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www.politico.com

Former President Donald Trump is attacking Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan for a federal ban on price gouging by grocery stores and food suppliers as “Soviet-style” controls.

But Republican state officials across the country have embraced the idea of capping excessive prices for years.

GOP state attorneys general, as well as many of their Democratic counterparts, have moved to stop companies from charging what they view as exorbitant increases in the cost of some goods in certain circumstances.

In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, sued a large egg supplier for raising prices by about 300 percent at the height of the pandemic lockdowns in 2020.

  • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    53·
    3 months ago

    Laws that help regular people are communism and bad. Laws that help rich people are capitalism and good.

    It’s baffling that this idiotic messaging has controlled American politics for 4 decades.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
    19·
    3 months ago

    It’s also just literally not communism. That’s just the word they use when there is no real argument. Americans have been conditioned by 50+ years of “communism bad”, so it tends to work, especially as a conservative dog whistle.

    • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
      15·
      3 months ago

      Most of the stuff they label as communist or socialist actually sounds great.

      I mean capped prices at the shop? Awful. /s

      The bad bits of communism and Socialism are basically greed, corruption, and nepotism - and we have plenty of that anyway.

      • A Phlaming Phoenix@lemm.ee
        4·
        3 months ago

        Greed, corruption, and nepotism are effects of power structures, not socialism. That’s why we have them under our economic system as well as socialist/communist states in the past.

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
    17·
    3 months ago

    Only words left in the conservative vocabulary: “Socialism” and “Communism.” Every time they don’t like something, they just indiscriminately slap one of those labels on it.

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    Fuck suing these looters; anyone that was gouging during the pandemic should be put up against a wall so they know what happens to looters during a international emergency.

  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
    6·
    3 months ago

    My prediction for this courts interpretation:

    Money is speech, and corporations are people, ergo banning price gouging is an explicit violation of the corporations first amendment rights.

  • samokosik@lemmy.world
    1·
    3 months ago

    Honestly any of these price controls by governments are quite terrible and usually just form of populism.

    Actually it’s not even beneficial for markets to artificially increase prices.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
      10·
      3 months ago

      Oh, so therefore the Invisible Hand will prevent artificial price increases. We only imagined prices increasing while companies were boasting of record profits.

      • samokosik@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 months ago

        I don’t know how competition is invisible hand. If companies want record profits, they cannot just increase prices because some will undercut them.

          • samokosik@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 months ago

            Who will force you to follow it? I mean if you think that the companies are keeping prices artificially high, thanks to free market, you can open your own store with fair prices.

            You will get most of consumers because you are cheaper and you make quite a lot of money because everyone comes to you.

            • stratoscaster@lemmy.world
              3·
              3 months ago

              That’s literally not going to happen. People are going to do what’s convenient, and when grocery stores have already priced out nearly every mom & pop grocer, there is no competition.

              And if you open another grocery store, you’ll be beaten by market share and economy of scale.

              Seriously dude, the “magic hand” of capitalism is busted when you’re talking about billions of dollars of force tipping the scales in large corporations’ favor.

              • samokosik@lemmy.world
                1·
                3 months ago

                So if it is convenient for people to pay unfair prices, they can. If they are unhappy, they can start their own shop. It’s fully their choice. If there are issues with crops, vegetables, etc. prices will go automatically up unless we find a way how to control weather.

                Also, the statement that opening a grocery store automatically means they will be beaten by the economy is very incorrect because by this logic there would be zero grocery stores.

        • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
          3·
          3 months ago

          I mean, competition has led to a small number of giants coming out on top, then crushing all their competition. Now they do just raise prices. Agriculture, and grocery, are primarily industries made up of a small handful of corporations in “developed” economies. It got that way without price controls, and the cost of food is still going up, even though inflation is down. You need to control the size, and scope, of corporations, and then regulate a lot of pricing. When you don’t you just get this.

    • prole
      6·
      3 months ago

      Won’t someone think of the market?!?

      • samokosik@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 months ago

        So you are saying that communist practices would work well… Sure because when there is totally no place for competition, it very much helps the growth and it very motivates everyone to keep prices down and is not monopolistic at all.