This is Connor. Many on the left seem to fervently believe that Kamala will be the lone bright spot in the Biden administration. control We receive guidance from the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission on issues such as concentration and price fixing.
However, the Harris campaign has not endorsed Jonathan Cantor (head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division) or Lina Khan (head of the FTC). Stable meals of story About Kamala being caught between billionaire donors and progressives.
The billionaires want Khan out, and Harris’ campaign has declined to comment. Is there something about Harris’s record that leads people to believe she would stand up to the billionaires, or is her record a sign that she’s not going to be a scam? Opposition?
Many people were skeptical of Harris’ economic policy in August. speech The mention of mergers and price fixing made me think it was something to celebrate, but maybe I’m being too pessimistic. I think it’s more something to be worried about. It reminds me of President Obama saying great things, but we know where it goes from there. The plan without a plan that emerged from Harris’ speech is evidence of that. Written When Harris announced his price gouging “plan,” he said:
So Harris did not release a plan to address price gouging. Her campaign I can’t even explain it Perhaps the problem lies in the ambiguity of what constitutes excessive profits, what the prohibition on unfair price gouging covers, and how it will be enforced.
Harris has very strong opinions on policy proposals and rarely speaks to the press, so it’s really impossible to know what she supports, but Matt Bruenig here argues that the price gouging proposals are either stupid or a bait-and-switch ploy that many are desperately trying to convince us.
By Matt Bruenig. His Website.
Ten days ago, Kamala Harris The challenge of reducing costs The (LCA) is a five-page list of various policy proposals ostensibly all related to lowering prices.
The LCA includes the following statement about food costs:
Reduce your grocery costs
Vice President Harris recognizes that rising food prices remain a top concern for American families. Many of the major grocery chains that have seen their production costs flatten have still kept prices high and are making the highest profits they have in 20 years. Some food companies are passing these savings on to their customers, while others have not. While price fluctuations are normal in free markets, Vice President Harris recognizes that there is a big difference between fair pricing and excessive pricing that is unrelated to the costs of doing business that Americans have seen in the food and grocery industry.
That’s why Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will enact a plan in their first 100 days to pursue bad actors, lower food prices for Americans, and curb inflation. They will work with Congress to:
Push for the first federal legislation banning price gouging on food and grocery items.
We will set clear rules to ensure that big corporations cannot exploit consumers and make excessive profits on food and groceries.
It gives the FTC and state attorneys general new authority to investigate companies that violate the rules and impose tough new penalties.
The document doesn’t go into any further detail about what “price gouging” specifically means, but since the introduction to this particular text states that food prices are inflated by large, overly profitable grocery chains and then goes on to say that the plan aims to “lower grocery costs for Americans,” it’s fair to assume that Harris is proposing some kind of regulation to punish grocers for charging prices well above cost.
Imposing any explicit cost-plus rule on grocery store pricing is highly controversial, and many articles have Published It critiques the idea and reports on the reactions of various economists and industry spokespeople.
Instead of defending the idea of imposing some kind of price control to lower prices in grocery stores at this time, many authors have decided to defend the much more limited idea of banning certain price increases in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster.
for example, Atlantic OceanZephyr Teachout defends the Harris plan by citing the following very specific state laws:
While a common perception of price gouging is that you “know it when you see it,” it is in fact a well-established body of law. A typical price gouging claim has four elements: First, there must be a triggering event, sometimes called an “extraordinary market disruption,” such as a natural disaster or power outage. Second, in most states, the claim must be for an essential good or service. (No one cares if you inflated your Louis Vuitton handbag during a hurricane.) Third, the price increase must be “excessive” or “unreasonable.” In most states, this is defined as more than a certain percentage, usually 10 to 25 percent. Finally, the increased price must exceed the seller’s increased costs. This is very important: Even in an emergency, a seller is allowed to maintain their existing profit margin. But they can’t increase that margin excessively.
in AxiosEmily Peck said something similar, saying, “Think about banning the sale of $10 bottles of water after a major hurricane,” explaining that these kinds of very specific anti-price gouging restrictions already exist in 38 states.
With only one sentence to reference in a five-page document, it’s almost pointless to debate what Harris really meant. In fact, since this section of the campaign document appears to have been put together by a variety of people from OMI, AELP, ILSR, MPU, and the Prospect policy bloc, there may not even actually be any particular authorial intent that can be discovered.
But if we take her advice from those who defend price gouging in conversation, Harris’ proposals to regulate price gouging wouldn’t actually lower food prices now — at most they promise to keep prices from rising too much in the event of a future natural disaster, something that’s already illegal in 38 states.
I don’t want to play dumb here. I understand that election season is a time of intense dishonesty and malice. Campaigns must balance a variety of competing constituencies, and various debaters are consulted or genuinely supportive out of fear of damaging the election outcome, so ambiguity and misleading are deliberate persuasion strategies.
In this case, it seems clear that the Harris campaign and associates hope that by saying that Harris will lower grocery prices by fighting price gouging, the public will like the term because they don’t like the current prices and they think that fighting “price gouging” means that Harris will lower prices, and they hope that they can soften the elite rhetoric by arguing that price gouging actually refers to a completely different policy that will do absolutely nothing to lower current grocery store prices.
As long as the tides aren’t crossed, this is a victory for messaging, but for someone like me who nevertheless still enjoys a bit of policy debate, this whole thing is deeply frustrating and depressing to watch.
