency-tickets-132831910821

* Keynote, NISO Plus, Feb 22-25,
https://niso.plus/cory-doctorow-to-keynote-at-niso-plus-2021/

Upcoming appearances:

* What if the future of our public lives online looked like _____?
(panel at New_ Public), Jan 13,
https://newpublic.org/festival/event/783/all-star-world-cafe-what-if-the-future-of-our-public-lives-online-looked-like

* Keynote for linux.conf.au, Jan 22 (US) 23 (Australia)
https://linux.conf.au/schedule/

* Evening with William Gibson, Jan 25,
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/william-gibson-cory-doctorow-agency-tickets-132831910821

* Keynote, NISO Plus, Feb 22-25,
https://niso.plus/cory-doctorow-to-keynote-at-niso-plus-2021/

Recent appearances:

* Hedging Bets on the Future (Motherboard Cyber):
https://play.acast.com/s/cyber/hedgingbetsonthefuturewithauthorcorydoctorow

* Applying the Pandemic Mindset to Climate Change:
https://hbr.org/podcast/2020/12/applying-the-pandemic-mindset-to-climate-change-with-cory-doctorow

* 2020 Beaverbrook Lectures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y66r57bGG5w

* Bibliotherapy/Shelf Healing:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1509671/6580831

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

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*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla* -Joey "Accordion Guy"
DeVilla

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