With little more than two weeks to go until the midterm elections, it seems increasingly possible that the Democrats, already a big favorite to win control of the House of Representatives, will also take charge of the planet's most elite nursing home, the United States Senate, where the median age is 64 years old.
asserted
age → go → home
Real Clear Politics' poll aggregator has moved control of "the world's greatest deliberative body" (as its members are grandiosely wont to call it) to "toss up," status and prediction markets are now breaking big toward a blue wave.
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markets → move → wave
As of this writing, Kalshi has its Senate odds at 63 percent for the Dems vs. 37 percent for the GOP; Polymarket is at 62 percent vs. 39 percent.
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Polymarket → have → percent
As gratifying as it might be to see unprincipled Trump enablers reduced to minority status after signing off on economy-wrecking tariffs, inhumane immigration detentions, and wars of choice, there's at least one good reason to dread a Democratic majority too: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts progressive who is spending the run-up to the midterms freaking out over possible consolidation in the condiments business and accusing private equity firms of gutting such shopping-mall favorites as Claire's and Toys R Us.
uncertain
who → see → Claire
There's every reason to believe that a Senate run by Warren and other economic interventionists will waste time, money, and resources trying to prevent a world in which, per the X wag Iowahawkblog, "a panopticon conglomerate owns two brands of hot sauce.
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conglomerate → be → sauce
On October 13, Warren posted this dire warning to X:
Hellmann's mayo
McCormick spices
Cholula hot sauce
Frank's RedHotWhat do these products have in common?
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products → post → RedHotWhat
One company could soon control them all.
uncertain
company → control → them
I have concerns that McCormick and Unilever's $45 billion merger could increase YOUR grocery prices.
uncertain
merger → have → prices
It's hard to think of a more competitive and varied market than the one for hot sauces, which is expected to more than double over the next decade.
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which → think → decade
The barriers to entry are generally low, as are the key ingredients, and new entrants can easily market and sell online, avoiding the costs of buying shelf space in conventional supermarkets.
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entrants → market → supermarkets
Yet Warren is urging regulators at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to halt mergers of both product makers like McCormick and Unilever and grocery stores like Kroger and Giant Eagle.
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Warren → urge → Kroger
Kroger is one of the country's largest supermarket chains, operating around 2,800 stores under its own name as well as Harris Teeter, Ralph's, and others.
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Kroger → operate → name
Giant Eagle operates about 170 stores.
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Eagle → operate → stores
This merger no more the stuff of nightmares than a single company producing both Cholula and Frank's RedHot.
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merger → produce → Cholula
If Warren gains more clout from being in the majority, expect her to butt in more and more on such mergers.
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her → gain → mergers
Making it harder for businesses to adapt is not a recipe for making goods and services more affordable.
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goods → make → ?
But Warren is keen to blame economic creative destruction not on "new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates" (as Joseph Schumpeter would have it), but on pure greed.
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Schumpeter → blame → greed
In a TikTok released earlier this month, she shows a poster board with corporate logos from once-thriving companies that she says have been "gutted" by "private equity" firms.
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she → release → firms
"Here's your local mall," she piously intones.
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she → intone → ?
"Now, private equity wants you to believe that Red Lobster went bankrupt because of their endless shrimp…
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Lobster → want → shrimp
.They want you to believe that Claire's went bankrupt because teens stopped shopping at the mall."
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teens → want → mall
In Warren's telling, private equity firms magically take over thriving businesses and then strip them bare.
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firms → take → them
The typical pattern is that private equity enters the picture after a business is failing.
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business → enter → picture
Virtually all accounts of the decline of, for example, Red Lobster, note that the chain had been spiraling for several reasons before the private equity firm Golden Gate Capital got involved in 2014.
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firm → note → 2014
As this CNN article notes, the chain, which started in 1968, had seen drops in sales as customer desires changed.
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desires → note → sales
Management compounded the difficulties with a series of bad decisions, including continuing various all-you-can-eat menu specials before coming out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.
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you → compound → bankruptcy
Similarly, it's true that some teens still go to malls and get their ears pierced at Claire's.
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ears → go → Claire
But anyone who has spent time in retail America over the past few decades knows that malls are no longer the destination that they once were.
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they → spend → that
As CapitalOne Shopping Research documents, "in 1986, there were 25,000 malls, large and small, nationwide."
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Research → document → 1986
By 2023, that number had shrunk to just 1,200.
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number → shrink → 1,200
While some malls are coming back, most are not, and for reasons that have nothing to do with private equity.
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that → come → equity
Online retails plays a role (though a smaller one than usually imagined, with e-commerce accounting for less than 20 percent of all retail sales).
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commerce → play → sales
But mostly, it's that people today tend to want a different sort of retail environment.
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people → tend → environment
Anchor stores—think Macy's and J.C. Penney—are shadows of themselves, and younger people have less unstructured time in which to prowl food courts and arcades.
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people → think → courts
If her party takes control of the Senate, her words will carry more weight.
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words → take → weight
But it will be American consumers that ultimately shoulder the burden of an even-more-regulated economy.
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that → shoulder → economy
The market for hot sauces will almost certainly stay spicy, but many other parts will surely suffer.
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parts → stay → sauces
The Aporia
