Organized Money

Episodi

• 
  The Roll-Up of All Media Is No Longer Inevitable (with Adam Conover) 28.07.2026 1h 2min

  Comedian and podcaster Adam Conover of Adam Ruins Everything, Factually, and so much else, is here to help ruin the Paramount merger, literally! Today on the show, we break down the breakdown in the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, as the state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America West lawsuits have led to a pause until next year. We cover the events leading up to this turn, then get Adam's take on the situation. Adam is especially well-suited to comment on the merge...
• 
  The Prescription Drug Playbook (From An Arm And A Leg) 21.07.2026 45min

  It’s summer break over here at Organized Money, but don’t worry, we have a great story for you from our friends over at An Arm And A Leg: A show about why healthcare costs so damn much, and what we can do about it. Last year they did a series called The Prescription Drug Playbook, documenting all the ways we get screwed in the marketplace, and we, individually, can make the best of an unfair situation.You’ll meet a dad on a mission to get his daughter’s epilepsy medication at a fair price, a ...
• 
  The Supreme Court Gives Wall Street Its Own Regulator 14.07.2026 59min

  Last week, the Supreme Court handed down two seemingly contradictory rulings: one, allowing Trump to fire the independent commissioners on the FTC, and the other, protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve from executive whim. To make sense of these two cases, we’re bringing back one of those fired FTC commissioners (and Organized Money MVP) Alvaro Bedoya, host of The Fair Fight with Alvaro and Max. Together, Matt, David, and Alvaro break down the cases, what effects they’ll have on...
• 
  Curbing America's Gambling Problem 07.07.2026 1h 1min

  Today on Organized Money, a dispatch from Minnesota, one of the most exciting states in terms of regulating corporate power. Recently, Minnesota passed a bipartisan bill banning prediction markets in the state. Within a day, they were being sued to block the legislation. On the show today, we have Minnesota State Representative Emma Greenman, who introduced the house bill, to discuss it, her work, and what state bodies can do in the face of a negligent federal government. They also di...
• 
  How To Think About AI (with Cory Doctorow) 30.06.2026 1h 8min

  One of our favorite guests is back! The writer, thinker, and general polymath, Cory Doctorow is here with a new book and a new episode of Organized Money! After a brief detour into mid-century chili recipes, Matt, David, and Cory discuss The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, a "short, provocative guide to what’s good, bad, and stupid about AI". Cory argues that in order to co-exist with AI, we must harness it as a tool for labor, rather than as a tool to discipline labor—which...
• 
  How States Can Regulate Big Oil 23.06.2026 51min

  This week, we’re continuing a recent Organized Money conversation in order to answer the question: Why is California’s gasoline so damn expensive? Famously, California has higher fuel standards than the rest of the nation, as well as higher gas taxes, but that’s only one part of a much more complex pricing picture. Today on the show, we welcome Tai Milder, the inaugural director of an exciting new division within the California Energy Commission that regulates oil and gas. He is also ...
• 
  Meta Is Dying 16.06.2026 1h

  Last month, the veteran journalist Julia Angwin wrote an op-ed, “Meta Is Dying. It’s About Time,” which details the ways in which Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp have become a kind of zombie business: Think Yahoo, Myspace, and AOL after their dot-com peaks. On this episode, we invite Julia on the show to discuss her op-ed and dance on Meta's grave—just a little, because it turns out a dying company can still be a dangerous one. From Meta's money-burning forays into the metaverse, failed acq...
• 
  California Dreamin'...Of A Slush Fund For Uber 09.06.2026 53min

  California is known as a bastion of blue state values, but when you start to look at how the state’s legislative sausage gets made, you start to notice how completely borked America’s most populous regulatory state has become. Today on the show, we have Jamie Court, a consumer advocate and president and chairman of Consumer Watchdog, to break down California’s weirdness and some of his organization's recent work. First, we discuss how industries like insurance and ridesharing have cap...
• 
  Why Farmers and Filmmakers Both Face Monopoly 02.06.2026 58min

  While David is out on vacation, Matt is joined by Organized Money alum Alvaro Bedoya as co-host this week. He's a former FTC commissioner and host of the new podcast The Fair Fight with Alvaro & Max.The idea for today's show came to us when Lance Lillibridge, an Iowa farmer and past president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, wrote on Facebook: "As a farmer, watching the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger debate sounds awfully familiar. A handful of dominant firms get bigg...
• 
  The Mechanic Vs. The Billionaire With Dan Osborne 26.05.2026 36min

  Union steamfitter Dan Osborne nearly pulled off a Senate upset in Nebraska two years ago. Now he's back, facing billionaire heir and former governor Pete Ricketts in one of the quietly critical races for Senate control. David sat down with Osborne in Omaha to talk about what's changed and what hasn't. They cover the real squeeze on family farmers, why anti-monopoly messaging is starting to resonate with everyday voters, Citizens United, and what it actually costs a working person to run for o...
• 
  Who Killed Spirit Airlines? 12.05.2026 56min

  Spirit Airlines is dead, and everyone is pointing fingers: Was it the war in Iran that killed Spirit? Joe Biden's Justice Department? Antitrust regulation? Jet fuel? Lina Khan!?? Today on the show we demystify Spirit's demise with William J. McGee, Senior Fellow for Aviation and Travel at the American Economic Liberties Project. William is a long-time consumer advocate in the air travel space and has watched as the deregulation project which began in the 1970s has slowly whittled down c...
• 
  The Conservative Who Torments Big Business 05.05.2026 57min

  Ashley Keller is a pioneer in getting corporations to pay up. As an attorney and founding partner of the firm Keller Postman, only recently he pioneered an influential mass arbitration strategy, argued a case against Monsanto at the Supreme Court, and is fighting Google on behalf of several states in a major ad tech antitrust case. Keller is also an avowed conservative and originalist. For him, there's no contradiction between fighting for conservative principles and antitrust enforcement. ...
• 
  The Chatbot Will See You Now: Big Tech In Therapy 28.04.2026 52min

  Today on the show Matt and David are joined by Linda Michaels, a psychologist and co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network, to discuss all the creepy ways technology companies are weaseling themselves into your therapist's office. From matching services like BetterHelp, to PMC middlemen, and potentially dangerous therapy chatbots, tech companies are seeking to exploit your therapist (and you) by using therapy data for advertising and AI training. They also discuss the business of ...
• 
  Big Oil And Big Plastic Are One And The Same 21.04.2026 55min

  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 demystify the plastics industry with Beth Gardiner, author of the new book Plastic Inc.: The Secret History and Shocking Future of Big Oil's Biggest Bet an expose of the industry that underlies modern consumer culture. Together with Matt and David, th...
• 
  Emergency Pod: The Live Nation Ticketmaster Verdict 17.04.2026 44min

  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 with a surprise settlement. The states picked up the baton from there. Matt and David cover the decision, the history of Ticketmaster’s tangles with Pearl Jam and the Justice Department, and how the current case played out, and what the decision...
• 
  How AIPAC Tries to Dominate the Business of Politics 14.04.2026 58min

  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 against millions of dollars in ad spending from dark money super pacs like "Elect Chicago Women", and "Chicago Progressive Partnership". These vaguely-named pacs were all fronts for AIPAC, the big-spending Pro-Israel lobbying group which threw money...
• 
  Up Ship's Creek: The Crisis At The Strait 06.04.2026 1h 1min

  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 world's oil and other crucial material, such as industrial helium, flow through it. Now, after weeks of bombing and retaliation, the strait is gummed up, with hundreds of ships stranded, little traffic, and no end in sight. We're already seeing prices at t...
• 
  California Attorney General Rob Bonta is Not Done with Ticketmaster 31.03.2026 47min

  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 prove it. David and Matt speak with Bonta about his remarkable portfolio of active fights: the Ticketmaster/Live Nation trial (which the states pressed forward with after the DOJ settled), a price-fixing case against Amazon, social media addiction suit...
• 
  The Business Of Betting On Murder with Sen. Chris Murphy 24.03.2026 48min

  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 exact timing of the attacks. Similar bets were made on the assassination of Iran's Ayatollah, turning an act of murder into a commodity. As these markets have come to embrace acts of violence, often rife with insider trading, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connectic...
• 
  Robbing Them Blind, Baby: The Live Nation Case 16.03.2026 56min

  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 “mind-boggling” by the judge, and surprised counsel on both sides along with many states’ attorneys generals who are also suing Live Nation. Today on the show we break down the case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster (which it acquired back in 2010) with two guests: Gigi Liman, who is reporting on the ...