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Elizabeth Warren and the Globalization of the Whole Enchilada
Senator Elizabeth Warren is in a pickle. And she’s determined to make sure the rest of us are, too.
The Massachusetts senator has discovered a new threat to American democracy: the proposed merger of McCormick & Company and Unilever’s food business. The transaction would bring Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Cholula hot sauce, Frank’s RedHot, Knorr soups, and McCormick spices under one corporate roof. Warren fears that the combination could raise grocery prices, reduce competition, and concentrate too much power in the hands of Big Condiment.
In other words, she is worried that the deal will globalize the whole enchilada.
The senator is apparently convinced that something sinister is cooking. Imagine a world in which the same corporation controls your mayonnaise and your hot sauce. First, they come for your potato salad. Then they come for your tacos. Before you know it, the invisible hand of the marketplace is wearing an oven mitt.
Warren wants regulators to put the merger on ice before consumers find themselves between a rock and a hard taco.
But her argument doesn’t cut the mustard.
