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“Dangerous Nonsense”: Larry Summers Warns Democrats’ Price-Gouging Bill Could Backfire
Zubu Brothers ^ | 5-14-2022

Posted on 05/14/2022 1:55:46 PM PDT by blam

Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers slammed moves by Democratic lawmakers to introduce legislation that would counter alleged price gouging, calling it “dangerous nonsense.“

“There is no material prospect that, in any enduring way, gouging legislation can have any substantial effect on inflationary pressure,” Summers told Bloomberg Television‘s David Weinstein. “But it can cause and contrive all kinds of shortages” – as well as undermine moves by companies to boost supply as prices climb, he added.

Congress will vote next week on legislation barring “excessive” or “exploitative” fuel prices. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday backed the bill, saying, “This is a major exploitation of the consumer.” The measure is unlikely to garner the Republican support needed to become law, however. –Bloomberg

Summers got in dig at former President Donald Trump, saying “The ‘price-gouging at the pump’ stuff, the more general price-gouging stuff, is to economic science what President Trump’s remarks about disinfectant-in-your-veins was to medical science,” referring to Trump’s suggestion at the beginning of the pandemic that scientists should explore whether injected disinfectant could be used against Covid-19.

Meanwhile, Summers said it’s unlikely that the Fed will be able to bring inflation down to its 2% target “anytime soon,” and that it may take multiple slowdowns to bring down CPI gains.

He also suggested that consumer-price gains this decade would likely prove larger than they were last decade, when CPI inflation averaged 1.8% through 2019.

“I’m not yet prepared to join the chorus,” Summers said regarding chatter about a Fed inflation target above 2%. “It could conceivably be ultimately right, but I think moving in that direction immediately would very much undermine what limited anti-inflation credibility the Fed has.”

If politicians do want to be helpful, “to the limited extent they can,” Summers offered the following suggestions (via Bloomberg):
◾Reducing tariffs
◾Letting more immigrants into the country
◾Reducing regulatory burdens including the Jones Act — which requires oil to be transported between US ports only by US-built, -flagged and -operated vessels
◾At a time when demand in the economy should be dampened, ask borrowers who are “in better financial condition than any time in a very long time to pay back their student debts, rather than maintaining the moratorium”

“This gouging talk is a diversionary confusion,” he added.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: backfire; democrats; law; prices

1 posted on 05/14/2022 1:55:46 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

The goal is to ruin everything, so pleading with them to do right thing is futile.


2 posted on 05/14/2022 1:59:18 PM PDT by blackdog (Disinformer and Deplorable because I do my own thinking. )
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To: blackdog

Do it Democrats! Prove how STUPID you can be. I double dog dare you.


3 posted on 05/14/2022 2:00:45 PM PDT by OHPatriot (Si vis pacem, para bellum)
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To: blam

The Democrats hate business. They think it is nothing but greed and opportunism.


4 posted on 05/14/2022 2:05:25 PM PDT by RoosterRedux
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To: blackdog

“The goal is to ruin everything.”

You are correct. What is happening is exactly what the leftist Marxists democrats want. See below the Cloward Piven strategy.

Cloward-Piven Strategy

The Cloward-Piven Plan is a 1966 strategy rooted in the ideology of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. Of course the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent compelled Shutdown were perfect executions of manufactured crises.

The extensive and detailed plan was the direct product of these two Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven known as the “Cloward-Piven Strategy”. Cloward-Piven strategy explains how you could hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the entitlement system which would push society into economic crisis and collapse. That would unleash chaos and violence in the streets, opening a door to radical Leftist political change.

Unfortunately, some have listed their 8 point plan as belonging to Saul Alinsky because of their association and admiration of his work. Even Snopes points out that such a claim is “False” but never makes mention of either Cloward or Piven and that their eight-point Plan is real and in play. See “Beware the Useful Idiots”[3]

Michael Reisch and Janice Andrews wrote in the book The Road Not Taken[4] that Cloward and Piven “proposed to create a crisis in the current welfare system – by exploiting the gap between welfare law and practice – that would ultimately bring about its collapse and replace it with a system of guaranteed annual income.

They hoped to accomplish this end by informing the poor of their rights to welfare assistance, encouraging them to apply for benefits and, in effect, overloading an already overburdened bureaucracy.”

Cloward and Piven as confirmed progressive socialists were inspired by the philosophy of communism, the organizing skills of Saul Alinsky, and the Watts Riots of August 1965. They believed that chaos would need to be achieved before they could introduce their Progressive political ideology which was the ideology of Democratic Socialism masquerading as the salvation of the people.


5 posted on 05/14/2022 2:06:16 PM PDT by cpdiii (CANE CUTTER-DECKHAND-ROUGHNECK-OILFIELD CONSULTANT-GEOLOGIST-PILOT-PHARMACIST )
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To: blam

Larry Summers lost his job as president of Harvard because he publicly suggested that there might be differences between men and women, and that research into these differences might be worthwhile.


6 posted on 05/14/2022 2:06:20 PM PDT by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
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To: Steely Tom

Is Harvard known for its surplus of biologists?


7 posted on 05/14/2022 2:09:50 PM PDT by Bernard (“the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God." JFK 1-20-61)
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To: blam

There nary a problem the Democrats don’t have a government solution.


8 posted on 05/14/2022 2:20:26 PM PDT by RedMonqey (Fu%k the Ballot box. Now the Cartridge Box)
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To: blam

Could?! That’s the intent. Wake the F up!!


9 posted on 05/14/2022 2:35:36 PM PDT by albie
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To: blam

“Gouging” = “Price Controls.”

Which, as anyone who has taken economics knows, lead to shortages.

However, there is the hope and possibility that it will take a little time For the shortages to materialize, and not be noticed until after the fall elections, when they can be blamed on something or someone else.


10 posted on 05/14/2022 2:43:42 PM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
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To: Steely Tom
"Larry Summers lost his job as president of Harvard because he publicly suggested that there might be differences between men and women, and that research into these differences might be worthwhile."

Yup. Loved it.

Larry's problem is he's a White male.

11 posted on 05/14/2022 2:46:45 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

How about tax gouging! You parasite mfers!

The day is coming soon.


12 posted on 05/14/2022 2:52:53 PM PDT by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal the 16th Amendment)
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To: blam

The local property tax board is tax-gouging.


13 posted on 05/14/2022 3:08:45 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Affirmative action is systemic/institutional racism/sexism targeting straight, white males.)
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To: blam

Summers recommended “Letting more immigrants into the country”.

I recommend they all live in his house.


14 posted on 05/14/2022 3:14:52 PM PDT by cgbg (A kleptocracy--if they can keep it. Think of it as the Cantillon Effect in action.)
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To: RoosterRedux

Democrats love jobs

They just hate business.


15 posted on 05/14/2022 7:46:51 PM PDT by jmacusa (America. Founded by geniuses. Now governed by idiots. )
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To: blam
Why don't they pass a law against tax-gouging?
16 posted on 05/14/2022 7:54:57 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change with out notice.)
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To: blam

Oh great, here comes the gas lines.


17 posted on 05/14/2022 8:00:01 PM PDT by kara37 ( )
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To: blam

With the brand8ng of energy companies as greedy, woe unto them who vote against such idiotic legislation.


18 posted on 05/15/2022 5:16:45 AM PDT by griswold3 (When chaos serves the State, the State will encourage chaos.)
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