...and she has helpers.

When asked the first thing she would do should she become president, she said she would lower prices.  Really?  How?  I’m guessing a magic wand might be the answer.  Or maybe an army of authoritative price tag–changers going through all the stores.  Now then, who would be the fascist?

Higher prices for much of the stuff we consume are not arbitrary.  “Price-gouging” can’t happen when the consumer has multiple options for what he buys and from whom.  There is, however, an occasional practice known as “opportunity pricing” when something is in great demand but with limited sources.  Airlines have peak demand fares and ticket-scalpers take advantage of sold out events.

Ignorance of basic economics seems to be a requirement for membership in the progressive left — or how else could such nonsense be taken seriously?  Prices go up for two reasons.  First is the devaluation of government-issued money.  The other is caused by either increased demand or decreased supply of a commodity, or both.  Devaluation of money is cumulative and can be reversed only under dire circumstances, such as what happened during the Great Depression.  Supply and demand are constantly in flux.

Studs Terkel, in The Good War, included a statement by John Kenneth Galbraith in which he extolled the virtue of wage and price controls.  According to Galbraith, they worked perfectly well and were a major factor in winning World War 2.  Right after that, Terkel included a statement from an ordinary guy who just happened to own a neighborhood grocery store.  He used a can of pork and beans to demonstrate the ridiculous nature of price controls.  The price-controlled can conformed to the government edict — and it did contain pork and beans, but it also contained a lot more water.  His store was officially closed on Sundays — but black marketeers would then use it to sell otherwise strictly rationed meat.  Was that a big deal?  The line went around the block.    

Transportation is often a major cost in bringing goods to a retail outlet.  Cutting back on the production of vehicle fuel can only add to what consumers have to pay for what they buy.  Food is particularly subject to transportation costs, especially perishable foods such as meat, dairy, and vegetables.  As I write, asparagus is hovering around six dollars a pound.  Someone who works for Whole Foods recently told me that they’re considering dropping asparagus because it is so often shoplifted.  Retail theft also has a major role to play in the rising price of consumer goods and the reduction in the number of places where people can shop.  This is primarily a local problem, but it is indicative of the pathology of the woke progressivism that is the real issue on this year’s ballot.

What is often unappreciated when kvetching about price-gouging is that retailers are at the tail end of the value-added supply chain.  First, you have the producers of the necessary raw materials.  Then the processors and distributors add their value.  Finally, the retailer is stuck with the most added value for items in inventory, until the ultimate consumer makes his purchase.

Tom Knighton wonderfully illustrates the reasons for the woke lefties being full of it in a recent Townhall posting.  Is this the real turning point in American political trends?  Since FDR’s New Deal, the all-powerful state has pushed its way deep into the private lives of ordinary citizens.  And it has been done for grotesquely exaggerated reasons.  Today’s global warming pops up first, but poverty and racism fall in soon afterward.

Kamala may actually be the epitome of the willfully ignorant political person.  Censorship and ridiculously false characterizations are the usual weapons at her disposal, when reality is the actual problem.  In his first term, because of his extensive real-world business experience, Trump was quite effective at improving the standard of living of the lower echelons of American society.  Though ridiculously characterized as benefiting the über-rich capitalistic fat cats, this blatantly showcased the truly harmful ignorance of his opponents — that is, until a man-made pathogen “escaped” a Chinese laboratory.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.