Three Events That Speak to the Harris Economic Agenda

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The Mars-Kellanova merger, the Kroger-Albertsons court case, and the monopolization lawsuit against RealPage all bolster her case against price-fixing.

by David Dayen August 29, 2024

SNIP In the battle of running mates, you have one of the starkest polling differences in recent history, an energizing high school football coach versus someone who repels half the population. The Trump campaign has been flailing for six weeks, and a ticket wanting to distance itself from the epithet of being “weird” has now allied itself with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Recent real-world events are also falling into place for the Democratic nominee. Harris’s first set of economic pronouncements focused on the cost of food and housing. It turns out that evidence of precisely the harms she has identified has come out of courtrooms and corporate press releases over the last couple of weeks. In her prime-time interview on CNN tonight, Harris can cite these developments as a basis for her policies.

For example, earlier this month Mars, Inc., announced a $30 billion proposed merger with Kellanova, a company created from the snack foods in the Kellogg stable. (Kellogg retained the brands in its cereal business.) If successful, the merger would put M&M’s, 3 Musketeers, Milky Way, Altoids, Twix, Starburst, Combos, Kind Bars, Life Savers, Snickers, Skittles, Pringles, Cheez-It, Pop-Tarts, Carr’s, Town House, Zesta, Nutri-Grain, Rice Krispies Treats, Eggo, RXBAR, Special K, and MorningStar under the same corporate parent. Essentially all chewing gum brands in America would be owned by this company as well.

The Harris agenda that she promoted in a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, on August 16 has caught the most attention for endorsing a federal price-gouging law on groceries. But just as prominent was her insistence in a campaign fact sheet that “extreme consolidation in the food industry has led to higher prices that account for a large part of higher grocery bills.” Harris vowed to “crack down on unfair mergers and acquisitions that give big food corporations the power to jack up food and grocery prices and undermine the competition that allows all businesses to thrive while keeping prices low for consumers.”
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-08-29-three-events-harris-economic-agenda/