Posted on 08/15/2024 6:54:53 PM PDT by bitt
It’s hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’s price-gouging proposal is.
“Price gouging” is the focus of Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic agenda, her presidential campaign says. She’ll crack down on “excessive prices” and “excessive corporate profits,” particularly for groceries.
So what level counts as “excessive,” you might ask? TBD, but Harris will ban it.
That’s the thing about price gouging: As has been said of hardcore pornography, you know it when you see it.
It’s not hard to figure out where this proposal came from. Voters want to blame someone for high grocery bills, and the presidential candidates have apparently decided the choices are either the Biden administration or corporate greed. Harris has chosen the latter.
In a news release Wednesday, her campaign said the first 100 days of her presidency would include the “first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries — setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries.”
What are these “clear rules of the road” or the thresholds that determine when a price or profit level becomes “excessive”? The memo doesn’t say, and the campaign did not answer questions I sent seeking clarification.
The most likely template for Harris’s proposal is a recent bill from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). (Harris co-sponsored similar legislation with Warren in 2020, when Harris was a senator.) Warren’s bill would ban any “grossly excessive price” during any “atypical disruption” of a market. Alas, no definition was provided for these terms, either; rather, the bill would empower the Federal Trade Commission to enforce bans using any metric it deems appropriate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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Ha! SO true!!
They’re either ignorant, or, beyond arrogant.
I’m really confused here because this is the Washington Post criticism of Harris. Am I missing something?
It is against Texas law to price gouge during a Natural Disaster.
We may as well have such a law during the National Disaster of a Harris presidency.
I don’t think Harris minds being called a communist.
It’s sad and scary if half the country is apparently so ignorant of economics and history to think that price controls are the solution to inflation.
Great. California state is going to take over our oil refineries and the fed busy body know-it-alls will set prices for everything we buy.
Empty tanks and empty shelves, here we come.
I remember Nixon’s price controls. Set up Carter to make a bad economy exponentially worse. The only bright side, we got 8 years of Reagan as a result. 😊
I truly believe if we lose this election, we lose the republic.
I immediately noticed the impact of that law after the first major snowstorm.
Hardly any gas station owners even bothered to open for business for a day or two. This is something I had never seen before.
The food and beverage manufacturers have the pricing power except for produce.
In the UK, the grocery chains have been told to lighten up pricing pressures on produce.
If you want lower food prices, learn to cook and cook.
More than half have never heard of the Battle of Tours, the Shores of Tripoli or the Leathernecks. And these uninformed people are, for the most part, unproductive and they vote.
Those two are worse than communists... They’re brainless fools on top of it.
If the vote counting somehow gives them idiots a win, then I’ll know for sure we’ve been cheated out of the WH.
I don’t get it either. It reminds me of the the MSM covering Biden until after the debate and all of a sudden he had to go.
Nowadays price controls are typically only partially imposed, say on 30% to 50% of the housing units for the likely loyal to leftist politician voters. The remaining units are not price controlled. England has its Section 106 agreements, but “affordable” unit set asides are common in famous US ‘blue’ cities.
Imaging a new building where the cost of the units would require rents of at least $1600/month. If 40% of the units are rent capped at say $1000/month, the remaining units would have to be marketed at $2000/month or more.
The Labour government in England is insisting that owners of ‘grey belt’ land suitable for housing sell it at a below fair value price.
I just saw a headline that Harris wants to give first time homebuyers $25,000.
Vote buying has become expensive.
Attempts at voter bribery need to get prosecuted now.
“grossly excessive price”
$20 bill
not selling
two $20 bills
not selling
three $20 bills
sold
“It is against Texas law to price gouge during a Natural Disaster.”*
*except electricity, apparently
You mean you'd be okay with price controls labeled "anti-gouging laws"? This is the quickest way to shortages. Vote against these people with all your might and get anyone else you know to do it too.
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