Elizabeth Warren Has Declared War On 'Big Sandwich' And The National Review Will Not Stand For It

If they don't stand up for the little guy sandwich monopolies, who will?

Earlier this week, Elizabeth Warren posted on social media in support of the FTC investigating private equity firm Roark Capital (yes, the name references exactly what you think it references) for attempting to create a mediocre-at-best sandwich shop monopoly by purchasing Subway when it already owns Jimmy John’s and McAlister’s Deli.

“We don't need another private equity deal that could lead to higher food prices for consumers.” Warren wrote on social media on Monday. “The FTC is right to investigate whether the purchase of SUBWAY by the same firm that owns jimmyjohns and McAlistersDeli creates a sandwich shop monopoly.”

Was she wrong? Absolutely not. Private equity is ruining this country. But a bunch of right-wing pro-monopoly weirdos went bananas in the responses to her with comments mocking the idea of “Big Sandwich” being a serious problem for the government to deal with.

In fact, right-wing media has been whining about it all week, leading up to today, when the National Review published a Very Serious op-ed attacking Warren for the tweet and arguing that it is impossible for there to be a sandwich monopoly on the grounds that anyone can make a sandwich.

No, really.

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Via National Review:

Of course, to Warren and her progressive ilk, a “monopoly” is simply a company that has gotten so successful it suddenly deserves regulation. As Adam Smith put it, “a monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures.”

Is “progressives want to punish success” the new “they hate us for our freedoms” or “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful?” Hard to tell!

All I am sure about is that if Christian Schneider, the author of that piece, disagrees with my analysis of what he wrote, it will be exclusively because he is jealous of my beautiful singing voice.

Obviously, larger companies are going to be subject to more regulation, not because anyone is mad at their success and doesn’t want them to be happy, but because mistakes they make will have a larger impact. Though to be clear, I feel fairly confident that the rule that businesses with fewer than 15 employees are not subject to federal anti-discrimination laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Civil Rights Act (though state laws may differ) was not thought up by the Left.

But, of course, there is no monopoly on sandwich-making primarily because there is no trade secret. It is simply surrounding a filling with two slices of bread. This is a process so rudimentary that people do it at home. They do it on picnics. They do it with lettuce and braunschweiger. They do it with peanut butter and jelly. It is a meal so simple we teach children to make it themselves.

This point was also argued by an obvious genius in Warren’s replies, who wrote “Anyone can make a sandwich, even you probably. It's bread and lunch meat. A monopoly can't exist in the 'sandwich shop' sector.”

If only Warren’s correspondent and Schneider had been around nearly a decade ago to tell Jimmy John’s there are no sandwich secrets, the company never would have forced workers to sign non-compete agreements.

It can, however, exist in the “large sandwich shop chain” sector and that is also a problem. This isn’t about controlling all of the sandwiches; no one is suggesting that if this company buys Subway that no one will be able to make their own sandwiches at home. This is about the fact that it is a legitimate interest of the FTC to ensure that one company doesn’t have a controlling interest in a segment of any industry.

The fact is, private equity firms kinda ruin everything. Roark also bought Dunkin’ Donuts (now just Dunkin’, which remains weird) and what did they come out with this year? A coffee beverage with Munchkins mixed in. Now, we all love Ice Spice, but that is very unappealing!

It doesn’t stop at wet-bread frappes. Private equity firms buying up lots of individual companies leads to job losses, lower wages and higher prices across the board. And when they get involved with prisons or nursing homes, things can actually get dangerous.

Schneider goes on to try to make jokes about people who ask whether or not things are sandwiches online and to reference an op-ed from 1910 titled “The Club Sandwich — Why?” and suggesting that if ol’ Liz Warren were in charge back then that there would be no club sandwiches. Because that’s what this is about. Actual sandwich regulation.

He then tried to make the case that such a move would actually lower prices for consumers, a thing that has never, ever, ever happened in the history of ever.

If one is concerned about the cost of sandwiches, it actually makes a fair bit of sense for some of the large food companies to consolidate. If Subway can now share computer systems, shipping routes, and advertising accounts with Arby’s and Jimmy John’s, those companies might be able to cut costs and pass those savings on to consumers. (Who, in turn, would reward them by buying more of their sandwiches.)

The savings will never, ever be passed onto consumers.

He also has a swell theory that “greedflation” only happened because customers wanted to pay more for things, not because companies used actual inflation to cover for raising prices to line their own pockets.

Warren has spent years arguing that the rising cost of goods is the result of “greedflation” — corporations boosting prices during hard times to goose their profits. But not only do such price hikes typically take place in the wake of a recession, the idea of “greedflation” gets consumer spending wrong in exactly the opposite way. Companies charge more because consumers have more money, not because they have less. A report by the Kansas City Federal Reserve showed that, most recently, household income actually rose during the pandemic-induced recession. And thus consumers were willing to pay more for goods. And yet the White House and others blamed increasing meat prices on Big Meat rather than on both consumers’ desire for beef and their ability to pay for it.

That’s still greed. People were willing to pay more for things, for a time, due to scarcity and being in an emergency situation. Keeping prices that high post-scarcity? That’s greed.

The best part of this whole thing, however — where Schneider shows he really gets it — is where he suggests that if Warren really wanted sandwich prices to go down, she and other progressives should fight for poverty wages, not against.

Finally, Democrats insist on increasing the cost of hiring individuals to work in these sandwich restaurants, as state and local governments continue to hike minimum wages for hourly employees. Those increased costs are either recouped by hiring fewer employees or passing the costs on to consumers.

Again, part of the issue with private equity companies is that they very frequently cause wages to go down. We want people to make a decent living so they can afford to eat sandwiches themselves. This is not hard!

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The issue isn’t the gross sandwiches at Subway or Jimmy John’s (I am still recovering from the time I had a bite of a Jimmy John’s sandwich sometime in the aughts — it was very upsetting!). The issue is private equity firms getting away with too much and controlling too much of any economic sector.

We need to be looking at what private equity firms are doing, because whether the people mocking Warren want to understand this or not, this is something that affects all of us — it hurts the economy and it hurts our ability as consumers to vote with our dollar.