The Dubious Legal Theory That Could Make Life Even More Expensive For Americans
The Dubious Legal Theory That Could Make Life Even More Expensive For Americans
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Nearly everyone is concerned about the rising cost of everything from groceries to health care to housing. But now there’s a crazy new antitrust legal theory that could make every day purchases MORE expensive.
Under this theory it could become illegal for a Walmart, Safeway or Amazon to seek savings from discount purchases of everything from soft drinks, meats, clothing and toothpaste to pass on to consumers. Trial lawyers argue that “volume purchasing” gives an unfair advantage to the nationwide retailers of the world over smaller retailers and merchants. No more volume discounts. (RELATED: TRENT ENGLAND: GOP’s Outside-Funded Lawsuit Crackdown Is Trojan Horse For Woke Corporations)
A new lobbying group called the Main Street Competition Coalition aims to re-weaponize a Depression-era law to do just this. The Robinson-Patman Act (RPA) should have long ago been repealed but wasn’t because no one took the antiquated relic seriously after courts and regulators abandoned and limited it.
Then came Biden Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan — an Antitrust super-regulator — who wanted to use that law as a........
