Harris' price control plan “Kamanomics” could scare off undecided Wall Street donors

Now that Kamala Harris is leading in the presidential polls, one of the big questions on Wall Street and in the U.S. economy is about her economic agenda: Will it be a copy of the progressive nonsense known as “Bidenomics”?

After all, she sat quietly while her boss, Joe Biden, and his Federal Trade Commission chief, Lina Khan, blocked sensible deals and initiated stupid antitrust cases against the big tech companies.

She said nothing when Biden's chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) transformed a former investor protection agency into an enforcement arm of “woke economics.”

Harris, who was chosen by party leaders as the Democratic presidential candidate, says she now wants to stimulate inflation.

But before Biden was thrown out as his party's nominee, she was his vice president and stood ready to break the deadlock in the narrowly divided U.S. Senate and approve trillions in spending that ultimately fueled inflation – a terrible tax on the working class.

Yes, her reputation as a progressive politician is impressive, but now, as her supporters on Wall Street seek campaign funds from more moderate leaders, they are spreading the word that Kamala 2.0 is far more ideologically flexible.

She likes fracking. She loves the business world. Her husband, a renowned lawyer in the media and entertainment industry, represented big business, so she sees fracking as an engine of economic growth.

I hear people are wary of money on the sidelines – and they should be. Late last week, in a much-lauded economic speech, she began to muse about price controls on foodstuffs, as in Venezuela or the former Soviet Union, and other freebies.

To counter this, Harris fundraisers cite further evidence that Kamala is a moderate: Brian Deese, a supposedly moderate economic policy analyst and former donor who joined her campaign's advisory team.

They say that if elected, Deese will likely play a major role in their administration, an assurance that Harris – despite her rhetoric – will not govern as a Bernie Sanders-style leftist.

I have my doubts, and not just because I think Harris is a liar. I also have doubts about Deese's “moderate” reputation on the street.

As I report in my new book, Go Woke Go Broke; The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America, Deese worked in the Obama administration and most recently on Biden’s economic team.

In between, he spent three years at BlackRock. He joined the firm after negotiating Obama's entry into the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims for a carbon-neutral future. The Trump administration left the agreement because it did little to solve climate problems but led to higher gasoline prices for the average American.

Bad for America, but a perfect resume to become Blackrock CEO Larry Fink's internal advocate and establish the company's controversial environmental, social and governance investments.

Before ESG became a central issue in the American culture war, it was a big source of money for BlackRock because it allowed the company to charge investors higher fees for virtuous investments.

Benefit from ESG

Deese was very successful in his job, former employees say. BlackRock attracted billions of dollars in assets from pension funds managed by progressive politicians, left-wing sovereign wealth fund managers and private investors who want to save the planet in addition to their investments.

Deese left the company in late 2020 and soon joined the Biden White House as head of the National Economic Council. Essentially, he picked up where he left off, adding “woke” policies to the White House's failed economic agenda.

Things went wrong at BlackRock, too. As I show in my book, consumers began to rebel against all forms of corporate wokeness in early 2021.

Fink himself was publicly pilloried by politicians from Republican states because he exerted political influence on investments and forced oil companies to reduce their drilling when gas prices rose rapidly.

BlackRock lost assets under management from investors who identified the firm with the progressive left. And ESG funds outperformed low-cost index funds, further enhancing their reputation.

As we all know, despite good employment numbers, Americans are disappointed with Biden's economy because of inflation and weak wage growth. Harris is trying to counteract this with her “moderate” overhaul and other maneuvers.

I suspect that this redesign might be well received by the business-oriented mass media, but it might be a hard sell to the corporate types.

Their extortionate pricing system probably had Deese's blessing and is ridiculed by anyone who has taken an elementary course in economics.

Maybe that's why I hear that even undecided Democratic donors want to know who Harris might appoint to key economic positions besides Deese before they loosen up any money.