Competition Advocacy: Past & Present - 2025 Antitrust and Competition Conference

All right. Uh, everyone, uh, for those of you who have not encountered me yet, uh, I'm Matt. Uh, for disclosures, uh, I'm an employee of the Stigler Center,

and I'm not aware of any other conflicts of interest beyond that.

Uh I'm going to give you a quick uh framing of how I'm thinking about this panel before introducing our panelists and turning it over to them. Uh so the

basic idea for this is this is policy advocacy uh new modes for that and specifically acting through the marketplace of ideas. Uh for me I'm thinking about this in part is this is

us bringing the discussion from yesterday full circle. uh in particular yesterday we were talking about policy the DSA shaping the digital public sphere and now we're thinking about how

that shape of the public sphere how we discuss things in the marketplace of ideas gets fed back into policy so we're going full circle on this final leg uh I'll also say that this was um by

Filipo's description this was the Brody Mullins panel if he could have been here in the afternoon this is about how uh economic influence feeds into the

generation of economic or academic ideas. How it is shaping social

ideas. How it is shaping social movements both authentic and fabricated.

It's looking at how the media and journalism is responsive to pressure campaigns from economic influence. So with that said, uh to my

influence. So with that said, uh to my uh left, that's how directions work, uh is uh Michelle. She is a senior policy fellow at the Center for Law, Economics,

and Society.

Sean Heather is a vice senior vice president at the US Chamber of Commerce and Maryann Bertard is a distinguished service professor at the University of Chicago. Uh with this I'm going to

Chicago. Uh with this I'm going to suggest that we start with Michelle uh then Maryanne and then Sean. Great.

Thank you Matt. Um my disclosure um is that in addition to the affiliation that Matt just mentioned, I'm a fellow at the center for research on multinational corporations which is funded by a range

of philanthropic organizations and the details are available on their website.

So first I have to apologize to Matt who I think um has found himself heard in cats in trying to uh organize this panel with one of our panel members disappearing out of the cat flat and

onto the previous panel. Um but having just briefly discussed um some of the issues that we're going to get to uh with my co-panelists, I think that we're gonna have a lot of fun uh discussing

these things. So um my apology is due

these things. So um my apology is due because I'm not going to actually speak about what I agreed we would speak about. Um I was going to talk about the

about. Um I was going to talk about the extreme asymmetry of resource between civil society and companies which is a huge problem. uh but which thankfully

huge problem. uh but which thankfully one of my fellow panelists I believe will be talking about and I hope we'll come to it in Q&A. Um I had to rewrite

my remarks after what I heard last night. Actually I couldn't really sleep.

night. Actually I couldn't really sleep.

Um I found aspects of the remarks by Chairman Ferguson chilling. Uh

particularly the comments around free speech.

One of the things he seemed to be concerned with was that the previous administration had threatened tech companies to do as they were told on censorship during the pandemic or suffer

reprisals or else um in Chair Ferguson's phrasing. There are others who know much

phrasing. There are others who know much more about uh what actually happened in that specific case, but I heard quite a lot of comply or else in his speech yesterday, which given that it was live

streamed and recorded was presumably directed at the tech companies themselves. In that context, as the

themselves. In that context, as the fusion of power between government and the private sector is being negotiated in front of our own eyes, the role of civil society advocacy is more important

than ever.

Also just to say that what's so interesting about this uh conference is that it flushes out conflicting ideas in a way that few other conferences do. Um

what I heard on the previous panel were ideas about government capture which I considered to be like typical Chicago school or public school like choice school type arguments but being directed

at a Republican government which I never thought I'd hear. Um and I'm coming at the same sort of arguments about the fusion of power from a very different perspective and with different solutions. So the world is upside

solutions. So the world is upside down. The theme running through my

down. The theme running through my remarks is a question which is what is the proper role of civil society and anti- monopoly advocacy in this

political moment. I've tried to organize

political moment. I've tried to organize these thoughts um with the cav caveat that I wrote it with no sleep. I will start with an anecdote. Uh

sleep. I will start with an anecdote. Uh

I published a book in 2020 called competition is killing us. It's about

how the idea of competition can mean different things to different people um and how it has been used as a cover for consolidation and corporate externalities for decades. My agent at

the time was approached by a Chinese publisher. They wanted to publish my

publisher. They wanted to publish my book for students across China.

And when I studied um international antitrust at Georgetown, our two fellow students from China felt that they had to leave the room before we discussed a new Chinese competition law which had not apparently been published

domestically yet um and which they therefore weren't meant to know about.

So having my book published in China was an exciting and frankly potentially lucrative opportunity. There was only one catch. I

opportunity. There was only one catch. I

had to remove one sentence from my book.

Just one little sentence. This was the sentence. So, this is after I'm writing

sentence. So, this is after I'm writing about how Facebook content moderators failed to act upon a systemic uh systematic campaign of misinformation by the military in Myanmar to gain support

for the genocide against Rohingya people. I wrote this sentence. Twitter

people. I wrote this sentence. Twitter

was similarly used to promote government propaganda covering up human rights violations against the minority wager people in China in 2019.

Now to be clear, it's not necessarily that the publishers themselves objected to the sentiment in this sentence. And

it wasn't just that they wouldn't publish the book with the sentence in it. It was actually much worse than

it. It was actually much worse than that. It was that the publisher would

that. It was that the publisher would lose its license for publishing such a book. That was the or else that was the

book. That was the or else that was the tool for ensuring compliance to bury the truth of human rights violations in their country. And that was what ensured

their country. And that was what ensured self-p policing. Now, they came back to

self-p policing. Now, they came back to me with a rewarding. They really wanted to make it work, but I couldn't. It

would have been akin to Holocaust denial. And what was the point of

denial. And what was the point of publishing a book speaking truth to power if I was not willing to speak the truth? It's a small and trivial example.

truth? It's a small and trivial example.

Um, but I think it's illustrative of the broader issue of self-censorship which was mentioned earlier today by Lu Luigi Gen Zingales and which Matt Stala was talking about in relation to Chinese

power in Hollywood and it touches on the role of civil society to speak up and out when it can. Now I have a question for you all. Um, in a show of hands, how

many people here consider themselves to be involved in antitrust advocacy?

Okay, I think like four, three or four people are putting their hand up. I

think that's interesting. Um, I would argue that we can no longer maintain any pretension of neutrality in what we are doing. Antitrust is political. We are by

doing. Antitrust is political. We are by putting forward different ideas, engaging in a political process in some way. We are almost always doing

way. We are almost always doing normative work, hardly ever descriptive.

The politics gets baked in. So if you're working on antitrust, you cannot avoid the politics. When people tried to do

the politics. When people tried to do that for decades, publishing papers on markets and efficiency, it was really the enactment of a specific form of politics, I would argue. Now, I'm

usually loathed to quote Milton Freriedman. Uh, but my mother-in-law is

Freriedman. Uh, but my mother-in-law is from Chicago and her father did his PhD under Freriedman and for my sins, I used to be a Freedmanite myself. So, uh,

being here at the University of Chicago, well, when we are in Rome, uh, this quote is, uh, one that you'll have heard of before. um only a crisis actual or

of before. um only a crisis actual or perceived produces real change. When

that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That I believe is our basic

around. That I believe is our basic function to develop alternatives to existing policies to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable. Freriedman knew exactly the

inevitable. Freriedman knew exactly the game that he was playing and he knew that it was advocacy and he understood the stakes.

Civil society must act as a repository for ideas. We have to keep up the

for ideas. We have to keep up the diversity of regulatory ideas. We have

to keep them alive. Not least because antitrust is only just just scratching the surface on power. Our system is not working. We have not decon deconentrated

working. We have not decon deconentrated really anything yet. But we have so many ideas lying around. We have ideas around bigness and its relationship to harm, bright line rules, outright merger bans.

It will be interesting to see which of these ideas the Trump administration adopts and which are sidelined. One

problem though is the idea that people have lost faith in the very institutions that might help us. We cannot fall for that fatalism because nothing entrenches

power like giving up. And honestly, it was astonishing for me to hear Chairman Ferguson say that one of the benefits to the people of network effects of platforms is that, and I think this is a quote, but you can check the speech once

it's published, that you can't troll if there's no one there on the platform that you disagree with. He said that at least twice. He also said something to

least twice. He also said something to the effect of you can't doom scroll if there's no doom to scroll or something like that. This to me sounds like giving

like that. This to me sounds like giving up on the American people.

There was a suggestion yesterday that was made um in this room that some people in this debate are targeting big platforms because we have an elite distaste for the sort of mass media that

real people like to consume. I can see how that makes sense in this kind of the customer is always right sort of way. I

thought the same at the time of Brexit.

um that although disinformation and manipulation were proven, maybe people would have voted to leave the European Union anyway and that the elites who exposed Cambridge Analytica and and

people like me just didn't like the result. But it also feels a bit like

result. But it also feels a bit like saying we shouldn't do anything about opioids because people like getting high. The question is why? Why are

high. The question is why? Why are

people in so much physical and existential pain? Why is life so bad

existential pain? Why is life so bad that the only pleasure left is to troll someone or or doom scroll? And why is our attention so scarce? Why are trolls targeting, as an Alexander Geese

reminded us this morning, women, people of color, queer people? Why are UK citizens willing to commit what I believe is geopolitical self harm based on a narrative of hatred for immigrants?

At the very broadest level, the concentration of wealth and the incorporation of people's lives and dreams into business models, that is the instrumentalization of humanity for

profitm is a big part of the problem.

and power is both the result and what is driving this. And I think there's an

driving this. And I think there's an international dimension to this. Sorry,

I know I'm way over time. Um, the EU, which has taken a bashing for being ineffective, including by myself. Um,

now looks like it could be a safe haven for the sorts of ideas that can counter power and preserve freedom and sovereignty at a foundational level. I

don't know if they'll step up to that responsibility, but I'm a bit more optimistic than Christina um about the role of Europe. And I think that um we could be pushed into that role uh by the free speech issues that are going on in

the US if we listen. I think that people are saying they want safety, security, dignity, nourishment and community.

These are basic human things. Our role

in civil society, I think, is to elevate those voices and those ideas and to connect them to the legal and economic frameworks that we know so well across party politics. We can't do research in

party politics. We can't do research in a vacuum. There is no vacuum. without

a vacuum. There is no vacuum. without

even realizing it, we'll be leaving ideas lying around that will be used in ways we may not like. Civil society must be there to articulate not just the problem or the solutions, but also to

articulate the vision of the world that we're trying to build. Thank you.

I'm happy to go next. Should I go next?

Great. Um so I do not believe that I have um any conflict of interest that's relevant to this conference. I'm just

pacademics and whatever I do that's uh that's not academia. It's definitely not about uh concentrating interest. I don't

I don't do any consulting. My remarks

are going to be much much shorter. Um I

wasn't there yesterday so I see what happened. I'm going to say a bunch of

happened. I'm going to say a bunch of stuff that are fairly obvious. Um so I think you know kind of when I think about you know advocacy you know kind of the the pressure that lawmakers

rulemakers get to you know um as as these outside parties are trying to influence outcomes. I think the the

influence outcomes. I think the the thing that always comes to mind is just the the asymmetries between you know between between businesses where the stakes are you know are very high and you know people on the other side

general society you know civic society where you know there's either kind of very small concentration disperse interest or you know in most case just uh even a lack of awareness that there's

anything that they should be uh they should be fighting for uh you know I don't know much you know about antitrust but antitrust strikes me as one of those you know one of those topics antitrust.

I mean, you guys spend two days here, but it's really damn boring and uh it's really boring. You can see how many

really boring. You can see how many people are left. Um and and so I think it's just really hard to get people to, you know, kind of want to just devote

and time and effort to, you know, um to to to build the the cont the contra you're going to need for, you know, for change. So that's your standard kind of

change. So that's your standard kind of logic, but I think it's it's an important one particular, you know, for a topic like this one. We had a side chat about issues of climate and health and maybe that's different there but antitrust I think is particularly hard

because it's complicated and it's boring. Um you know liability reform we

boring. Um you know liability reform we fall into that you know bucket as well.

Um no that's kind of the the the starting point which is this imbalances.

Now on top of that you add you know the fact that exerting influence on lawmakers on lawmakers all that stuff is expensive. Lobbying is expensive. uh you

expensive. Lobbying is expensive. uh you

know campaign campaign contributions are kind of by definition you know expensive and more and more so um and there again I think the numbers are pretty clear if you look at you know who's lobbying I

think the organization is by far at the very very top if you look at the amount of money that's spent by businesses on lobbying compared to like representative civil society or or unions I think the

ratio is like 30 to1 in terms of dollars so it's not so complicated that lawmakers because they are hearing much more from lobbyists on one side and not

so much from lobbyists on the other side uh are very often not making the decisions that would seem to be uh would seem to be in a public interest. uh

that's I think I think also like fairly obvious the the one other thing that you know kind of maybe you know not straightforward you know maybe less straightforward is that I also worry

that you know kind of the the central role of money and the the dependence on money also make potentially some of these actors that are supposed to be

representing civic society uh not always the most um kind of honest uh honest broker. So we can you know talk about

broker. So we can you know talk about anecdotes of like you know kind of nonprofits or advocacy organizations being financially dependent for their operations on a bunch of bunch of big

businesses and very often taking positions that are aligned with you know with the big businesses. So there's one egregious example. It's kind of like

egregious example. It's kind of like nearly a caricature, but it's from like, you know, when was it like um AT&T was wanting to merge with T-Mo and they were giving money to these like homeless

shelters and then the homeless shelters were writing to people saying, "Yeah, we should let this merger go through." I

mean, this one sounds soing ridiculous, but there are plenty of examples, you know, of that type. So, you know, kind of relate to that. I think it's a much more kind of general phenomenon. I um

you know u two years ago it was sex it was sexy for companies to talk about all they were doing on you know corporate social responsibility or ESG or whatever that was obviously that's not sexy

anymore but even that a lot of that money you know based on research that you know kind of I and others conducted is just another form of like trying to influence the political the political

process you can trace you know donations from corporations to nonprofits that then start you know kind writing, you know, providing comments that are

consistent with the objective of their corporate founders uh in uh in the rulemaking process. So money is

rulemaking process. So money is important. Money creates imbalances. Uh

important. Money creates imbalances. Uh

I think it's great that you know for a democracy that voices get heard. I think

it's a beautiful process when all not all voices unfortunately equal because some voices just carry more weight than others and it's very often because of um

kind of distribution of uh of income and and concentration. I'll stop there.

and concentration. I'll stop there.

I am a registered lobbyist. Uh I work for the US Chamber

lobbyist. Uh I work for the US Chamber of Commerce. I represent all corporate

of Commerce. I represent all corporate interests that you all have spent the last two days saying uh are too dominant in the conversation in one way, shape, form or the other. Uh you can pull the

chambers 990 and you can just like all the other nonprofit organizations uh see what uh is behind the curtain. Uh you

can pull my lobbying report and uh see who I've given to. Uh you can also go and pull the chambers lobbying for it and see what issues we cover. Uh yes, we are I think still the largest lobbying

group in Washington DC by expenditure, but we probably do 500 issues. So you

take the dollar number and divide it up across those issue sets. There's a lot of stuff we cover. Um so I don't know, you know, I I'm always begging for more money uh because uh there's so many

mouths to feed uh in terms of issues in Washington. So uh I'm not so sure that

Washington. So uh I'm not so sure that the pool is is as deep at least in the US chamber as maybe some people think.

Uh certainly uh consultants when they come they want big dollars from us and we say well actually we don't have big dollars. Um we actually pay law firms

dollars. Um we actually pay law firms pennies on the dollars to work with. We

pay economists pennies on the dollars.

Um because we just don't have as deep a pockets to do all these issues. But yes,

we are uh a lobbying group. Yes, we

represent corporate America. Uh and I'm damn proud of it. Uh so there's my disclosure. Um, I didn't know what I was

disclosure. Um, I didn't know what I was going to say today and uh, we didn't have a very great organizational call as a panel and Christina Kafar was going to be on this and we all kind of looked at each other and said, "What do we want to

accomplish here?" I sat in the back for

accomplish here?" I sat in the back for the last two days and really kind of thought about what am I hearing and this is not this is the first time I've been invited to this conference but I've sat at my desk in Washington over the last couple years and watch bits and pieces.

I've had times a member call me and say, "Can you believe somebody said something at that conference? You got to go watch Chan." and I I would dig through and

Chan." and I I would dig through and find the panel where somebody said something. Um, but I thought I would try

something. Um, but I thought I would try to do three things, but I'm not going to do all three because we may not be interested in all three. One, I thought at some point I was being asked to talk about how advocacy has changed. Uh, the

other thing I think somewhere along the line I heard was that you wanted me to think about how maybe how chambers advocacy works today versus what we used to do. Uh, and then three, at one time I

to do. Uh, and then three, at one time I know we were going to talk about how it differs in Washington and Brussels because I also do international regulatory affairs with US Chambers. So,

I've done a lot of work lobbying in Brussels and in member state capitals over the years, but um I thought I'd focus on what I think is different about advocacy today. I'm going to assume all

advocacy today. I'm going to assume all of us in this room believe that democracy is a good thing and we want to preserve it. Any disagreement in the

preserve it. Any disagreement in the room on that? No, I didn't hear one the last two days. Um I also think I heard uh be based on the title of this that

people think that the marketplace of ideas uh more is better than less.

Does everybody agree with that? Okay, I'm going to say from an

that? Okay, I'm going to say from an advocacy standpoint, the answer to that is no. And that is actually a

no. And that is actually a problem. Um, and Tim Woo talked about

problem. Um, and Tim Woo talked about it, but he didn't talk about it in the context uh this morning of the way I'll talk about it. If you remember back to Tim Woo's comments, he said, you know,

most of the last whatever number of years, the problem has been government censorship. you know, he thinks that in

censorship. you know, he thinks that in the future problem is the markets just flood it. That governments will flood

flood it. That governments will flood the zone uh with information and overwhelm the system. Well, that's

what's happened in the world of advocacy. The zone is flooded today. Uh

advocacy. The zone is flooded today. Uh

anybody who wants to solve a problem, I think we all want to be solutionoriented. That's why you guys

solutionoriented. That's why you guys commissioned a group to write a paper six years ago and decided today that it hadn't accomplished anything and you debated on the last panel. Um advocacy

usually starts with people trying to identify a problem and getting people and building a coalition that agrees to that problem.

Uh along the way you do a second step which is to try to identify an agreed upon underlying set of facts that explain how you want to solve the problem. And then the third step is

the problem. And then the third step is writing the solution.

It is really really really difficult to even have a conversation starting with what is the problem today because the zone is so flooded when I listen over the last six

seven eight years people talk about the problems with big tech the list is this law so when someone then decides the solution is let's just take all those

problems and wrap it up together and let the DMA solve for it that's never going to work in the United States, you've built a much bigger

problem. Um, look, I think um, flooding

problem. Um, look, I think um, flooding the zone and bringing more ideas to the table is in a democracy a good thing, but if you actually want to work on solving problems, you have to somehow

edit all those thoughts. Uh, I think it was William F. Buckley who said, I don't want uh, the top 100 professors in Harvard to rule me. I want the top 100 people in the Boston phone book. the

common denominator is the only one 100 opinions. And if you really want to try

opinions. And if you really want to try to move the meter um and try to solve some of these conversations that we've been had last two days, you got to build coalitions. And it's really hard to

coalitions. And it's really hard to build a coalition today if you can't define a problem in a narrow way that then you can start talking about the fact set to support that problem and

then talk about the solution. And right

now there's just so many voices and it's not because somebody has more money.

There are so many voices in the system right now that we can't even start the first step in an advocacy process of identifying the problem, identifying the facts and then identifying a solution.

I'm happy as part of any of the conversation to talk about the chambers changes processes. I'm happy to also

changes processes. I'm happy to also talk about Europe, but in interest of time and wanting to get the conversation going, I'll stop.

All right. Well, thank you to all of you and also as a quick mention, I also want to thank everyone in the audience for your like inddehaticable spirits to be here to the very

end. Uh I think I'd like to start with

end. Uh I think I'd like to start with Michelle and I had a question about the well first can you explain the anti- monopoly archives that is there's also

an article on pro market that mentions this. Um, but I'm kind of curious

this. Um, but I'm kind of curious like who is this for and how does it fit into your theory of change in particular? Is this um an elite or kind

particular? Is this um an elite or kind of like a mass theory of change? And I

want to give you like two wrinkle or like one wrinkle for both of those. Uh

the one would be um if we're creating an archive an intellectual archive to inform advocacy. Uh one of the the fears that I

advocacy. Uh one of the the fears that I have is that that can create uh an issue of like when we canonize specific bodies of thought we can lock in specific perspectives even when we're trying to

recover the past. Uh an example of this, I'm a political scientist, was that um social contract theory is something you definitely encounter that if you like took political science classes now.

Nobody talked about that in the 19th century in the English political tradition. It was something that locked

tradition. It was something that locked that it disappeared by chance. It worked

its way back in. Um so there's a good chance that we can accidentally like lock in certain ideas and we end up treating them as sacrosinct. So whether

or not the attempt to broaden our intellectual space mechanically when we make it into infrastructure actually narrows it. Uh the mass version of this

narrows it. Uh the mass version of this is a shorter thing is simply that um I noticed from like political science and also from science technology studies is that you can't get the public to learn

things they don't care about. Uh like

science education does not move the needle. Political education doesn't move

needle. Political education doesn't move the needle. The only one time that we

the needle. The only one time that we knew that people's political knowledge really increased in society was roughly the 1970s because you had to watch the news in between uh entertainment

programs on the three TV channels. So

outside of literally forcing people to learn, we just can't do it. So I'm

wondering like given those two wrinkles, um like what's your theory of change here? Sure. Um, so I probably I mean I

here? Sure. Um, so I probably I mean I guess I I didn't really think of it as a it's not really a disclosure, but it might be um important context for my

comments that some people will know me from my work um building uh co-founding the balanced conry project which was an organization that was set up

to catalyze um the anti-mopoly movement in Europe and globally. Um, so we have held the first ever global convening on anti- monopoly. We've just had the

anti- monopoly. We've just had the second version of that a couple of weeks ago. Um, so I've been actively involved

ago. Um, so I've been actively involved in trying to build the coalitions that um that Sean mentions and it is really

hard as you say. Um, we are definitely nowhere near as good at advocacy as I think the US Chamber of Commerce and that probably will be a surprise to nobody.

Um I think on the anti- monopoly archives and this was an idea that I've come to which essentially is like looking at the last few years of um the

thought that came out of the new Brandeisian school which had excavated um knowledge and ideas that actually like had never been lost to historians

but to a lot of us in the um antitrust space had been completely varied. So I

studied antitrust at Georgetown. I think

it was in 2010. I was I believed I was learning like a revealed truth. I did

not think that I was learning a kind of post Chicago correction of Chicago. Um I

definitely didn't learn about Brandeise.

So like the idea of having some kind of archives is really about and it's an anti- monopoly archives. It's for the anti- monopoly movement to ensure that in the years to come, no matter what the

political climate looks like, no matter what um uh what happens to our kind of scarce attention, that these ideas that have been flushed out even in the last

decade, have somewhere to live. Um and I totally get it that that I mean this is to Marian's point that um that antitrust is boring. Like can you teach people um

is boring. Like can you teach people um something that they don't want to learn?

And I think to me the fact that and I completely believe that it it is true that many people would come into this room and say that what we're talking about is boring is a profound lack of

communication on our part because we are talking about the most fun what I'm talking about anyway. I don't know what everyone else is talking about but I'm talking about one of the most fundamental issues that that does

connect to everything else. So the

failure of the language the failure to be able to communicate it is definitely a problem. I don't think this is

a problem. I don't think this is necessarily something um that is for the mass, but nor do I think it's just for the elites because actually that's one of the things that really um surprised

me about the uh European anti- monopoly movement is just as an example um around the Bay Monsanto merger food like groups that were

interested in right the right to food like Oxfam like international groups that are interested in the global south and farmer farming wages and so on

taught themselves to an extremely sophisticated level competition policy.

This was way before a lot of the resources that we now have and a lot of the knowledge that's been surfaced was available. They would be going to um

available. They would be going to um proono, you know, to law firms for proono advice and they would hear like, "Oh, no, it's consumer welfare. You

can't talk about food. Like, you can't talk about the right to food. You can't

talk about dignity." And then they would have to try and transform their um asks into a a language that was legible to the competition authorities. Now, you

might be able to actually say some of these things a little bit more directly.

they might not be successful but actually I have been surprised at how many groups actually are are capable once they think that it's interesting to them like once they see that there's a

specific thing like a merger or something um that they can see like my issue connects to this so there's not a complete answer but I think that it I don't have answers

but it's not necessarily just for the elite okay thank you all right uh Marian I also have a question for you uh this is also partially related related to

your hall of mirrors paper. Um, and you mentioned earlier in context of, you know, like honest brokers, uh, potentially being stairs when they're being paid. And one of the things that

being paid. And one of the things that struck me, and I think this is actually going back to, uh, we had some great great conversations on academic independence earlier. Uh, and we were

independence earlier. Uh, and we were talking about like the conflicts of interest come from people receiving money and then acting on that. And uh to

I'll confess uh I've applied to grants that I didn't get. I have like positioned myself to try and move towards the possibility putting myself in a conversation. And I'm curious, I

guess this is a bit speculative thinking about um if we're missing some degree of like near misses like research projects that are in a space that are aiming towards getting grants that aren't

receiving them. Uh the same way that I

receiving them. Uh the same way that I guess it's a you I wish I understand. So

research projects that so one of these would be um like prior to the 1970s we had lots of think tanks that were like things like the Brookings institutions that were these big catch all institutions they're working on

everything and after that there was a switch that we had think tanks that were quite explicitly partisan and they worked on like three things uh so that there was this specialization where

experts um I think the way it like Andrew Rich described this as you know experts exist where there's demand and whether or not you like get the contract, whether or not you actually

reward the grant to, you know, tweak your language to fit things. Uh research

takes time. There's preparation moving into that. So, I'm wondering like

into that. So, I'm wondering like whether or not we're missing that there's a gravitational pull people tweaking the language in order to get grants or whether or not that there's an anticipatory action before they ever

even get the grants. whether or not they're Yeah, I mean like I was just asked by uh by Dean this afternoon to change my website so that you know I keep on getting grants and uh get some words out of my website. So seems like

this is you know people are doing those things. Seems like this is happening. I

things. Seems like this is happening. I

mean I just again I wasn't part of this conversation on you know uh not not our dean a different dean don't worry about it. um

it. um the you know I think that the the the issue of like conflict of interest for academic I think it's it's it's more complicated than just you know kind of I

you know you give me this money and you know that changes what I write. I think

I think there's a layer. I think the most important part of it is more just like selection. You know, you ask like a

like selection. You know, you ask like a 100 people to do the study and then you pick you know you only pick the one that just gets you know that gets your result and that doesn't require anybody you

know to kind of do anything that's you know that's wrong or like manipulating their result. It's just like you know

their result. It's just like you know you ask a 100 like academics and then they write 100 reports and you only just pick the one that gives you the result that you you know that favor you. All

right. Can I come in on this? Yes,

please. Just um because I think I I think the issue of funding in the kind of third sector is fascinating and I think it it actually conforms a little

bit to to what you're talking about as well. Um so I mean my another disclosure

well. Um so I mean my another disclosure maybe I could have made but it's a long time ago now. Um I didn't come kind of into this work from I'm not from the social change space like I was an

academic. I was a private practitioner.

academic. I was a private practitioner.

I worked at two of the law firms that David Dan read out earlier. Um

I was completely new to working in philanthropy and I suspect that some people in this room might also not know quite how it works. So um you might be

interested to know that I mean civil society in um in Europe and that I that's you know the space that I know that's working on anti- monopoly um it's

incredibly difficult to write to get money on this topic. Um there are a few reasons. One is that we've spent

reasons. One is that we've spent probably the last five years I spent like half my time um educating funders that monopolies is a problem that it

exists. So I had one funer who said to

exists. So I had one funer who said to me um either you were talking about a problem that doesn't exist. There are no monopolies or you are talking about the big biggest single flaw in capitalism.

So what are you going to do about it?

Because you're like a twoperson organization. Um, and there's no there's

organization. Um, and there's no there's no funding. I mean, it's all being cut.

no funding. I mean, it's all being cut.

All of the um philanthropic organizations, a lot of them are pulling out of the um new economic thinking sort of space. Um, there are also I've had

of space. Um, there are also I've had issues. I've been on the um, you know,

issues. I've been on the um, you know, on the phone with funders who've basically said, "So, hang on a minute.

If you if your agenda is successful, our organization shouldn't exist. there

shouldn't be rents that are then in the hands of a family that can then be distributed at our whim. So we have issues with foundations where the family wealth holders are still alive. It's

much easier if they're long dead. Um and

the issue that kind of connects to what you're saying is that there are two types of funding. You can get project funding or uh core funding. Everybody

wants core funding because it it funds your um core activities. But

increasingly um philanthropy wants to fund through projects which means that the areas that are of great issue like big tech get a lot of funding. And so if you want to go and say like I also want

to talk about um um agriculture, I want to talk about labor rights or I want you know all of these other things the funding is much more difficult. See we

do I mean even in civil society you find that you are being contorted by the need for funding.

Let me um pick up on your comments about uh rights.

Um as I've watched things um play out over the last uh 20 years at my time in in this space uh but go back 40 years if you look around you think about how uh

economies get organized. I think about it as kind of three major policy plays.

You got trade policy, tax policy and competition policy. And through those

competition policy. And through those three tools the government organizes an economy. Um, somewhere around 1980, uh,

economy. Um, somewhere around 1980, uh, we started to think about all three of those, uh, economic organizational tools with an efficiency lens in mind, regardless of whether you're Republican

or whether you were a Democrat. Uh, we

wanted to make sure our tax policy was efficient and not creating a drag on economic growth. Uh, we cut a lot of

economic growth. Uh, we cut a lot of taxes over the last uh, 40 years. Uh,

Democrats kind of abandoned their high tax position uh, politically. Uh, what

did we do on trade? liberalization was

the aim. Uh it would, you know, raise living standards around the world, which it did. Uh we would have uh cheaper

it did. Uh we would have uh cheaper access to goods and services, which apparently people really enjoy. That's

why people freaked out about the tariffs. Um and in the antitrust space,

tariffs. Um and in the antitrust space, we were wedded uh to economics to guide the law. Uh what's changed in the last

the law. Uh what's changed in the last 10 years? We invented the word fair.

10 years? We invented the word fair.

It first started out as fair taxes. It

first then went to being fair trade and then it became fair competition. Now, um fairness is a

competition. Now, um fairness is a legitimate conversation, but it makes my blood boil if it's going to be left to a five

member FTC commission to decide what is fair competition. They are not an

fair competition. They are not an elected body. It's going to make my

elected body. It's going to make my blood boil if it's going to be left to whoever is running uh the Department of Justice to decide what is fair. This is

what a democracy decides by elected officials. And what I've seen happen is

officials. And what I've seen happen is that these rights conversations which are absolutely legitimate. They should not be dismissed

legitimate. They should not be dismissed otherwise we can't stay together as a democratic society. but to try to force

democratic society. but to try to force fit them into uh an antirust lens and ask a unelected series of five people uh no matter who's

in charge, uh that outcome is not going to be one that's going to be sustainable.

And so, you know, when you think about advocacy and you think about how these conversations play out, um, and what we've just tried for the last few years,

um, in trying to, you know, watch what happened in the Biden administration, um, it didn't get very far because group like the chamber stood up and said, you know, no, Cher Khan, we're going to sue

you. Can I can I just can I just quickly

you. Can I can I just can I just quickly push back on that? I mean I at first I don't understand kind of seems like I fair trade is is seems to be a very different concept. I I even know people

different concept. I I even know people use fair competition. My understanding

what's been happening with antitrust is that the economic profession you know has made progress as to what they think is or is not consistent with well

functioning market and is or is not consistent with you know a competitive environment and you know kind of that's why you know maybe some behaviors that before were not problematic now are

being viewed as you know as problematic that I don't I don't I I don't think when people say fair competition I don't think this has anything to with rights.

It's got to do with like are we creating a marketplace that tries to like you know look like the markets that we would like to have where there's competition within you know between parties where people are informed where people know

what they buy. I don't know whether it's anything to do with you know rights.

This is just the same concept of efficiency. It's just the way you know

efficiency. It's just the way you know kind of we we think about behaviors and what is what is and what is not efficient. It's just a bit more

efficient. It's just a bit more sophisticated today than it was you know 20 years ago or 30 years ago. No, I I I think that we thought about what was unfair in competition, not what was

fair. Um, you know, when Epic wants

fair. Um, you know, when Epic wants access uh to the app store and not pay 30 cents, that's a question of fairness. Um, I don't think it's a

fairness. Um, I don't think it's a question of fairness. Sorry. I think

it's a question of power. And I think that that is I I've also suspicious if we're going to talk about fairness because fairness to me is as manipulable

a concept as competition. So I don't I I think that I agree the idea of shoehorning rights into a comp a competition or fairness um perspective doesn't make sense. It's also not to

shoehorn it into power. It's to say that we know when power is being exercised.

One of the ways we know is because rights are being infringed. And so I think that it's I think the idea that you I don't know if this is what you're

saying. I'm going to just check if this

saying. I'm going to just check if this is what you're saying that it's uncomfortable to have um the idea of something like fairness or some other

standard because it would lead to um a kind of contentious issue being decided by bureaucrats versus the idea of the

last kind of 4050 years where we had this like very technical exercise which I think you were saying was misguided around consumer welfare and so on and efficiency.

um but was maybe a little bit more comfortable for the US Chamber of Commerce because actually many of the interests that you were representing at the time it it seemed like a very busy

like I I was practicing it during some of that time. It seems like a very busy environment. None of us thought that we

environment. None of us thought that we were doing nothing but we really all of the mergers got approved. There were no monopolization cases or like one.

Um I think big business did pretty well out of that settlement.

So two things I think u the issue is not whether or not uh political power uh or corporate power or rights again are things that we should be talking about

in a democratic society. Um I think people were very unhappy uh with Donald Trump's tariffs. I think there are some

Trump's tariffs. I think there are some people in Congress who said wait a minute that's an article one issue not an article two issue. Um, you know, what I'm arguing is that these conversations

need to be in our United States Congress and decisions need to be made there versus downstream. Um, in terms of whether or not uh the grand bargain

towards efficiency was good for the business community, there's no doubt about it that it was. Um, I would say that the increase in antitrust enforcement uh started under the Obama

years. Uh, the chamber didn't complain.

years. Uh, the chamber didn't complain.

I mean, we've long supported antitrust enforcement more so than we've ever wanted regulation. We'd rather have the

wanted regulation. We'd rather have the scalpel than force everybody to live under the same regime. Um, so our tolerance for pain in the antitrust base is a whole lot higher uh amongst our

members uh than it is uh for regulatory responses. uh what changed uh and during

responses. uh what changed uh and during the first f second the first Trump administration obviously there was much more enforcement as well of the antitrust laws that didn't really make

uh the chamber get off the sidelines and get active uh but the Biden administration did um when you have an executive order that says the entire US economy is overconentrated the entire US

economy is somehow a failure I was very pleased to see um a former Biden administration official earlier today say you know what we have to remember folks US econ is the envy of the world

that EO became actually a political weight around Joe Biden's neck now obviously he didn't end up running in the end but for him to set out a course

of Biden economics to say that the US economy is a miserable failure we need to do something about it when the reality is the US economy is the envy of the world that's not to say it's perfect

that's not to say that we don't need to make things change those two thoughts don't work well together politically.

Um, and we were pushing back against that. Uh, we sued the issue of

that. Uh, we sued the issue of non-competes not because we had a thought about non-competes. We've always

thought about non-competes as a state issue. In our 113 year history, we never

issue. In our 113 year history, we never had a conversation to my knowledge in our building about what to do with non-competes. What we were concerned

non-competes. What we were concerned with was whether or not the FDC had rulemaking authority to write their own antitrust rules.

But you you were okay with non-compete kind of, you know. So wait, you were just worried about you just worried about the process. That's why we didn't we didn't even read the rule. All right.

We're going to sue from day one. Uh this

is a great exchange, but I want to bring in the rest of the room. So we're moving to Q&As's. Uh see a hand there. Uh first

to Q&As's. Uh see a hand there. Uh first

um so I probably needed to do a bit of a disclosure ask my question. So I work for the Texas Attorney General uh and I'm our economist. I used to be an academic and I used to do a lot of research on corporate lobbying. Uh and

some of that was positive for corporate lobbying. Some of it wasn't. Um, so I've

lobbying. Some of it wasn't. Um, so I've also worked on all these big tech antit trust cases and have seen documents in them. I'm not going to talk about those,

them. I'm not going to talk about those, but um I I'm wondering and I've been wondering this whole time at this whole conference if uh antitrust is a solution

for all of the problems that we've been talking about. Uh because sometimes in

talking about. Uh because sometimes in my job now we see issues and we uncover them in an an investigation and we might refer them to a different state agency

uh or we might refer them somewhere else uh when we find them. Uh and you know that in one way is advocacy for solving the problem but it's not necessarily

antitrust advocacy. The the other thing

antitrust advocacy. The the other thing that I'm curious about is um just lobbying for for different antitrust

laws. We have very old antirust laws.

laws. We have very old antirust laws.

Even state levels, they're very old. Um,

my office through our legislative division recently upped the civil penalty for violating you Texas antitrust statute. The maximum uh civil

antitrust statute. The maximum uh civil fine we get is still only $30 million, but we have the highest state civil penalty now. Uh, and so, you know, the

penalty now. Uh, and so, you know, the consequences actually aren't that large.

Uh, of you know, you can get injunctive relief and that's about that's about it.

uh often and curious to your thoughts on on that as a as a policy lever.

So I I agree. I think I've been for the last six or seven years saying that a lot of stuff I hear is probably not going to be solved by antitrust. Um in

question of whether or not raising fines uh is the right lever. Uh I think the previous panel talked about how high fines in Europe did nothing uh to change uh you know the dynamics of competition.

I would totally agree with that. Um you

know we're about ready to release a paper that we're doing in-house at the chamber. um on fines in Europe and the

chamber. um on fines in Europe and the history of them. Um you know, if you look at uh at least in my mind, cartels are the most clear-cut uh violation of

law that does the most consumer harm. Uh

over the last kind of 10 years. Uh there

have been 41 cartel violations in Europe. Uh there have been 12 abuse of

Europe. Uh there have been 12 abuse of dominance cases. In aggregate, which

dominance cases. In aggregate, which group do you think got more fines? The

cartels, which we put in jail, or the abuse of dominance? abuse of dominance fines collectively are higher uh than they are in cartels. Um so I don't think

the answer is um just jacking up the fines. Um I think you know putting in a

fines. Um I think you know putting in a good conduct remedy uh whether that is behavioral or whether it's structural uh is a much better approach uh for

antitrust enforcement uh than you know setting up a toll booth.

Can I comment on this? um which is that I don't think that antitrust is necessar necessarily the solution to all of the problems that have been raised here but I don't think that we can address any of

those problems until we've dealt with the question of concentrated power. So

you can't actually govern many of these companies. You can't govern them on

companies. You can't govern them on environmental law. You can't govern them

environmental law. You can't govern them on labor. You can't govern them on

on labor. You can't govern them on anything. And you can't get to the point

anything. And you can't get to the point where they are governable until you deal with the antitrust power issue. Um, and

I also think that you're right, like I think the the tools that are available are really limited. Um, that's one of the reasons why I think that not only should we preserve the ideas that have

come up in the last 10 years, but also go and dig deeper um because the ideas I mean we're kind of frozen in time now um between like the

end of one administration and into the kind of um chaos of another. And I mean I find myself in this kind of actually like I suppose it was like Freriedman that kind of lunatic fringe at the time

when some of those ideas um they were first kind of espousing them because I'm thinking about like much more I basically think the power has gone so far those rules that we would have been

talking about were designed for companies that were a hundred years ago that we have companies that have far outstripped those ideas. So, we need to be thinking much more drastically to

address power so that we can even do all of the rest of the things that we're saying that we need to do. All right,

Luigi.

So, first of all, I I really want to thanks Sean for coming here and uh and during two days of this, you're one of the few who sat all along. So, I really

appreciate uh uh your participation and and your contribution, your insights.

And uh and second, I will try to say this uh uh as calm as I can. I I envy Eric Pausner. Yesterday was as c as cool

Eric Pausner. Yesterday was as c as cool as a cucumber. Uh but I'm an Italian and I cannot be cool. So uh please um anticipate that whatever I say it comes

out with more passion than I would like to have. So I have to say that I'm very

to have. So I have to say that I'm very sympathetic and I was even most sympathetic to your position that uh at the end of the day certain things needs

to be decided by Congress.

But I ask you where was the chamber of commerce when uh uh antitrust was changed in the opposite direction. In a

sense antitrust used to be based on uh uh for example u simple measure of concentration and uh enforcement used to

be very strong. Um and uh the notion that antitrust was connected with uh liberty uh was very powerful and uh uh

what uh Eric Pausner, Philippo Lancier and I found out in a paper is that uh what changed was not the Chicago school.

What changed was the action of the American Chamber of Commerce who uh hire a very powerful consultant

uh Luis Powell who actually had a business plan on how to overturn in an undemocratic way the law of the country

and uh who was put on the Supreme Court by Nixon without revealing he was not only a paid agent by the American

Chamber of Commerce was also an FBI informant against uh the communist red scare and just the latest thing he had a

robe with the embroidery of Phyis Morris because up to the day he walked into the Supreme

Court he was on the board of Phil Morris and contributed to all the campaign on misinformation of tobacco. This guy

alone changed the doctrine of the Supreme Court on antitrust because he wrote the Sylvania decision. He changed

the law of the land on uh campaign financing because he wrote the Belotti decision. He changed everything we know

decision. He changed everything we know about security laws because he wrote some of the important decision and so on so forth. And if that was not enough, he

so forth. And if that was not enough, he actually in his business plan said that uh the chamber of commerce should

actually focus on conquering the courts.

This is his expression is this is the uh under appreciated source of power that we should conquer and the American shar

created a number of organization that very effectively actually conquer the courts. So much so that in 1997 because

courts. So much so that in 1997 because once I presented this uh paper uh uh with some economists and they said oh this sounds like conspiracy theory. cept

sorry sometimes conspiracy theory are true and in this case we have a phenomenal evidence because when there was the retirement party in 1997 for the

chairman of American chamber of commerce uh they celebrate his success they said we implement the power memorandum so your organization is single-handedly

responsible for overturning the democratic view of the country because we went in that paper and I'm happy to share that paper. We went through every

single nomination FTC chairman and uh attorney general for antitrust. We look

at the script of Congress. We look at the party platform. Nobody in the democratic process said we should weaken antitrust enforcement. We should adopt

antitrust enforcement. We should adopt the Chicago view. There was nobody ever in any democratic process was completely done by the American Chamber of Commerce. And now when somebody tries to

Commerce. And now when somebody tries to do vice versa, then you say it's anti-democratic. Thank you.

anti-democratic. Thank you.

Well, uh, appreciate the passion. It's

more helpful. It's more helpful to have a dialogue if it's in the paper before I show up.

Fair. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, uh, look, um, I'm aware of the the memo you're talking about that the chamber had written in its history.

Don't let people ask the same.

No, that that is not the case. Uh that

is not the case. But I'd be more than happy uh to you know come back next year and defend uh whatever may be indefensible in your mind. But

um look, even if you're unhappy with somebody who was elected or was appointed to the Supreme Court and confirmed by the United States Senate, there are processes by which we go through as a country to correct for

that. There just

that. There just are. Um and we can talk about why those

are. Um and we can talk about why those processes today aren't working, which is what I was suggesting in terms of the reason why we can't get anything done in this country. Uh my members have things

this country. Uh my members have things they want to get done. you know, we would like to see immigration reform.

We've been trying to get that done. Um,

but when you have the challenges we have now, which I think is, you know, flooding the zone, everybody's out there talking, uh, it's really difficult to get everybody around the table and say, "Here's what the problem is. Let's agree

on the problem. Then let's agree on the facts around that problem, then let's talk about a solution."

Uh it's really really difficult to have course correction whether you want them your direction or I want them my direction or we want them someone else's direction. I just want can you explain

direction. I just want can you explain what you mean by Could you explain more what you mean by flooding the zone? I'm

trying to understand that and I wonder whether that has got you know something to do with you say oh no people want fair stuff is like people there are some groups that care about you know kind of labor income people that care about the environment. Is that what you have in

environment. Is that what you have in mind that there's all these kind of leftist causes and that's you know hence people cannot get together. What do you mean by floating the zone? Well, the

floating the zone was in a reference to Tim Woo's presentation this morning, which you weren't here for, but you know, when we were talking this morning to kick things off, the conversation was uh about how speech is being controlled

and what the future is. And Tim Woo's got a book apparently coming out this fall he was pitching and his his thesis was that um in the past government's uh

control over information was all about censorship and today it is about flooding the zone and pushing as much information including

misinformation out there so that everybody just is confused and that that is is it the government that's doing that or it's your it's business that's doing that? I'm saying we're all doing

doing that? I'm saying we're all doing it. We all do it. We're all doing it.

it. We all do it. We're all doing it.

Washington is on information overload.

They don't know what to do with it. This

my point about a hundred people whether it is the 100 people in the phone book of the boss or whether it's 100 professors at Harvard, you know, but what you said real quick, I'm going to bring this because what you said was the

problem is that we've all identified a single solution, but if we have a hundred solutions, the zone will still be flooded. So I think it's that you

be flooded. So I think it's that you don't actually necessarily want or your members don't want those problems going to Congress or to the representatives or whatever. Not that there's the single

whatever. Not that there's the single they love they love the they love the zone to be flooded. Okay, I'm going to say let's pause this exchange. I want to bring in someone that we haven't heard before back into the left uh just so we

can bring a new voice in.

Uh thank you. My name is Spencer Waller.

I teach at Lyola University and I direct our Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies. Um, our funders are on our

Studies. Um, our funders are on our website. Um, and uh, yeah, I did a stint

website. Um, and uh, yeah, I did a stint at the Biden FTC uh, as a consultant and undoubtedly worked on something that made your blood boil. Um, but um, and Spencer, he worked for us when we were

doing something on the AML years ago.

Yes, that's true. But also um uh I want to go back to an earlier comment about antitrust is boring and you know but um it doesn't have to be and somebody

mentioned about meeting people where they are not where we are and just in my role as a teacher and just talking to people in life when they know what I do and occasionally talking to the media.

Um people care about this stuff. Um, but

what they care about, at least in terms of what I hear, is digital platforms, health care, uh, Live Nation, Ticket Master, uh, the grocery merger that was

blocked between, uh, Kroger, Albertson, and, uh, I don't hear a lot about cartels except the phone calls I got from college newspapers that said, I hear there's some kind of settlement going on where they may have been fixing

our our our tuition payments and our scholarships. And so, um, you know, my

scholarships. And so, um, you know, my advice is from I guess I do I raised my hand when I said I was an advocate. Um,

if you're going to advocate, if you're going to enforce, um, you have to pick and choose. Pick and choose the the big

and choose. Pick and choose the the big important things that people care about that used to be called the dinner table um the dinner table issues and um, uh, teach about them and write about them

and advocate for them in civil society.

And you'll find that people already deeply care about this. And I think you can move the needle better by by doing that. Okay, real quick before anyone

that. Okay, real quick before anyone responds, we're running up on time, so this is going to be our last like response.

Last question or the or that that was that was the last question. Yes. Um

yeah, I mean I I absolutely agree. I if

one thing I didn't mention um is I mean obviously the US has a really rich tradition of civil society engagement on anti- monopoly um I mean you talk about

the Boston Tea Party um as an example of an anti-mopoly kind of act of civil society defiance um here in Chicago um we have the Chicago conference on trusts

the first one held in 1889 just before the Sherman Act and at present at that um event were academics lawyers, business, the knights of labor,

political actors. This these are issues

political actors. This these are issues that a very diverse group of people can can get into. I mean, I think in a way what I can take from what Sean is saying and you have obviously the expert on

advocacy. That is what you your job is

advocacy. That is what you your job is that is not been my job. It's something

that I'm kind of learning to do. So, I

think we have a lot to learn from how you focus the message, how you kind of um uh uh do that. But you also I think we heard have you know orders of magnitude more resources. So we have to

think about how we use the main resource that we have which is that we hope to represent a much wider group of people.

And that means that we actually have to represent them. Like I don't see that

represent them. Like I don't see that necessarily represented in this room.

This isn't the purpose of this conference. But I also don't see it in

conference. But I also don't see it in other rooms as well. Um, and I also think that maybe unwittingly you gave us a kind of interesting quote on what this

advocacy is that you're talking about because you said to Luigi, defending the indefensible and I feel like that is what I am up against is like trying to

tackle um the sorts of narratives that are coming from big companies which do have resource. They also have a lot of

have resource. They also have a lot of experience in the in you know going into the commission going you know where I'm kind of working this commission the Roberta commission is the first that

I've come across that is actually calling up civil society and inviting them into the room. That is a really positive step. It's basically never

positive step. It's basically never happened before. So you know even

happened before. So you know even consumers supposedly when we were still obsessed with the consumer welfare standard consumer organizations were never at any of these conferences. only

in the last five five or so years Bayook and a couple of others have come into um the the discussion. So I think bringing in those people communicating it in ways

um that actually connect with people as as Spencer is saying and as as Marian pointed out and I think we have a lot to learn from you Sean.

I my only quick comment to you is I don't disagree with anything other than all the polling they've ever done would suggest that the digital issues are not resonating with the average American

citizen. So, uh while it may be a

citizen. So, uh while it may be a priority for you, I've never seen a poll done that shows that those are issues that American voters care about. I mean,

it's just super tricky when some of the other issues I would say would be more fertile ground to generate political support. All right, I think with that uh

support. All right, I think with that uh I want to thank all of our pan panelists. I appreciate the slide word

panelists. I appreciate the slide word exchange.

[Applause]