In a discussion about the problems getting baby formula, Rep. Katie Porter talked about how monopolies makes everything more vulnerable.
"It's so crazy, isn't it? We're talking about baby formula, which seems outrageous," Joe Scarborough said.
"We can't get parents baby formula? You just talked about it. There is such a market concentration throughout our economy. We're talking about this whether you're talking about baby formula, computer chips, during covid we couldn't get masks, we couldn't get medication because China was making 95% of the medicines. There is such a market concentration, this is literally a national security issue, isn't it?"
"Absolutely. Particularly with food, we have long understood that we need to be able to produce our own food," Porter said.
"I think the exact same thing is true about other essentials including medication. The solution is to make sure there are not just one or two companies controlling things, but instead that we have a lot of different producers in different parts of the country.
"We have monopolies today in virtually everything. There is a bread monopoly, there's a cereal monopoly, beef monopoly. So we need to create this competition. It's going to help not only consumers, but small businesses wanting to enter these marketplaces. More competition is better for our economy, period. The only people who benefit from monopolies are the monopolists themselves."
"Back to inflation as we close," Mika Brzezinski said.
"How do Democrats message on this? Americans are busy, they're looking at the cost of gas and groceries. I think there's a concern that Democrats will say we have the solution. You can't have the solution to a problem that has so many conflicting factors to it, some of them uncontrollable. so within that reality, how do Democrats message effectively on this?"
"Democrats need to be talking about inflation and show we are putting forth solutions and delivering on them," Porter said.
"There's not just one bill, there's no magic thing to do about inflation, but there are steps we can take and we are taking them. We took votes last week, we're taking votes this week. What Republicans are doing is just complaining about inflation. Democrats are trying to do something about it.
"It's a complex process, but we are in action for the American people, and that's what they need to understand."
