” Kamala Harris Is No Socialist, Socialist, or Nixon”, Jill Lawrence assures us. Fine. But are we know?
I’m not sure if anyone has asked me, but as someone who frequently calls democrats” commies,” I believe I may help explain why many voters are receiving the wrong impression.
For one thing, giving self-professed communists Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders prime-time slots at the Democratic National Convention might send mixed signals to some independent voters.
Nominating a vice-presidential candidate who once taught high school students that the Maoist program, one of the most ( if not the most ) violent and dehumanizing governments in history, is a place where “everyone stocks” and receives complimentary food and housing? That was n’t good, either.
Having said that, you undoubtedly do n’t need to place value controls on one of the pillars of your financial plan.
Kamala Harris certainly is n’t the first politician to suggest controlling politically inconvenient prices, but history has conclusively proven that price caps cause shortages, hoarding, black markets, and an array of other unpleasant outcomes.
If you’re going to explain this plan by blaming the “price gouging” phenomenon and spreading the ingrained myth that cabals of evil guys in competitive markets can band together to control prices, it’s going to boost alarm bells.
There is n’t a scintilla of evidence that “price gouging” — a conveniently elastic term, to begin with — exists. Great Grocery is one of the least lucrative large companies in the country, with a profit margin of just under 2 percent every year. This is the lowest point on the historical profit spectrum. Regular margins, while making a profit, demonstrate that price increases are driven by inflation rather than some irrational plot.
Food prices had been low and declining prior to the government shutting down the market during the Covid pandemic. Probably because” Big Grocery” is also one of the most competitive industries in the country, with many national bars, local stores, higher-end businesses, inexpensive big-box stores, and online rivals, including Amazon.
However, we’re supposed to assume that one day, as general inflation reached a 30-year high, everyone in the food industry banded together to work together to raise prices in a way that matched overall prices. They think you’re stupid.
In an embarrassing Axios defense of Kamala’s plan, headlined” Do n’t call it price controls: How price gouging bans really work”, Emily Peck contends that” Harris ‘ economic proposals, broadly speaking, are meant to help middle-class Americans deal with a higher cost of living”.
Oh, is that what they’re meant to perform? Forbes informs us that states now have harmless anti-gouging laws in place for emergencies. ( Yes, those are also fully contradictory. ” Price gouging” during emergency shortages helps alleviate hoarding. )
In any case, Peck is forced to depend on the expertise of far-left Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout, who is known for advocating price caps, to demonstrate the harmless and widespread character of anti-“price ripping” rules.
Which brings me to The New York Times ‘ Paul Krugman, who argues Kamala actually is n’t backing price settings, per se, but only a moratorium on “price cutting on shopping”— which he certainly knows is a myth. Kamala’s program is nothing but a “populist social gesture”, the Nobel Prize-winning analyst explains.
We may believe that the presidential candidate also supports enacting Elizabeth Warren’s” Price Gouging Prevention Act,” which, despite the claims of Axios and Krugman, would grant the Federal Trade Commission broad-ranging, punitive federal authority to dictate pricing on groceries. The candidate has n’t offered any concrete plans. Our personal Gosplan. I have some good news for you if you think that state regulatory bodies will use this authority wisely.
But, sure, it’s a bad mark that Kamala intends to combat inflation using failed socialist policy treatments. Let’s not forget, though, the next day Harris vowed to help resolve prices, she was the “tie-breaking ballot” on the energy to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into an overheated market.
It’s fair to say that inflation is a complex, multifaceted issue that is n’t entirely any one entity’s fault. The Biden administration did everything to exacerbate inflation, ignoring warning signs, cramming through massive partisan spending bills using parliamentary tricks, and all the while undermining energy production, you do n’t need to be a socialist lawyer from Fordham to understand that.
Last I heard Kamala was a member of that administration.
Has Harris suggested price caps on groceries because she supports radical Marxism? Unlikely. The power-hungry politician’s tendency to embrace collectivist and zero-sum economic thinking is merely a sign of an authoritarian demagogue. Kamala is not Stalin. She’s more like some middling Latin American dictator. That’s bad enough.
