The Briefcase: Don Jr., Russia, and Anti-Trust Feedback

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Today, we discuss the reporting regarding Donald Trump, Jr., and the Russian influence in the United States today. 

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Donald Trump, Jr.'s behavior has us reeling. Plus, we discuss Leah's feedback on our antitrust episode: 

On antitrust, your discussion of the very grey area was so important. I'm a policy lawyer in the agricultural industry, and consolidation and mergers are a huge topic for our industry like most. Obviously, there are concerns about putting market share into less and less companies, and I share those concerns. At the same time, the costs, for example, of bringing new seed or a new drug to market are prohibitive and possibly insurmountable for any new/small company to actually hurdle. So, along with this discussion of what the corporations are doing to limit market access, is a question of, has the government through regulation or other means also (unintentionally) encouraged that consolidation and lack of market access? I'm totally in support of reasonable regulation and I see the need for a lot of the reviews/permits/etc that have to be done for many of these companies that create high tech solutions like seeds, pharmaceuticals/etc. At the same time, if those requirements are making it impossible for new innovation to be explored (and if that new innovation is not going to be properly funded through public research-but that's another issue) than aren't we (collectively as the govt/people demanding this) at least contributing to the issue of the consolidation?

We also appreciate our listener Sarah explaining that paper was indeed invented by a person at a specific time: 

Sarah, you made an off-hand comment in the latest episode about how no one really invented paper, and societies all simultaneously invented it. It was actually invented in China in 105 AD by Tsai Lun. Papyrus, because it is woven, is not technically paper, so it was definitely invented in China at one time (approximately).