'There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.' American journalist Alfred Henry Lewis made this observation in 1906. This comment has been on my mind a lot the last 24 hours or so, after Kamala Harris announced her first economic plan.
What is that plan? Implementing federal bans on corporate 'price gouging' enforced by 'stiff penalties' on the food industry. After 3.5 years in office, and being the deciding vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, Kamala promises she'll address the concerns many Americans have. In January. If she's elected.
And the best she can come up with is...straight up communism. And this is her first policy proposal.
No, scratch that. Her second. The first one she stole from Trump and -- as my colleague points out -- she stole this idea from Stalin himself.
Not only is Kamala incapable of an original policy thought (at least one she hasn't flip-flopped on), she picks the worst possible solution: more government. To a problem caused by government in the first place.
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It speaks volumes about how historically and economically illiterate Kamala really is.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Price controls akin to the ones Kamala propose have been tried in the past. The Soviet Union, for example, and Venezuela. In both instances, prices did not remain low. Those nations saw hyperinflation and total or near-total economic collapse. And Food? Food become scarce. Extremely scarce. Think Jimmy Carter's gas lines, except you haven't eaten in two days.
And this isn't necessarily a partisan attack. Remember Richard Nixon? Exactly 53 years ago today, Nixon got on television and said he ordered a freeze on prices and wages throughout America. Following a 90-day freeze, any increases would have to go to a 'Pay Board' and 'Price Commission' and the goal was to lift the controls after the 1972 elections. But the controls persisted into 1973, when -- according to this piece from Cato -- 'ranchers stopped shipping cattle to the market, farmers drowned their chickens, and consumers emptied the shelves of supermarkets.' The laws of economics are no more a Republican or Democratic issue than are the laws of gravity. Economics just are. You can pass legislation all day long, but it doesn't change the immutable reality of economics.
Businesses -- both those who manufacture and those who sell food -- operate on thin margins. Sometimes razor thin. Prices in stores go up because the cost of manufacturing and shipping the food has gone up (here, again, I remind you Kamala was the reason the Inflation Reduction Act passed). In order to stay in business, manufacturers, shippers, and grocery stores need to raise their prices.
If they don't, they'll go out of business. It's simple math. That means people lose jobs and communities lose businesses.
Profits are not only what keeps the doors open, it's what incentivizes businesses to produce goods. When you remove that incentive vis-a-vis price controls, manufacturers will simply stop making certain things. Farmers stop sending produce and meat to processing plants. The economy grinds to a halt.
Of all the commodities we rely on, you don't need me to tell you food is the one we absolutely cannot do without. We could survive without shoes, wifi, electricity, or even gasoline for extended periods of time. But food? No. Starvation is cruel and it makes people do very vile things they wouldn't normally do with full bellies. In short, things would get very ugly, very quickly.
And yet Kamala will announce this economic plan tomorrow during a campaign stop in North Carolina. The Democratic Party base and the media will praise her political acumen for addressing an issue neither she nor Biden didn't bother to look at for the last 3.5 years. Leftists will get on X to sing the glories of price controls and communism. David French will call breadlines a blessing of liberty as he makes the 'conservative case for price controls.'
For those of us who know a little history, we know that government price controls are not the solution to inflation. Rather, they are the first step down a very quick road to the anarchy Alfred Henry Lewis warned us about nearly a century ago.
