"... from the depredations of concentrated wealth.... [Y]ou have to understand how [Lina] Khan, a 35-year-old legal wunderkind, became both so revered and so abhorred. Khan is a heroine to many on the left.... But she’s also respected by many populist conservatives... What brings Khan’s fans together is suspicion of Big Business, Big Finance and Big Tech, even if the reason for their suspicion differs.... To Khan, as I suspect to Harris, price gouging means more than just corporations raising prices during emergencies. Rather, it’s shorthand for a whole range of exploitative practices that leave consumers feeling taken advantage of. 'Oftentimes, the way people are taught about prices is it’s just the result of supply and demand,' she said. 'These natural forces. And I think over the last few years in particular, people have started picking up on the fact that actually there are a whole bunch of other factors that can affect pricing.' That can mean outright collusion, but it can also mean things like junk fees and subscription traps. (Under Khan, the F.T.C. has proposed a
rule that companies must make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one.) 'I view the price-gouging conversation as an opening to talk about that broader set of corporate tactics,' said Khan. The fight against those tactics could be an important part of a Harris presidency...."
Writes Michelle Goldberg, in
"Billionaire Donors Have It Out for This Legal Prodigy, but President Harris Will Need Her" (NYT).
"The fight against those tactics could be an important part of a Harris presidency...." — could be. Did Goldberg have to write it like that — in the conditional — because Harris doesn't do interviews?
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When the Founders and the Framers spoke of freedom, they meant freedom FROM government.
I'm sure Kamala Harris can talk about how she doesn't need corporate power at all, but the sheer fakeness of her ludicrous campaign are part of why Facebook/ CNN are already trying to curry favor with President Trump.
With anything less than united support from the oligarchy, Harris is doomed.
Harris can’t even read a teleprompter and sound intelligent.
What’s the over/under on Harris interviews? I say 2 and I will take under.
Khan must be a hit with the guilt-ridden billionaire donors.
Backed by near every corporation in the West media industrial education
Yes. Michelle Goldberg has debunked supply and demand by simply referencing junk fees and subscription traps. Are NYT readers really this stupid? Are American voters this gullible?
They understand that all the regulations the government passes to get big business actually target their small and medium sized competitors.
A whole new meaning to duck and cover.
Times readers you want the over or under
The left created mob-capitalism. It's a Fauci thing.
Bernie's - "Millionaries and Billionaires!" - scrubbed on google owned youtube.
Read article noting that Americans now think a net worth of $2.5 million is threshold for "being wealthy". Wonder how many of the politicians speaking at DNC podium meet have that threshold net household worth. I bet it's at least 85%. Starring, of course, Pritzker, Winfrey, the Obamas, Harris, Harris' sister, etc. Hypocrites, their talking-points preaching life-lessons of "not taking more than you need" and "destroy the billionaires" and "civil rights leaders", while functioning largely from the donations of billionaires set on a socialist agenda for regular folks.
Harris hasn't seen "hard times" since preschool, when her parents were grad students. Reality is Harris is yet another silver-spooned affirmative action baby, riding on the crest of DEI preferences and former boyfriend Willie Brown's political clout. She's the DEI version of Hillary Clinton, without the Ivy League credentials.
The left have no problem taking money from Soros and other dark money forces.
Did Goldberg have to write it like that — in the conditional — because Harris doesn't do interviews?
Nope. She wrote it that way because she knows the shadowy billionaires who own the Democrat Party (some of whose names we actually know — George Soros, Tom Steyer, Reid Hoffman) won’t permit that to happen.
Corporations paid off the Bidens, Obamas and Clintons. That’s good corporate greed.
Gilt-ridden. FIFY
Here is Chris Cuomo talking about the propaganda and the reality of money at the DNC
https://youtu.be/mBGNOSWkrAU?si=r6VjGbKINKgLSi2k
Yes. Just look at the polls. Look at what the Cooks and Ingas and Howards post here. When it comes to economics they are molar grindingly simple.
And I'm certain the usual suspects will arrive to give us the party line.
Money and speech are only bad when they are not properly leftist Democrat Soviet Narrative approved.
Khan, like Harris, is seeding the illusion that "junk fees" -- if made conspicuous enough -- can obscure responsibility for government policy-induced, economy-wide inflation.
Meanwhile, the largest "junk fees" seem to be government-imposed fees on electricity and telecomm services that you cannot avoid if you want to live in the current century.
Despite her crowning at DNC convention as our Miss America, Harris is still the woefully unprepared DEI princess, the empress without metaphoric clothes. She is still unable to retain and maintain staff, still unwilling to prepare and educate herself on political positions, still cackles when her media appearances require meaningful responses. Harris wears those Hillary pantsuits very well, but still relying on her attractiveness to mask her obvious incompetence and to distract us from her banal platitudes. Sure, "freedom", but for whom? Not us Americans.
Distraction and misdirection. The problem is inflation.
Wall Street Journal : "On the Convention Stage, Democrats Courted the Middle Class. After Hours, They Partied Like the 1%."
Is there anything more corrupt than Donald Trump telling a bunch of oil executives, give me a billion dollars and I will be your best friend (and even if he was joking, that is something you don't joke about).
Read Roy Teixeira this morning. He was going over polls. The working middle class clearly doesn't trust Harris, and all important issues prefers Trump. So it is obvious why Harris is trying to offer stuff to the middle class, but I don't think they are buying the BS.
You want to end a subscription? Stop paying them. It isn't hard at all. I've been an estate executor, as I suspect others have. It isn't much harder to pull up the bank statements from the last year, identify recurring payments, and contact the payees to end business. You simply tell them they won't get paid anymore, and they stop billing. You don't need the federal government as an intermediary.
Also, the subscription issue isn't a middle class problem. Grocery prices aren't high because of their fitness club subscription or the free (for 3 months) Disney+ subscription added to their mobile phone premium subscription. Grocery prices are high because energy costs are high.
When Trump was President, energy costs were the lowest they have been this century. Because energy costs were low, so was cost of transportation and that meant goods and services got to market cheaper. No price controls necessary, as if they ever worked anyway.
Roy knows the middle class knows this. He's trying to get behind Harris, but he's not afraid to point at the elephants about to crush Harris. And Walz's record on economic issues only makes the matter worse for the campaign.
Congress is supposed to legislate, so it seems like there is a perfect bipartisan opportunity to actually pass a law saying, "that companies must make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one."
Trump should steal this.
Consumers price-gouge corporations all the time. Profit for a consumer is the difference of the price and what it's actually worth to you, which is more. It's not called profit - it's called consumer surplus - but it's profit. The sum of profit and consumer surplus is new wealth added to the nation by that transaction.
Price gouging doesn't change that.
If price gouging is going to be the political fact of the election, please listen to Mike Munger and Russ Roberts on price gouging after a hurricane in NC.
It's entertaining, anecdotal and very necessary educational now.
Thanks to Obama bailing out various corporations with our money, those greedy corporations are mostly Democrat.
There are a total of 132,989,428 U.S. employees as of 2019. While larger companies (500+ employees) make up less than 0.5% of entities, they employ 23% of the workforce. 25% work at medium companies (100-499 employees). 52% of employees work at businesses with less than 100 employees.
This is 5 years old so presumably the numbers aren't exactly this anymore.
I think the majority of Americans work for corporations, own stock in corporations through 401Ks and IRAs or other investments and while we're obviously all consumers of good and services provided by corporations, that ignores the fact that Americans are also employees and investors of and in corporations (and a corporation is just a legal fiction that, if set up and managed correctly, protects its owners -aka shareholders- from personal liability, that's all it is). What corporation isn't already subject to a host of local, state and federal laws and regulations? Especially publicly traded companies but private corporations aren't immune from the regulations, they just don't have to deal with the SEC.
I feel like I'm missing the point. Who exactly is the target?
"To Khan, as I suspect to Harris, price gouging means more than just corporations raising prices during emergencies. Rather, it’s shorthand for a whole range of exploitative practices that leave consumers feeling taken advantage of. 'Oftentimes, the way people are taught about prices is it’s just the result of supply and demand,' she said. 'These natural forces. And I think over the last few years in particular, people have started picking up on the fact that actually there are a whole bunch of other factors that can affect pricing.' That can mean outright collusion, but it can also mean things like junk fees and subscription traps."
This is illogical. Junk feed and subscription traps are not driving up costs. Lots of social media traffic moans about record profits while conveniently omitting expenses and thus profit margins, the true measure of corporate success.
Despite her offhand objections, it is supply and demsnd which is the main driver, and in a price-controlled economy, supply and demand still operates, and very often causes supply shortages.
"Junk fees... ugh, Autoincorrect.
I'm with Rusty on this one. The idea that the phenomenal price increases consumers have felt for the last 3.5 years can be attributed, in any material part, to "junk fees" is utter nonsense. But what the dem elites have learned over the last few years is that the sheep (ewes, mostly) who identify as dem because they think dems are the cool kids just need to be spoon-fed SOME plausible-sounding lie to keep them happy and loyal to the dem brand.
So Freder thinks a JOKE (so long as it's attributed to Trump) qualifies is the most corrupt thing there is. Freder, do you have anything to say about the Biden family taking in $27 million of payments from overseas oligarchs and hiding it in various shell companies? Doesn't that strike you as more corrupt than any joke?
True freedom would be being able to get things oneself, not get them from government.
The crusade against "junk fees" is the school uniforms of the 2020s. It's not a bad thing, but it's a distraction from what's really going on.
30 years later, where are all those school uniforms Bill Clinton was talking about? Did he have them all sent to Epstein Island?
Yes Dave, and Bill Clinton was escorted around the DNC by his new sorta-son-in-law Alex Soros. Open secrets are the most damaging to the world view of the Freders. Klaus Schwab smiles at every one of his posts here.
Regarding the 'price gouging' issue, Elizabeth Warren is solidly behind it, protecting the citizens wampum, so you automatically know that it's a manufactured issue with a strawman villain, designed to trick the undiscerning voter into thinking the politician cares about them. Warren has that pleasant spinster talking-to-a-sick-child demeanor that she rolls out for news interviews, where she just keeps talking, refusing to defend her ideas. Then, having been rambling for 5 minutes, she deflects questions on the grounds of being 'allowed to finish'. One keeps hoping they'll cut her microphone off until she answers questions.
If she wants to make a real difference limit EULAs to <500 words of plain English. Any app that "shares PI data" would have to disclose it up front, explicitly saying what data and with whom.
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Anyone buying the price gouging per Ms. Harris is JUST LIKE the state laws for emergencies like a hurricane devastated area?
If so, the short bus awaits.
Polling on this nonsense must have been awful.
Anyone buying the price gouging per Ms. Harris is JUST LIKE the state laws for emergencies like a hurricane devastated area?
If so, the short bus awaits.
Polling on this nonsense must have been awful.
It's definitely weird watching the dem puppeteers try to position Harris as the champion of working-class people -- and making that pivot WITHOUT having her talk about issues at all. If they wanted to take on Trump-Vance that way, she's obviously not the right candidate. And vanishingly few working-class voters in swing states are going to trust Kamala on economic issues just because Tim Walz was an assistant football coach.
I really get the impression the whole dem campaign is designed just to keep already-committed dem voters believing for as long as possible that this is going to be a close election, so they don't get disillusioned, they keep donating money, and they show up to vote so that down-ballot dems still have a chance. Anyone who is not already guzzling the dem kool-aid can see right through this ridiculous sham of a campaign.
Junk fees are basically a contemporary Democrat's twist on "Boob bait for the Bubbas."
"Boob bait for the Bubbas'' is how New York Democratic Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan's described Bill Clinton's penchant for raising welfare reform whenever the rest of his agenda appeared to flag."
When will the conversation turn to government greed? The biggest expense I have is government - federal income tax, state income tax, sales tax, property tax, and on and on. It's an ever-increasing burden with no corresponding improvement in the "services" provided. From my perspective, it has deteriorated over my lifetime. I am sick to death of politicians.
That's something politicians could do something about
How is soliciting a bribe a joke?
How about $10 million in cash from Egypt? Or $2 billion to Kushner from Saudi Arabia.
I thought Harris had been in power, able to do these things, for the last 3 and a half years. I don't see Harris as willing to tackle the monopolistic power of Big Tech at all, judging by her donors.
Price gouging, hmm. The largest and most dishonest purveyor of price gouging is the government. Government at every level. Gouging through taxation and "fees" and other required rubbish. The current federal price gouging fuck you, is the plan to tax unrealized capital gains. It won't gouge the wealthy. It will however tie down and dry fuck every home owner in the country. That program should be wrapped around a baseball and used to bludgeon every liberal turd in the country, repeatedly. Until that is done price gouging is nothing more than liberal twit bullshit.
This fact is conveniently overlooked by a complicit media who refuse to question kamala about this or any other topic of importance. Of course they are nothing more than speakers of democrat talking points. So there's that.
"That can mean outright collusion, but it can also mean things like junk fees and subscription traps."
Not that many subscriptions and junk fees in groceries. They are in the Silicon Valley tech billionaire offerings. In the Dulles Toll road company offerings. And even the automakers have made a foray into serializing parts to cut out aftermarket providers.
To be fair, if there are high mark ups on offerings in the grocery stores, it is in the prepared meal kit areas. Or the beef patties in contrast to buying your ground beef by the pound.
Dammit, new comment setup posted my reply but ate an earlier comment. Grrrr.
In support of EdwdLny's Reply at 10:10:
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/why-the-media-moves-in-unison
I wonder what the Founders would think of the state of the "free press" in today's world. Were they too idealistic in thinking that the words of the 1A would be sufficient, that the "press" would not be co-opted by the lure of money, status, and social "acceptance"? Or that government would not press the limits of legality & constitutionality in its efforts to stifle the "freedom" of a contrary media?
I am wondering, Freder, if you can post a complete thought. Or are you just repeating zinger accusations that the DNC throws out now and then?
Well said.
The Field Marshal shows up with more unlinked wild accusations.
Harris doesn't have to do interviews as long as the media continues to fill in the blanks for her. Much like they did for Obama who was considered everyone's blank slate. People wished characteristics onto him that they wanted to see.
Obama did at least take questions and give speeches, though he never said anything of substance and it was usually just feely-good stuff (Joy!!). Kamala doesn't have Obama's likability. So even that has to be churned up by the media. "She sounded almost Reaganesque!" "She brings so much joy!"
But has she ever- even once- said anything that was memorable because of reasons other than it being so bizarre it had to be shared to be believed?
He doesn't have complete thoughts.
Roy? He doesn’t have any insights, but his cousin Ruy should.
Just kiddin’ 😁
Moynihan has a reputation as a sane and responsible Democrat. His opposition to welfare reform, when much of it was based on his own thinking, wasn't one of his better moments.
Freder on the corruption scale there is a vast difference between "soliciting a bribe" and "actually taking one". To keep things simple for simpletons, it's sort of like Jimmy Carter saying that he "committed adultery in his heart" and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff's knocking up the nanny. I think that might help you understand.
Teixeira, like many older leftists, has come face to face with reality.
Obama did not do well off teleprompter.
We'll know the Democrats are serious about "price gouging" when they start going after credit card companies
Freder has to make things up and live in an alternate universe.
Sorry Freder we are not censored anymore and we have non state owned media sources. Your lies and stupidity are transparent now.
Examples of government price gouging:
1. When I was working and contributed to Social Security, I did it with taxed money. Now that I'm receiving Social Security, I am taxed again on the money I contributed. My money is taxed twice.
2. When the value of something I own increases to match inflation and I sell it at the new inflated value, I pay capital gains on the difference. In reality, I had no capital gains just inflation pricing gains.
3. The increases in Social Security, tax rates, or other government benefit is based on the government's appraisal of inflation - rounded down, not the real world decline in the dollar's purchasing power. Wages which match the real inflation move people into higher tax brackets.
People who think Corporaton X is gouging people because in FY 2022 they made $3 billion in profits and in FY 2023 they made $5.75 fail to take anything else into consideration except the increase. Such increases are meaningless in terms of what actually happened to drive that profit. In 22, did they take tax hit in paying certain expenses ? Did they have 50 branches of business that were losing money and then sold it in 23, helping profitability per unit? Did they have 1,000,000 units that produce revenue in 22 and they decide to invest in robot kiosks in a majority units? Then in 23, lay off 50% of their workforce, but expanding to 1,350,000 units, so the profit per unit was a bunch more, and the revenue increased, say, x 1.35? I could go on and on, but the flat net income per year increase could be due to just about anything -- doesn't mean they are gouging -- it means they cut expenses and increased revenues. In many businesses, a reduction of $1 in expenses goes straight to the pre-tax bottom line, and doesn't get caught anywhere on the way down to it. And a $1 increase in revenue has variable COS (cost of sales) that may be attached to it, so you might only gain 30 cents in true revenue, after paying for raw product.
Politicians yammer on about corporate greed, but it pales in comparison to governmental greed, which is more about power and control than about money. It can be both, but mostly it's about the will to power, and that's frightening.
Corporate executives don't make campaign contributions, they pay protection money.
I've been getting Harris donation requests for three weeks now, almost daily, as texts on my phone. STOP does nothing, blocking just shifts the requests to a new number in about 2 days. It is always a crisis, it is always desperate, it is always enough if just donate a widow's mite rather than millions. Don't tell me the candidate pushing such crass donation begging will do anything about corporate prices, other than grift off corporations that fall under such regulation.
when corporation pay off to politician how do the book the line item $$$$$$ [asking for NY DA]
politicians could be charged with truth-gouging [forcing lies on citizens]
I am getting Harris and Obama tag-team : Todya is the day not tomorrow or next week etc...
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