We see this all the time. There is some shock or reduction to supply and the price goes up but it always goes up way more than the supply change would necessarily warrant. Then it takes forever to return to normal (if it ever does).
Interestingly, in the early weeks of the Kamala Harris campaign last year, she actually advocated to fighting or stopping "price gouging", something that was wildly popular: 66% of respondents on a Harris Poll approved [1]. After bringing on her brother-in-law and the former Biden campaign staff however, she never mentioned it again because Wall Street didn't like it.
Now you will find all sorts of articles online from serious outlets about how price gouging won't work and they'll simply put a bullhorn in front of economists who say that but there is precedent, namely when Nixon put in a freeze on prices and wages [2].
Now one can agree or disagree with such a policy, whether it's a long term fix or not and so on but we can still say the following:
1. There is absolutely opportunistic price gouging going on, way more than the avian flu would otherwise warrant. This is true for so many things beyond eggs; and
2. Life is becoming unaffordable, especially with housing and food. Ordinary people feel this. Politicians who address those issues will resonate with voters; and
3. Gutting the executive branch, which is currently going on, will only make this worse as there will be even less enforcement of price-fixing than there currently is.
Yes, and when toilet paper sold out in the pandemic it should have been priced higher. Yeah it sucks to pay more but it also deters hoarding which was a huge contributor to the problem.
And those people who scalped toilet paper and sanitizer....their motivations may be scammy, but they were correcting a market that wasn't correcting itself.
Yeah it would suck for sanitizer to cost 10x as much, but that's the only thing that's going to make people ration it like they should.
Yes, agreed, the agencies were put in place by executive order and they're being gutted. However, that doesn't mean the executive branch is being gutted. Gutted means "to destroy the essential power or effectiveness of". Maybe there's confusion about the word "gutted"?
Indeed the power and effective of agencies is being dramatically reduced. I believe this is the point that was trying to be made.
However, rulings like Trump v. United States vastly expand the power of the executive branch. Even if you're one of those people who believes in Unitary Executive Theory, prior to Trump v. United States, those powers were hypothetical. Hence the need for a ruling. It's to be seen whether a Unitary Executive would be more effective.
Interestingly, in the early weeks of the Kamala Harris campaign last year, she actually advocated to fighting or stopping "price gouging", something that was wildly popular: 66% of respondents on a Harris Poll approved [1]. After bringing on her brother-in-law and the former Biden campaign staff however, she never mentioned it again because Wall Street didn't like it.
Now you will find all sorts of articles online from serious outlets about how price gouging won't work and they'll simply put a bullhorn in front of economists who say that but there is precedent, namely when Nixon put in a freeze on prices and wages [2].
Now one can agree or disagree with such a policy, whether it's a long term fix or not and so on but we can still say the following:
1. There is absolutely opportunistic price gouging going on, way more than the avian flu would otherwise warrant. This is true for so many things beyond eggs; and
2. Life is becoming unaffordable, especially with housing and food. Ordinary people feel this. Politicians who address those issues will resonate with voters; and
3. Gutting the executive branch, which is currently going on, will only make this worse as there will be even less enforcement of price-fixing than there currently is.
[1]: https://theharrispoll.com/briefs/america-this-week-wave-240/
[2]: https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/22/nixons-famous-price-...