The Cantillon Effect and Credit Cards: The $257 Billion Payments Mess

The Federal Reserve might be increasing or lowering interest rates for Wall Street, but it's the credit card cartel that structures interest rates for the rest of us.

Welcome to BIG, a newsletter on the politics of monopoly power. If you’d like to sign up to receive issues over email, you can do so here. Today I’m writing about credit cards, and how the concentrated nature of the industry undermines business and monetary policy. Plus I’ll have some thoughts on Amazon’s purchase of One Medical and the retail giant’s recent acquisition spree. In The Man Who Broke Capitalism, journalist David Gelles profiles how General Electric CEO Jack Welch transformed an icon of America from an industrial giant to a financial house of cards. Preferring to issue…

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