The Democratic senator thinks that more regulation will make her a hero, but it’s a sub-par idea.
The Democratic senator thinks that more regulation will make her a hero, but it’s a sub-par idea.
O n his last episode as a member of the Saturday Night Live cast, Bill Murray was featured in a classic sketch in the role of the Earl of Sandwich. The earl, at a party attended by other English aristocrats for whom various items would eventually be named (from the historical Earl of Cardigan to the decidedly ahistorical Lord and Lady Douchebag), has figured out a new way to dine on steak, provided, of course, by Lord Salisbury. By placing two pieces of pumpernickel bread on either side of the meat, he is able to eat with his hands.
Presumably, the earl’s trade secret did not remain a secret for long. Soon, people everywhere who wanted to enjoy tasty meats and cheeses without using a knife and fork picked up on the idea by picking up a sandwich.
But word of the sandwich’s global ubiquity has evidently not reached Senator Elizabeth Warren, who this week welcomed an investigation into whether Roark Capital’s plans to buy Subway and merge it with other brands like Jimmy John’s, Arby’s, and McAlister’s constituted a “sandwich shop monopoly.” (It’s rather delicious that the private-equity company she has made her foe is named for the Ayn Rand character.)
“We don’t need another private equity deal that could lead to higher food prices for consumers,” the Massachusetts Democrat wrote on X. “The FTC is right to investigate whether the purchase of Subway by the same firm that owns Jimmy John’s and McAlister’s Deli creates a sandwich shop monopoly.”
Presumably, Warren thinks that when Arby’s says they “have the meats,” they hold exclusive control of America’s strategic roast-beef reserves. Warren was appropriately toasted online, with economists mocking her belief that sandwich shops can create a monopoly by simply “seiz(ing) the Meats of Production.”
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.”
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.
Further, regulating Big Sandwich would give America’s most insufferable people — those who argue online about what constitutes a “sandwich” — police powers. Is a hamburger a sandwich? A hot dog? Is a quesadilla a sandwich? How about that KFC sandwich that uses two fried-chicken patties as the bun? (Mark the Double Down right next to the Constitution as evidence of American exceptionalism.)
In fact, there have been frequent changes in sandwich technology that altered the definition of a sandwich. Take the Kansas City man who in 1910 plaintively asked, “The Club Sandwich—Why?”:
Where is the man with soul so dead and a mouth large enough to get this triple deck between his teeth for the purpose of biting and masticating? It can’t be done. . . . With this newfangled sandwich, the chef doesn’t stop at the reasonable limits, but he goes ahead and adds more of the chicken and bacon filling, placing the third and final piece of toast at the top. . . . I’d like to have some healthy acrobat show me how it can be eaten.
Imagine the history of America if Warren and her team of regulators could ban the club sandwich’s innovative third slice of bread! We would have had no Big Macs, and Mayor McCheese would be in prison even as the Hamburglar roamed free.
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.)
But if Warren truly wanted to keep sandwich costs down, there are any number of steps she could take to do so.
For instance, she could refuse to vote for trillions of dollars in new government spending that slathers the economy with money like Russian dressing. It is a settled fact that President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 stimulus package in 2021 (as well as trillions in subsequent spending) contributed to America’s recent bout of inflation. Big checks cut to individuals and state governments made everyone flush with cash, and when that happens, prices rise.
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.
Further, Warren and her colleagues could end costly tariffs on produce imports, which allow Americans to consume fresh fruits and vegetables all year round. These protectionist taxes have been supported by Republicans for years — most recently, in 2022, Florida senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott filed a petition with the United States trade representative asking for an investigation into the importation of “inexpensive” Mexican cucumbers, bell peppers, squash, strawberries, and blueberries, which the senators claimed hurt Florida farmers. But any attempt to either tax those products or restrict their entry will necessarily increase costs for U.S. consumers.
(And, of course, Warren is a staunch protectionist herself, releasing trade plans that even liberal columnists criticize as being too extreme.)
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.
Suppose we woke one day in the cold-cut hell of Warren’s nightmares. What would happen? Well, for one, you could take a date to Jimmy John’s or Subway without fear of looking like a cheapskate. (“A FOOT-LONG meatball sub? For ME? Are you Jeff Bezos?”)
Other than that, nothing much would happen. People would simply make their own sandwiches at home, and the cost of restaurant sandwiches would come down. (As much as I enjoy an Italian sub slathered in oil and vinegar, I only occasionally consider it necessary to keeping me alive.)
Take what happened at a 1913 baseball game in New York: A man named Harry Stevens set up a stand to sell quarter-cut sandwiches for 25 cents apiece. The 10,000 fans trapped in the stadium were reportedly outraged by the high cost of the food, so the market took over.
“The fans met this boost by refusing to buy and prices have sagged back to the first level,” reads an account of the game in the Buffalo News. (The story further lauds the New York crowd for the peaceful resolution of the price-gouging incident, in contrast to a similar event in Philadelphia in which the vendors were held upside down and pelted with their own sandwiches. Brotherly love, indeed.)
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest,” wrote Adam Smith in 1776, in one of the most famous passages from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. “We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love.”
In other words, Subway and Jimmy John’s don’t make us happy out of the goodness of their own hearts; they do so because they can make themselves happy by turning a profit. And those companies know how to do that far better than central planners like Elizabeth Warren, who want everyone to be equitably miserable, without even a pickle on the side.