Free Republic

“We’re excited to be co-chairing the president’s new Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing, which builds on the FTC’s far-reaching work to promote competition and tackle unlawful business practices that are inflating costs for Americans,” FTC Chair Lina Khan told reporters on a call Monday.

Javier Milei caused a political earthquake in November after winning the presidency in Argentina, ending decades of socialist rule. The wild-haired economist got to work immediately after being sworn in, slashing the number of government ministries, including the nation's gender and diversity bureaucracy. He's now pushing the ball further down the field, with a sweeping executive order that eliminates many of the more communistic aspects of Argentina's government. That comes as the once-wealthy South American country desperately tries to recover from a self-inflicted inflation crisis that has seen prices rise 160 percent in the preceding year. Milei ran on a...

Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have stopped insurance companies from charging more than $35 for insulin. The bill would have banned health plans and disability insurance policies from imposing any out-of-pocket expenses on insulin prescription drugs above $35 for a 30-day supply. That would have included deductibles and co-pays. The California governor, a Democrat, said earlier this year that the state would soon start making its own brand of insulin. California has a $50m contract with the non-profit pharmaceutical company Civica Rx to manufacture the insulin under the brand CalRx. The state would sell a 10-milliliter vial...

Rationing today is seen as a sign that things have gone very wrong. In HBO’s The Last of Us—where humanity has been decimated by a fungal infection that turns people into violent meat sacs—quarantine zone residents swap ration cards for shoelaces and trade them on the black market for drugs. In the real world, meanwhile, produce is being rationed in the UK amid a whopping 17 percent rise in grocery prices, seen by many as a failure of government planning. But rationing, when needed, hasn’t always gotten such a bad rap. Sometimes people have even supported it, even after largely...

In the face of sky-high rents, President Joe Biden is rolling out a new set of principles the White House is calling a "Renters Bill of Rights" in an effort to improve rent affordability and protections for tenants. The president is directing the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to examine limits on rent increases for future investments and actions promoting renter protections. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) have been tapped to root out practices that unfairly prevent applicants and tenants from accessing or staying in housing. This rollout comes as progressive Democrats have...

President Vladimir Putin urged the Russian government on Wednesday to control car prices, as one industry head said Western sanctions could send annual sales crashing to below 1 million for the first time since records began. Auto sales have fallen over 60% so far this year, and may end up being less than a quarter of what they were a decade ago, according to Maxim Sokolov, head of Russia's top carmaker Avtovaz. Some of this year's drop is due to the pullout of foreign carmakers such as Renault (RENA.PA) and Mercedes-Benz and a collapse in demand due to a mass...

Supermarket chain Supersal has refused to raise prices in accordance with manufacturer specifications. Manufacturer Tera has threatened to end the supply of any products not under governmental...

Italy’s likely next Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has vowed to fight against speculators she claims are distorting the energy markets and lower the costs of energy for Italians while also promoting those who create wealth in the country. The firebrand leader of the national-conservative Brothers of Italy (FdI) stated that energy costs for Italians remain a major priority for her likely incoming government. “The priority will be the cost of energy, the issue is not how to compensate for speculation but how to stop it, we cannot continue to give billions to speculators,” Meloni told a crowd of the National...

As inflation soars, a growing number of progressives are blaming ‘gouging’, first by ‘Big Oil’ and now by ‘Big Shippers’, pressuring the Biden administration to impose price controls. The problem is – they never work! And as Christopher Neely, the vice president of The St.Louis Fed, warns, price controls distort signals that are used to allocate scarce resources, leading to the inefficient allocation of goods and services, adding that such controls have significant costs that increase with their duration and breadth. Neely suggests appropriate fiscal and monetary policies can reduce inflation without the costs imposed by price controls. Simply out,...

During an interview aired on CNN's "Situation Room," Biden Administration Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen admitted "I don't understand inflation. Everyone in the Administration is dead set against inflation. It's not like there are disagreements regarding its negative effects. Yet, despite this unanimity among those of us making economic policy inflation is wrecking the lives of ordinary Americans." Yellen's admission was stunning considering she has a PhD in economics from Harvard University, spent nearly twenty years at the Federal Reserve—serving as its Chairperson for five years—helping manage the nation's money supply, and was on President Clinton's Council of Economic...

House Democrats intend to move in the coming weeks to pass legislation designed to rein in skyrocketing gas prices, the head of the House Democratic Caucus said Wednesday. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) did not commit his support for a federal gas tax holiday, which has divided Democrats on and off of Capitol Hill.

A year ago, ahead of the consensus, we argued that inflation was underestimated. Now it is time to warn about the coming slowdown. Like then, our view is unfashionable. Indeed, in the past week equity markets staged a strong comeback, a sign that investor spirits are recovering from their soggy start to 2022. As we note below, that bounce back isn’t entirely without justification. But it isn’t likely to enjoy much follow through, either. Several factors have underpinned the most recent recovery of risk assets. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell assuaged fears by offering an unusual degree of clarity about...

In the US and around the world, record wage and price increases are becoming the norm. It’s the beginning of an accelerating wage price spiral, and could continue on for several decades. Most people alive today never experienced the 1970’s period of runaway inflation. They are quickly coming to terms with their massive loss of their purchasing power. Like a runaway train, once governments lose control, it’s nearly impossible to stop. In an effort to put the genie back in the bottle, they will be forced resort to wage and price controls. As with Nixon’s failed experiment 51 years ago,...

CNN tried to normalize the communist idea of the government controlling the prices of food and gas as a way to combat inflation. The idea was so bonkers, CNN even admitted that economists have largely panned the suggestion. CNN’s ridiculous story was headlined, “Should the government control the price of food and gas?” The outlet spun the idea that it's “been done before, typically during times of crisis.” But, as CNN conceded: “for most mainstream economists, the answer to this question is a resounding ‘no.’” Former President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee reportedly responded in a...

Inflation is skyrocketing, so let’s make matters worse! That seems to be the logic behind the “price controls” New York Magazine is promoting as a serious idea to fight off inflation. In a piece headlined, “Who’s Afraid of Price Controls?,” author Eric Levitz made the argument that the “widespread tendency to dismiss price controls of any kind as economically illiterate, while defending interest-rate hikes as economically wise, reflects custom more than reason.” But Levitz spent a major portion of his argument undercutting himself. He noted that a similar case made recently in The Guardian was considered “tantamount to a declaration...

We used strategic price controls after inflation sky-rocketed after the second world war. There’s a strong case for doing so again now; nflation is near a 40-year high. Central banks around the world just promised to intervene. However, a critical factor that is driving up prices remains largely overlooked: an explosion in profits. In 2021, US non-financial profit margins have reached levels not seen since the aftermath of the second world war. This is no coincidence. The end of the war required a sudden restructuring of production which created bottlenecks similar to those caused by the pandemic. Then and now...

Looking for someone to blame for high and rising prices at the pump, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) has found a familiar villain: big corporations. During an appearance on MSNBC's The ReidOut on Thursday, Warren said price gouging is to blame for the pain that Americans are feeling at the gas pump these days. Amid rising inflation, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline sits at $3.40 nationally, up from about $2.11 at this same time last year and higher than at any time since 2014. This, Warren argued, is great news for oil companies and their shareholders....

The latest version of Democrats’ $4 trillion Build Back Better reconciliation bill includes a provision to empower the government to set Medicare drug prices.Government price-setting of prescription drugs is zombie legislation that just won’t die. After briefly being excised due to opposition from moderate legislators, the latest version of congressional Democrats’ $4 trillion Build Back Better reconciliation bill includes a provision to allow the government to set Medicare drug prices. “Democrats announced they have sealed a deal [on] pharmaceutical drug costs for seniors,” announced the Associated Press last week. The consequences of prescription drug price-setting in terms of reduced access...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is frog-marching her vulnerable members to a political suicide vote on a bill that’s likely dead on arrival in the Senate.On November 2, five House Democrats—enough to block the passage of the spending spree that the party hopes to enact via the budget reconciliation process—wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, urging her “to only bring a bill to the floor for which we have a strong level of confidence…will be ruled in order by the Senate parliamentarian and earn passage in the U.S. Senate.”The lawmakers have justifiable reason for concern. Major pieces of the 2,135-page...

Colombo (AFP) - The Sri Lankan government on Friday ended price controls on essential foods in a bid to end black market trading as food shortages worsen amid a foreign currency crisis. The cabinet decided to free prices for milk powder, wheat flour, sugar and liquified petroleum gas hoping it would increase supplies. "Prices could go up by as much as 37 percent across the board, but it is hoped dealers will not make unconscionable profits," a trade ministry official told AFP. A shortage of foreign currency caused by a pandemic recession has unleashed the shortages of food, medicines and...