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Title: Even The Washington Post Says Kamala's 'Price Control' Plan is 'Communist'
Source:
Media Research Center
URL Source: https://www.mrctv.org/blog/nick-kan ... s-price-control-plan-communist
Published: Aug 16, 2024
Author: Nick Kangadis
Post Date: 2024-08-16 10:41:15 by Mudboy Slim
Keywords: None
Views: 1055
Comments: 7
When even The Washington Post (WaPo), whose slogan is “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” publishes an opinion piece essentially calling Vice President and current Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ “price controls” plan “communist,” there might be a little second- guessing going on. On Thursday, WaPo columnist Catherine Rampell had an opinion piece published in which she claimed in the headline, “When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?” For context, this does NOT mean Rampell is anywhere near being a “conservative” or a “Republican,” as evidenced by her conclusion. “But more to the point: 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," Rampell wrote. "We already have plenty of economic gibberish coming from the Republican presidential ticket. Do we really need more from the other side, too?” However, here is Rampell’s critique of Harris’ plan to control the marketplace: 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. (There’s a reason narrower “price gouging” laws that exist in some U.S. states are rarely invoked.) At worst, it might accidentally raise prices. You might ask, ‘How does this policy translate to communism specifically?’ Good question. The Mises Institute goes into detail about “The Futility of Price Control,” but let me share with you a little snippet of what they wrote in their analysis: Under socialism production is entirely directed by the orders of the central board of production management. The whole nation is an “industrial army” (a term used by Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto) and each citizen is bound to obey his superior’s orders. Everybody has to contribute his share to the execution of the overall plan adopted by the Government. Under a market not manipulated by government interference there prevails a tendency to expand the production of each article to the point at which a further expansion would not pay because the price realized would not exceed costs. If the government fixes a maximum price for certain commodities below the level which the unhampered market would have determined for them and makes it illegal to sell at the potential market price, production involves a loss for the marginal producers. Those producing with the highest costs go out of the business and employ their production facilities for the production of other commodities, not affected by price ceilings. The government’s interference with the price of a commodity restricts the supply available for consumption. This outcome is contrary to the intentions which motivated the price ceiling. The government wanted to make it easier for people to obtain the article concerned. But its intervention results in shrinking of the supply produced and offered for sale. There’s much more to the analysis of the far-left dangers of “price control,” which you can read in its entirety at the Mises Institute link above. While Rampell conveys that she believes “the battle against inflation has, believe it or not, pretty much already been won,” those of us who live in the real world understand the concept of compound inflation, which means that we know even if the rate of inflation drops, that lower inflation is still an increase on top of the higher inflation we’ve already experienced. The American people are NOT as stupid as the people in charge think they are. People understand paying higher prices for everyday products and where that increase came from, for the most part.
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Regards...MUD
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