Like all failed politicians whose policies led to total disaster, Kamala Harris is trying to blame someone or someone else for the worst inflation in the U.S. since the early 1980s.
On Friday, Harris will travel to North Carolina to deliver her first economic policy speech. In it, she will blame inflation on "corporate greed" and "price gouging" by evil businesses. After the previous three years of failure, it's all she's got.
It's not that Biden and Harris weren't warned. No less than former Clinton and Obama economic guru Larry Summers warned the White House less than five months into Biden's presidency that the "stimulus" spending that Joe Biden was pushing would lead to catastrophe.
“Policymakers at the Fed and in the (White House) need to recognize that the risk of a Vietnam inflation scenario is now greater than the deflation risks on which they were originally focused,” Summers told CNN in May 2021. “Whatever was the case a few months ago, it should now be clear that overheating – not excess slack – is the dominant economic risk facing the US over the next year or two.”
"Overheating" was an understatement. The eventual price tag after Biden paid off his election supporters (teachers, unions, Big Tech) $4 trillion set off an inflationary spiral that we're still trying to escape.
Too many dollars chasing too few goods. Of course, it's a little more complicated than that, but the underlying premise of this inflation is straightforward, Economics 101. Supply chain problems made goods scarce, stimulus spending poured money into the pockets of consumers and businesses, and the result was predictable. Prices shot uncontrollably.
Indeed, Biden and Harris are not the only culprits in this inflation tragedy. The Federal Reserve took it upon itself to keep interest rates in the basement.
“The Fed’s idea used to be that it removed the punchbowl before the party got good,” Summers said. “Now, the Fed’s doctrine is that it will only remove the punchbowl after it sees some people staggering around drunk.”
Summers wasn't the only voice warning Biden against the massive amount of stimulus spending. Republicans also jawboned the Fed, calling Chairman Jerome Powell's observation that the rising inflation would be "Mild and temporary."
“Despite the economy recovering, 2021 growth projections of over 6 percent, and steady employment gains, the Federal Reserve continues to keep interest rates at zero while purchasing almost $1.5 trillion worth of bonds annually,” then-Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said in a statement in April 2021. “The Federal Reserve maintains that this bout of inflation will be mild and temporary. It may be time for the central bank to consider the alternative.”
Over three years later, the Fed still can't hit its target inflation rate of 2.3%
The "corporate greed" political attack is an old reliable Democratic talking point.
Biden has blamed corporate greed for still-elevated prices, accusing companies of boosting profits by shrinking portion sizes and by failing to pass on falling costs to consumers.
Big consumer goods companies have hiked prices in recent quarters, and food prices have risen 25% between 2019 and 2023.
Harris policed "corporate greed and price gouging" when she was California's attorney general from 2011 through 2016, challenging pharmaceutical, oil, electronics and cosmetics companies, a campaign official said.
Harris "knows costs are too high and will make tackling inflation a 'Day One' priority," added the official who declined to be identified speaking about the event beforehand.
In 2023 alone, the government added an astonishing 90,402 pages to the Federal Register, the second-highest number of pages of rules and regulations in history. Each and every regulation has the full force of law. Each and every regulation costs money for businesses to implement or follow.
Along with running a federal government deficit of $1.9 trillion for FY 2024, these rules and regulations constitute an assault on small and medium-sized businesses.
So go ahead and blame your idiocy and ignorance on the people who build this country, hire workers, innovate, and create trillions of dollars in wealth. You might get elected, but what kind of a country will you be leading?
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