Organized Money
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
79 episodes
Big Oil And Big Plastic Are One And The Same
Yet another consequence of the war in Iran is a looming supply shock in plastics. Plastics, which are derived from oil byproducts, are everywhere, but their origins remain somewhat mysterious to the average consumer. Today on the show we demyst...
Emergency Pod: The Live Nation Ticketmaster Verdict
Matt and David are live from a conference room in Chicago to break down the Live Nation Ticketmaster verdict! Live Nation was just found to be an illegal monopoly in a dramatic jury trial which saw the Trump administration drop out of the case ...
How AIPAC Tries to Dominate the Business of Politics
On March 17th, the candidate Daniel Biss defeated 15 other democratic challengers in the primary election for Illinois' 9th Congressional District. It was one of the most closely watched in the country, in which Biss, and other candidates, were...
Up Ship's Creek: The Crisis At The Strait
Ever since the US and Israel began bombing Iran, the Strait Of Hormuz has become the most watched shipping lane in the world economy. The strait itself is just a narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf Of Oman, but much of the wor...
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is Not Done with Ticketmaster
With the federal government largely stepping back from antitrust enforcement, who's picking up the slack? California Attorney General Rob Bonta makes the case that state attorneys general are filling the void, and he's got the caseload to...
The Business Of Betting On Murder with Sen. Chris Murphy
As bombs started to fall on Iran, some Americans cashed in by placing bets on prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi. These bets paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to users who almost certainly had inside information about the exa...
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
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 co...
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 tele...
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 t...
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 R...
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 cr...
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 ...
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 Mik...
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. Goog...
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 n...
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 Wor...
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...
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 at...
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 ...
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 P...
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 mark...
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 electio...
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 f...