The FTC Makes Merger Arb More Fun
Also Citadel Securities and naked short selling, robot junior bankers, ESG shorting, greenwashing, Jon Corzine and SBF.
One idea that you sometimes hear is that, when the broad stock market steadily goes up each year, that is bad for investment managers. If the S&P 500 index just goes up 15% per year, then anyone can do great by buying an index fund, and the benefits of picking the best stocks are lower. Highly paid active managers distinguish themselves more in choppy markets, where picking the right stocks is distinctly more valuable than picking the wrong ones.
Similarly you could imagine an antitrust enforcement regime in which the US Federal Trade Commission almost never tries to block mergers, except in the most egregious cases of monopoly power. In this regime: