Be wary of potential consequences of price controls | News, Sports, Jobs

We are concerned that Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is preparing a series of measures to prevent what she describes as “Price gouging” for food.

Advocates of free markets without government intervention fear that these measures amount to price controls – and we fear they are largely right.

“Price controls have been devastating every time they have been introduced,” Liz Wolfe of Reason magazine notes:

The prices, she describes succinctly, are “Signals” — They communicate to retailers and industry how strong consumer demand is for a product.

“Giving the government the power to interfere in the economy in this way will not lower prices, but will drive some companies into bankruptcy and leave some consumers facing shortages of goods they could otherwise have afforded,” Wolfe continues. “The extent of this destruction depends on the extent to which the government intervenes.”

We have long believed that government intervention in the free market, no matter how well-intentioned, has unintended consequences even under the best of circumstances – consequences to which government agencies are neither flexible nor sophisticated enough to respond.

We have long argued that the Biden administration fails to recognize the harm that inflation does to American families and businesses, and we welcome the proposal's attempt to address this critical problem. At the same time, we hope the Harris campaign can revise and refocus its approach.

Reforms and measures to rationalise the development of energy for private households should be made possible in order to reduce electricity and heating costs for businesses and households and to reduce bureaucratic hurdles. “Bureaucracy” This drives up the cost of producing goods and services, and limiting the size and scope of government – especially the federal government – will have a greater positive impact on employers' bottom lines and families' wallets than trying to dictate what prices farmers, factories and grocery stores can charge.