Suddenly baby formula has joined cat food as the thing we can’t seem to find on the shelves of our stores in the land of plenty. Abbott Labs, one of the few producers of the stuff in this country, shut down their big formula plant in Michigan back in February due to contamination, and hasn’t been able to get it back on line (It’s already May, what the hell have you been doing up there in Michigan, Abbott?). As with so many industries in this country, the formula business has consolidated to only a few manufacturers, in spite of the dizzying numbers of brands, making it easy for a single failure point to create a shortage.
Suddenly the blowhards in Congress and their media horse holders are talking about the possible need for a national baby formula stockpile. Really? A National Baby Formula Stockpile? Where would we keep it? With the stockpile of PPE we don’t have for the next pandemic? Maybe with our dwindling tritium stockpile.
It didn’t have to be this way. For the last forty years, every administration has made believe that our anti-trust legislation didn’t exist. Every One. The slightest suggestion that a merger or acquisition might not be in the national interest was cause for charges of socialism, or some other anti-industry shibboleth. Cable mergers? Sure, lets scrunch ‘em all together; it’ll make for more efficiency and lead to content creation giants. It’s led to giants alright, but not to the benefit of the public. The same is true for the wireless phone industry. The beneficiaries have been the phone executives and the M&A law firms.
Anti-trust is that area of government that doesn’t get much attention until the American public begins reaping the results of its non-enforcement. That’s what’s happening right now, but the press has the attention span of a teenager, so don’t look for them to do their supposed constitutional due diligence.
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