Make It So, 3.0

Accidental candidate for President Kamala Harris has given us another glimpse of what America would look like under her leadership. In a stunning intersection of historical and economic ignorance, Harris proudly proclaimed that she would impose price controls on the economy. As in, she would pursue a federal ban on price gouging.

What, exactly, is price gouging?

Wikipedia offers us this:

Price gouging is a pejorative term used to refer to the practice of increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair by some.

Then elaborates:

This commonly applies to price increases of basic necessities after natural disasters.

I wrote this bit six years ago, about price gouging in the wake of a natural disaster. The TL;DR is that what some people call price gouging can actually be a good thing, in that it ensures a better allocation of suddenly scarce resources. Bottled water after a natural disaster will be in high demand, and the merchant who leaves his price at the pre-disaster level will be quickly cleared out by... people who will either buy way more than they need, or will re-sell at higher prices.

But, Harris isn't talking about post-disaster gouging. Her aim is to provide price relief for everyday items during everyday life... and perpetuate the lie that Big Business greed, not her boss's and party's profligacy, is the reason prices have skyrocketed in the past three-plus years.

I cannot count the number of contorted chains of reasoning that blame everything but the clear, obvious, and blatant reason the dollar has lost 20% of its value since Biden took office.

That clear, obvious, and blatant reason is massive government deficit spending, in the form of several "signature" Biden spending packages that bumped the national debt from $28T to $35T.

A 20% increase in three and a half years.

Interesting coincidence.

The inflation rate, which peaked at over 9% during this span, has been brought down to 2.9% by the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes and other activities. Rates, however, are to inflation what deficits are to debt. As long as rates or deficits are above zero, the accumulated damage remains.

In other words, Biden's inflation is forever, and no government voodoo, regardless of who wins the White House in November, will change that.

But, because our education system is a pathetic, broken mess, and because ideological capture has teachers hiding reality from students in favor of narratives that favor the Left's perspective, people are susceptible to false promises.

And emotional manipulation.

Note the core aspect of the price gouging argument: It's "unfair" or "unreasonable" that grocery prices are high.

Who gets to decide what's fair?

Some government bureaucrats?

The Soviet Union tried that out, and we all know how well that worked.

Nixon froze wages and prices as part of his attempt to quell inflation. Politically, it was a winner of an idea, but it was economically disastrous.

Expect a repeat.

And, expect a continued march toward economic fascism under Harris. Ownership of business will remain private, but government will exert ever-heavier control, it will seek to socialize profits via taxation and price controls, and it will leave down-side risk on the owners, with the exception of bailouts for well-connected enterprises and industries that have succeeded in the regulatory capture game.

None of this will benefit consumers. Price controls will, as they always have, generate shortages, and when the government eventually relents, as it must, prices will spike.

Because the underlying cause of inflation - reckless government deficit spending, I cannot repeat often enough - will not be addressed.

The Democrats can't address it. It has become part of their DNA. Every problem is to be approached by geysering cash at it, and Harris has already informed us of grand plans to spend even more recklessly than Biden did.

That cash is gasoline, not water, to a fire. Keep spending as they have, and eventually the Fed's already limited ability to fight inflation will be overwhelmed.

I speculated, months ago, that we would not see a Fed rate cut until the fall. Just in time to goose the economy before the election, but late enough so that the inflation increase that will come with such a rate cut won't be reported until after the election.

The Dems don't like people talking about inflation. They don't like that the peons have noticed how everything has gotten more expensive. They really don't like those of us who point out that they caused it. And they cannot dare admit that the only real remedy is big spending cuts and a moratorium on new spending.

So, instead, Harris says "I'll put the government in charge of prices." Of course, she claims she's merely combating rampant corporate greed via price 'gouging,' but don't let her emotionally charged rhetoric fool you. It's just more economic fascism, it won't work, and it'll do lots of damage in the process of not working.

This is what I call "make it so" governance. Politicians want a result, so they adopt a Captain Picard style.

Unlike Picard, who would approve solutions he was presented with, the "make it so" types say "I want this outcome, don't bother me with the rest." It's just another name for government by decree, and it is wonderfully devoid of actual problem solving.

Her current boss has done a lot of that, especially in the energy sector, and he learned it from his boss.

There will be a lot more of this should Harris win the White House. I see nothing in her history to suggest executive competence, so there'll be a whole lot of "faking it." With apologies to David Naughton.

The shame is that there are millions of voters who so want to justify voting for her that they let themselves be suckered into both believing the misdirection of blame re inflation and the garbage idea Harris has proposed.

Worth noting is that it's such a garbage idea that even her defenders in the press are warning against it.

When the Washington Post runs an op-ed headlined like this, that tells us something.