It’s hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’s price-gouging proposal is.

By Catherine Rampell, The Washington Post, August 15, 2024 - Price gouging is the focus of Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic agenda, her presidential campaign says. She’ll crack down on “excessive prices” and “excessive corporate profits,” particularly for groceries.

So what level counts as “excessive,” you might ask? TBD, but Harris will ban it.

That’s the thing about price gouging: As has been said of hardcore pornography, you know it when you see it.

It’s not hard to figure out where this proposal came from. Voters want to blame someone for high grocery bills, and the presidential candidates have apparently decided the choices are either the Biden administration or corporate greed. Harris has chosen the latter. ...

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. (read more)

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