David Harsanyi of the Federalist explores one of Vice President Kamala Harris’ misguided ideas.
“Kamala Harris Is No Communist, Socialist, or Nixon,” Jill Lawrence assures us. OK. But are we sure?
Not that anyone’s asked me, but as someone who regularly accuses progressives of being “commies,” I think I can help shed some light on why many voters are getting the wrong idea.
For one thing, handing self-professed socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez prime-time slots at the Democratic National Convention could send some independent voters mixed signals.
Nominating a vice-presidential candidate who not only honeymooned in Red China on the anniversary [of the] Tiananmen Square massacre but once taught high school kids that the Maoist system — one of the most (if not the most) murderous and dehumanizing regimes in history — is a place where “everyone shares” and gets free food and housing? That wasn’t helpful, either.
All that said, you definitely don’t want to make one of the pillars of your economic plan price controls.
Kamala Harris certainly isn’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.
If you’re going to rationalize this policy by blaming the kulaks of “price gouging” and peddling the age-old notion that cabals of bad guys in competitive markets can get together and dictate prices, it’s going to raise alarm bells.
There isn’t a scintilla of evidence that “price gouging” — a conveniently elastic term, to begin with — exists. Big Grocery is one of the least lucrative big businesses in America with a profit margin consistently under 2 percent — in fact, this year it was 1.18, a figure that lands on the lower end of the historical profit spectrum. While there’s nothing wrong with making a healthy profit, consistent margins tell us that price spikes are propelled by inflation, not some insidious plot.
