The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

BREAKING NEWS: Washington Post Columnist Understands Economics!

Posted on | August 17, 2024 | Comments Off on BREAKING NEWS: Washington Post Columnist Understands Economics!

The Pulitzer Prize committee hasn’t solicited any suggestions from me, but maybe they should consider Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post for a special award, because I can’t remember the last time anyone at the Post exhibited any real comprehension of how markets work.

In case you missed it — because, really, who cares? — this past week, Kamala Harris rolled out “her” economic policy agenda. The scare-quotes around “her” are necessary because Kamala has never in her life had an original idea, and “her” economic plan is no exception to that rule. Central to this economic plan is an idea stolen from Elizabeth Warren, a federal ban on “price gouging.” Like every other Elizabeth Warren idea, this is a very bad idea, as Matt Margolis explains:

The proposal, of course, is Soviet-style price controls branded as a federal ban on price-gouging. The proposal tries to kill two birds with one stone by simultaneously deflecting blame for inflation onto corporate greed — rather than the economic policies of the Biden-Harris administration — and convincing the public that she has the solution to fix it.

“If you like your bread lines, you can keep your bread lines.”

Rampell’s column in the Post rips Kamala to tatters:

“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. . . .
It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is. It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food. Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The FTC would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk.
At best, this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding, among other distortions seen previous times countries tried to limit price growth by fiat. (There’s a reason narrower “price gouging” laws that exist in some U.S. states are rarely invoked.) At worst, it might accidentally raise prices. . . .

You can read the rest, and frankly, now I’m worried about Catherine Rampell’s safety. Telling the truth about how bad Democratic policies are? Is that even allowed? Isn’t it racist to say Kamala would wreck the economy worse than it’s been wrecked already? It’s probably just a matter of time before Rampell is the target of an exposé by Taylor Lorenz.



 

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Category: Economics, Kamala Harris

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