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....If your opponent claims you’re a “communist,” maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls.
Transparency and public criticism. That's nice to see in the papers for a change.
The other one is a help-first-time-housebuyers-with-free-money scheme, which is drawing a lesser degree of fire but still reminds people of the global financial crisis of 2007-8 that was fueled by the collapse of subprime mortgage securities. That likewise began with a government push to make the market work with people who really couldn't afford what they were buying.
They also included price controls, of course:
The rent caps are the “ugly” part of Harris’ plan, said Lanhee Chen, director of domestic policy studies at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University and a past CNN opinion contributor who worked on campaigns for Republicans, including Utah Senator Mitt Romney.“What is effectively a federal rent-control measure … was a bad idea when President Biden proposed it a few weeks ago,” said Chen.
The pretty part? Repurposing public lands for housing. I wonder how well 'developing the national parks into cheap housing tracts' will poll?
UPDATE: The W. Post follows up its pre-speech editorial by a single author with a full-fledged editorial from its entire board condemning the Kamala plan as unserious "gimmicks."
3 comments:
From the first cited quote: [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.
This, in fact, should come as no surprise. This is just an extension of the proto-Progressive-Democrat Franklin Roosevelt's wage and price controls, then culminating the the FDR Supreme Court's Wickard ruling that put the Federal government in charge of each State's erstwhile internal economies, and extended later by the only slightly less FDR Supreme Court sequence of rulings Berman, Midkiff, and Kelo.
This is the utter contempt that Progressive-Democrats have for us average Americans--we're just too grindingly stupid to be trusted with our own decisions, even our own property. We have to be led around by the nose by our Betters.
Eric Hines
The other one is a help-first-time-housebuyers-with-free-money scheme....
Harris and her team obviously don't believe in the truism of a simple supply-demand graph that's taught in any serious high school Intro to Econ class.
Throwing money at a supply of something whose supply cannot grow as fast as the increase in money will only run up the price of that something, along with the price of the inputs to that something--and that input price inflation will slow the increase of the supply of the something.
Those getting the 25 stacks aren't going to be helped at all beyond the first few. And those at the other end of their lives, looking to change housing, will be actively harmed.
Alternatively, and more likely, it's 21st century bread and circus vote-buying. Richard Daley is spinning in his grave over not having thought of this.
Eric Hines
Ooh, ooh! Can I nominate a few National Parks to be at least partly repurposed? Can we vote on those?
Though I admit, if we're going to un-park them I'd prefer mining.
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