{"id":2328046,"date":"2024-08-21T00:47:02","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T04:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yes-kamalas-price-controls-lead-to-socialism\/"},"modified":"2024-08-21T00:54:35","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T04:54:35","slug":"yes-kamalas-price-controls-lead-to-socialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yes-kamalas-price-controls-lead-to-socialism\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, Kamala&#8217;s Price Controls Lead To Socialism"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fyes-kamalas-price-controls-lead-to-socialism%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2328046&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Jill Lawrence asserts that Kamala Harris\u200b is neither a communist nor\u2063 a socialist,\u2064 but worries that perceptions might suggest otherwise,\u200d especially after showcasing self-identified\u2062 socialists at the Democratic National Convention. Harris&#8217;s past statements about China,\u200b including\u200d a \u200bquestionable portrayal of the Maoist regime, fuel mixed perceptions about her political stance. Additionally, her proposal to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-government-could-stop-inflation-within-a-year-instead-expect-things-to-get-worse\/\" title=\"The Government Could Stop Inflation Within A Year. Instead, Expect Things To Get Worse\">implement price controls<\/a> is \u200cdeemed\u2062 problematic, as historical evidence suggests that \u200csuch measures lead to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/here-are-all-the-green-new-deal-handouts-democrats-wedged-into-their-3-5-trillion-budget\/\" title=\"Here Are All The Green New Deal Handouts Democrats Wedged Into Their .5 Trillion Budget\">negative economic consequences<\/a> like shortages and black markets. The commentary criticizes the notion of\u2064 &#8220;price gouging&#8221; as \u2062misleading, \u200carguing\u200d that rising \u2064grocery \u2062prices are primarily driven by inflation rather\u2062 than conspiracy in competitive markets. Notably, \u200dmajor grocery businesses operate with low profit margins, countering claims \u2062of systemic price manipulation. The piece also critiques\u200b defenses\u2063 of Harris&#8217;s proposals, suggesting they disguise ineffective policies as benign and highlights concerns regarding government\u200b overreach into price setting through initiatives like the Price Gouging Prevention Act. Ultimately, the article\u2064 expresses skepticism about the efficacy and \u200cintentions\u200b behind such economic policies.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>&ldquo;Kamala Harris Is No Communist, Socialist, or Nixon,&rdquo; Jill Lawrence <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebulwark.com\/p\/kamala-harris-price-gouging-proposal\">assures<\/a> us. OK. But are we sure?<\/p>\n<p>Not that anyone&rsquo;s asked me, but as someone who regularly accuses progressives of being &ldquo;commies,&rdquo; I think I can help shed some light on why many voters are getting the wrong idea.<\/p>\n<p>For one thing, handing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/q-and-a\/how-socialist-is-bernie-sanders\">self-professed<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2018\/07\/01\/democratic-socialists-ocasio-cortez-689647\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">socialists<\/a> Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez prime-time slots at the Democratic National Convention could send some independent voters mixed signals. <\/p>\n<p>Nominating a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/history-repeats-itself-democrats-are-using-tactics-of-the-marxists-of-1917-in-russia-to-steal-2020-election\/\" title=\"History Repeats Itself: Democrats Are Using Tactics of the Marxists of 1917 in Russia to Steal 2020 Election\">vice-presidential candidate<\/a> who not only honeymooned in Red China <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/elections\/walz-praised-chinese-communism-as-a-system-where-everyone-shares\/\">on the anniversary Tiananmen Square massacre<\/a> but once taught high school kids that the Maoist system &mdash; one of the most (if not the most) murderous and dehumanizing regimes in history &mdash; is a place where &ldquo;everyone shares&rdquo; and gets free food and housing? That wasn&rsquo;t helpful, either.<\/p>\n<p>All that said, you definitely don&rsquo;t want to make one of the pillars of your economic plan price controls.<\/p>\n<p>Kamala Harris certainly isn&rsquo;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.<\/p>\n<p>If you&rsquo;re going to rationalize this policy by blaming the kulaks of &ldquo;price gouging&rdquo; and peddling the age-old notion that cabals of bad guys in competitive markets can get together and dictate prices, it&rsquo;s going to raise alarm bells.<\/p>\n<p>There isn&rsquo;t a scintilla of evidence that &ldquo;price gouging&rdquo; &mdash; a conveniently elastic term, to begin with &mdash; exists. Big Grocery is one of the least lucrative big businesses in America <a href=\"https:\/\/pages.stern.nyu.edu\/~adamodar\/New_Home_Page\/datafile\/margin.html\">with a profit margin consistently under 2 percent<\/a> &mdash; in fact, this year it was 1.18, a figure that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fmi.org\/our-research\/food-industry-facts\/grocery-store-chains-net-profit\">lands<\/a> on the lower end of the historical profit spectrum. While there&rsquo;s nothing wrong with making a healthy profit, consistent margins tell us that price spikes are propelled by inflation, not some insidious plot.<\/p>\n<p>Until the government shutdown of the economy during the Covid pandemic, grocery <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/08\/13\/business\/economy\/inflation-food-prices.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">prices<\/a> had been low and dropping. Probably because &ldquo;Big Grocery&rdquo; is also one of the most competitive industries in the country, with numerous national chains, regional chains, higher-end markets, affordable big-box chains, and online competitors, including Amazon.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, we&rsquo;re supposed to believe that one day, just as overall inflation happen to <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Business\/americans-inflation-hits-30-year-high\/story?id=81110162#:~:text=Inflation%20has%20risen%20at%20its,consumer%20price%20index%20since%201990.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hit a 30-year high<\/a>, everyone in grocery business decided to get together and collude to raise prices in a manner that was consistent with overall <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jmhorp\/status\/1825972508383719848\">inflation<\/a>? They think you&rsquo;re idiots.<\/p>\n<p>In an embarrassing Axios defense of Kamala&rsquo;s plan, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/axios\/status\/1825872194624164346\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">headlined<\/a> &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t call it price controls: How price gouging bans really work,&rdquo; Emily Peck <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/08\/20\/price-gouging-kamala-harris-communism-kamunism?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=editorial&amp;utm_medium=social\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">contends<\/a> that &ldquo;Harris&rsquo; economic proposals, broadly speaking, are meant to help middle-class Americans deal with a higher cost of living.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Oh, is that what they&rsquo;re meant to do? Axios assures us that states already have innocuous anti-gouging laws on the books for emergencies. (Yes, those are also completely counterproductive. &ldquo;Price gouging&rdquo; during emergency shortages helps alleviate hoarding.)<\/p>\n<p>In any event, to stress the innocuous and ubiquitous nature of anti &ldquo;price gouging&rdquo; laws, Peck is compelled to rely on the expertise of far-left Fordham <em>law<\/em> professor Zephyr Teachout, as one assumes no self-respecting economist would go on the record defending price caps.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to The New York Times&rsquo; Paul Krugman, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/08\/19\/opinion\/kamala-harris-economic-agenda.html\">argues<\/a> Kamala really isn&rsquo;t backing price controls, per se, but merely a ban on &ldquo;price gouging on groceries&rdquo; &mdash; which he surely knows is a myth. Kamala&rsquo;s plan is nothing but a &ldquo;populist political gesture,&rdquo; the Nobel Prize-winning economist explains.<\/p>\n<p>Since the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-takes-post-debate-victory-lap-at-virginia-rally-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"Trump takes post-debate victory lap at Virginia rally - Washington Examiner\">presidential candidate hasn&#038;rsquo<\/a>;t offered any concrete plans, we must assume she still supports enacting Elizabeth Warren&rsquo;s &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/118th-congress\/senate-bill\/3803\/text\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Price Gouging Prevention Act<\/a>,&rdquo; which, despite the assurances of Axios and Krugman, would imbue the Federal Trade Commission with wide-ranging unilateral federal authority to dictate prices on groceries. Our own <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordreference.com\/display\/10.1093\/oi\/authority.20110803095901154\">Gosplan<\/a>. And if you believe government regulatory agencies will judiciously use this power, I have news for you.<\/p>\n<p>So, sure, it&rsquo;s a bad sign that Kamala intends to fight inflation using failed socialist policy prescriptions. Let&rsquo;s not forget, though, the last time Harris vowed to help fix inflation, she was the &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/KamalaHarris\/photos\/as-vice-president-i-was-proud-to-cast-the-tie-breaking-vote-to-pass-the-inflatio\/1054668446019592\/?paipv=0&amp;eav=AfZxbkEwAOnFEhO2BwfqyWiKPHVK64kiyMvE6nPqGLf9tk2noJ0E3mtYhLfoHX50h_4&amp;_rdr\">tie-breaking vote<\/a>&rdquo; on the effort to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into an overheated economy.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s fair to say that inflation is a complex, multifaceted issue that isn&rsquo;t entirely any one entity&rsquo;s fault. You don&rsquo;t need to be a socialist lawyer from Fordham to understand that the Biden administration did <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/01\/yes-biden-deserves-the-blame-for-inflation\/\">everything to exacerbate inflation<\/a> &mdash; ignoring warning signs, cramming through massive partisan spending bill using parliamentary tricks, all the while undermining energy production.<\/p>\n<p>Last I heard Kamala was a member of that administration.<\/p>\n<p>Has Harris proposed price caps on groceries because she&rsquo;s a devout Marxist? Unlikely. The power-hungry politician&rsquo;s tendency to embrace collectivist and zero-sum economic thinking is merely a sign of an authoritarian demagogue. Kamala is not Stalin. She&rsquo;s more like some middling Latin American dictator. That&rsquo;s bad enough.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div>\n<p>      David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of six books&mdash;the most recent, <b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/products\/the-rise-of-blueanon-david-harsanyi?variant=41551839232034\">The The Rise of BlueAnon: How the Democrats Became a Party of Conspiracy Theorists<\/a><\/b>. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jill Lawrence claims, \u201cKamala Harris Is No Communist, Socialist, or Nixon.\u201d But can we really be certain? While I haven&#8217;t been consulted on this matter, as someone who often labels progressives as &#8220;commies,&#8221; I believe I can clarify why some voters might be misled. For starters, giving prominent speaking roles to self-identified socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Democratic National Convention could confuse independent voters. Additionally, selecting a vice-presidential candidate who not only spent her honeymoon in China during the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre but also taught high school students that Mao&#8217;s regime\u2014one of history&#8217;s most brutal and dehumanizing\u2014was a place where &#8220;everyone shares&#8221; and receives free food and housing doesn&#8217;t help either.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, incorporating price controls into your economic strategy is certainly not advisable. While Kamala Harris isn&#8217;t the first politician to propose controlling prices deemed politically inconvenient, history has shown that such measures lead to shortages, hoarding, black markets, and other negative consequences. If you justify this policy by blaming supposed &#8220;price gouging&#8221; culprits while promoting the outdated idea that bad actors in competitive markets can collude to set prices together, it will raise red flags.<\/p>\n<p>There is no substantial evidence supporting the existence of &#8220;price gouging,&#8221; a term that&#8217;s quite flexible in its definition. The grocery industry is one of America&#8217;s least profitable sectors with profit margins consistently below 2 percent; this year it was just 1.18 percent\u2014on the lower end historically. While making a reasonable profit isn&#8217;t an issue per se, these consistent margins indicate that price increases are driven by inflation rather than any conspiracy.<\/p>\n<p>Before government-imposed shutdowns during the COVID pandemic led to economic disruptions, grocery prices were low and declining\u2014a likely result of intense competition among numerous national chains as well as regional stores and online retailers like Amazon. Yet we&#8217;re expected to believe that just when inflation reached a 30-year peak all grocery businesses decided collectively to raise their prices in line with overall inflation? They must think we&#8217;re gullible.<\/p>\n<p>In an awkward defense from Axios titled \u201cDon\u2019t call it price controls: How price gouging bans really work,\u201d Emily Peck argues that \u201cHarris\u2019 economic proposals are designed broadly to assist middle-class Americans facing rising living costs.\u201d Oh really? Axios claims states already have benign anti-gouging laws for emergencies (which are also counterproductive since they can exacerbate hoarding). To emphasize how harmless these anti-price gouging laws are perceived to be Peck relies on far-left Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout\u2019s expertise; one would assume no reputable economist would publicly defend price caps.<\/p>\n<p>This brings me to Paul Krugman from The New York Times who contends Kamala isn\u2019t truly advocating for price controls but merely opposing \u201cprice gouging on groceries\u201d\u2014a notion he likely knows is unfounded. He describes her plan as nothing more than a \u201cpopulist political gesture.\u201d Since she hasn&#8217;t provided concrete proposals yet we must assume she still supports Elizabeth Warren\u2019s \u201cPrice Gouging Prevention Act,\u201d which would grant extensive unilateral authority over grocery pricing to the Federal Trade Commission\u2014a sort of American version of Gosplan. If you trust government regulatory agencies will use this power wisely then I have news for you.<\/p>\n<p>So yes\u2014it\u2019s concerning that Kamala intends to combat inflation using failed socialist policies. However let\u2019s remember when she last promised action against inflation; she was pivotal in pushing through hundreds of billions into an overheated economy with her tie-breaking vote.<\/p>\n<p>Inflation is undoubtedly complex and multifaceted\u2014not solely attributable to any single entity&#8217;s actions\u2014but it&#8217;s clear that under Biden&#8217;s administration warning signs were ignored while massive partisan spending bills were rushed through using parliamentary maneuvers\u2014all while energy production was undermined.<\/p>\n<p>Last I checked Kamala was part of that administration too.<br \/>\nHas Harris proposed grocery price caps because she&#8217;s an ardent Marxist? Probably not; rather her inclination towards collectivist thinking reflects authoritarian tendencies typical among power-hungry politicians\u2014not unlike some mediocre Latin American dictator\u2014which is troubling enough on its own.<br \/>\nDavid Harsanyi serves as senior editor at The Federalist and writes nationally syndicated columns; he has authored six books including his latest titled *The Rise of BlueAnon: How Democrats Became Conspiracy Theorists*. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":2328047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Untitled-design-4.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[38770,38771,36192,38769,12428],"class_list":["post-2328046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-economicpolicy","tag-governmentintervention","tag-kamalaharris","tag-pricecontrols","tag-socialism"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Untitled-design-4.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2328046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2328047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2328046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2328046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2328046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}