The Capitol Forum Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Today on Second Request, Executive Editor Teddy Downey sits down with Sacha Sloan a senior correspondent at The Capitol Forum to discuss Sacha's recent reporting on potential collusion in the microchip sector. Together they discuss how coordinated production cuts, reduced capital expenditures, and public signaling by major NAND manufacturers are contributing to a sharp supply crunch and record price increases. 

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2026 could make or break Roblox. That's because the multi-billion dollar children's video game company is mired in dozens of private lawsuits on top of multiple probes from several state governments, the FTC and the DOJ. In this episode of The Capitol Forum Investigates, reporter Ethan Ehrenhaft sits down with Arjun Singh to talk about the future of Roblox in the wake of major allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse on its platform.

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Why is it so expensive to build a house in America?

That's a question economists, politicians and pundits have argued at length about, but can't agree on. In today's episode of Second Request, executive editor Teddy Downey sits down with Steven Xiao, Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Texas at Dallas Naveen Jindal School of Management and Ph.D candidate Zheng Liu for a robust discussion about how concentration in the homebuilding sector has led to increased costs and prices.

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Jeff Horwitz is a Wall Street Journal technology reporter who covers Facebook.  He is the lead reporter on the groundbreaking series of articles titled The Facebook Files.  The conversation covers myriad issues facing Facebook and we ask Jeff why, when facing choices between the public interest and growth on the platform, Mark Zuckerberg always chooses growth.

Evan Starr, Associate Professor of Management & Organization at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, discusses the likely economic benefits of the FTC banning non-compete agreements, including a boost to wages and worker mobility.

Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project, discusses the debate around monopoly and inflation.  Matt also shares his predictions for the antimonopoly movement in 2022.

Luke Herrine, author of “The Folklore of Unfairness.” Herrine’s article, published recently in the New York University Law Review, argues that conventional wisdom – which holds that the FTC in the 1970s pursued an expansive notion of its unfairness authority but failed spectacularly – “gets the law and the history wrong.”

Instead, argues Herrine, the commission’s actions in the 1970s were quite popular, and the FTC Act’s ban on “unfair…acts and practices” is therefore “more potent than commonly assumed.” That argument could take on new urgency as current FTC Chair Lina Khan seeks to push the boundaries of the commission’s authority.

Stacy Mitchell is co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and directs its Independent Business Initiative, which produces research and designs policy to counter concentrated corporate power and strengthen local economies.

 ILSR’s new report, Amazon’s Toll road, finds that “Amazon is exploiting its position as a gatekeeper to impose steep and growing fees on third-party sellers” and that “even as these exorbitant fees bankrupt sellers, they are generating huge profits for Amazon, a fact that the tech giant conceals in its financial reports.”

Jeff Hauser is the founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, which is an influential organization that scrutinizes executive branch appointees to ensure they serve the public interest rather than large corporations’ interests.

 The Revolving Door Project’s newest polling and analysis memo, “Corporate Crackdown” concludes that there is broad, bipartisan support for a President who is willing to stand up to entrenched corporate power and illegal corporate conduct.

Brendan Ballou is a trial attorney at DOJ’s antitrust division and author of “The 'No Collusion' Rule,” published earlier this year in the Stanford Law & Policy Review. In that article, Ballou proposes that the FTC, under its unfair methods of competition authority, should pursue a “no collusion” rulemaking , which would seek to prevent companies from raising prices simply because their competitor has done so.