Yes, I know the titling of this sounds a little dry but this podcast is FASCINATING and DISTURBING. Barry Lynn wrote an article for American Prospect last month called "Why Economists Can't See the Economy" and talks about it on this radio program. One example he used was the Pet Food debacle going on right now. The Reagan administration quit enforcing anti-trust laws, leading to fewer and fewer supplies for critical parts- what happens when you have that ONE factory go offline or, as in the case of the pet food, the ingredients going into multiple makeups of pet food come from a particular source that is contaminated?

Some other points from this podcast. We don't apply anti-monopoly law and we end up with holding companies that represent marketplaces. The entire marketplace or what we think of it is owned and operated by private business, which, then, REALLY, acts as the government. Therefore, the whole idea of competition is nonsense, because there are no competitive companies or entities to compete with. (The Trans Texas Corridor, et al are examples of this).

The idea that the economy is characterized by perfect competition has been questioned, and sometimes ridiculed, both inside and outside the academy for ages. Until recently though, there were still many real-world examples of open markets comprising small actors such as farmers, storekeepers, and garage owners. Economists could continue to claim that their theory was valid in the real world, and hence of value to anyone seeking to understand the workings of the real world, because of the relative openness of these markets.

Such competition, though, is less and less the case in any major American marketplace. The radical changes in antitrust law imposed in the early 1980s by the Reagan administration unleashed forces that played out in the enclosure of many previously open markets. By limiting antitrust