David Brooks Surprised ‘Responsible’ Harris Would Endorse Soviet-Like Price Controls

Ticket, now she has it when it comes to policy issues and on the economy in particular. Geoff: On this matter of economic policy, the vice president is proposing the first-ever ban on price gouging for groceries. This is something you took particular issue with. It pulls well for swing voters but economists say the underlying reason why grocery prices are higher is more complicated.
>> She has some good things in this package. The child tax credit is a good thing. She wants to deregulate housing. But the price gouging thing, well, a news hour contributor said it’s impossible to exaggerate how bad this policy is, and I agree with that. Catherine had a good line that if your opponent’s calling you a communist, don’t lead with price controls. We have seen it happen in Venezuela and the Soviet Union. Price controls do not work. What is worse about that, first, it is addressing a problem that does not exist. Grocery prices, inflation, has been less than 1% for the past year. It’s over. We had a surge but it’s over. The problem does not exist. But the core problem is it expresses a level of economic illiteracy that is surprising in a responsible democratic candidate. The idea behind greed flation’s we had all those years of low inflation and I guess people were not greedy then. Then magically they all get greedy and start price gouging at Kroger, Harris teeter, HEB, and there’s this massive price gouging. That’s not why inflation surged. Inflation surged because of the pandemic, which screwed up supply chains and productivity. The Biden Administration over stimulated the economy. Larry Summers and Jason Furman said at the time this will cause inflation. Low and behold it did. the Fed has to clamp down on growth. That is what caused inflation. That is basic economics. Her greedflation plan is somewhere outside of normal economics. Geoff: What about that, Jonathan, that parts of her economic policy speak to economic illiteracy?
>> I take issue with the word illiteracy but we will have to agree to disagree on our word choices, but Catherine raises a good point. I found her column to be rather persuasive. And so now it’s incumbent upon