Kamala Harris announced last week that the key point in her plan to fight inflation is to prohibit "food price gouging".
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| Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2024/08/16/kamala-harris-economic-policy-price-gouging/74822598007/ |
For the last couple of years Democrats have blamed inflation in grocery prices on big corporations like Kroger. They ignore the fact that the finger can be pointed right at them due to the trillions in stimulus dollars, increases in fuel costs caused by their war against oil and gas, and increases in wage costs due to all the handouts during the Covid pandemic that caused many people to not work.
Here is an example of Elizabeth Warren blaming Kroger two years ago for the high prices which she says led to record profits.
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| Link: https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1479465304795324422 |
She and other Democrats are still trying to use this narrative today.
Let's look at some facts.
Kroger's profit margin is 1.43% of sales as of its most recent quarterly reporting.
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| Kroger Net Profit Margin 2010-2024 Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KR/kroger/profit-margins |
It is making less than 2 cents on each dollar of sales.
Kroger's profit margin has actually gone down since 2020. (See chart above.)
If Kroger is price gouging they are doing a very poor job of it.
Kroger and others in the grocery and food business have been squeezed by inflation and rising costs (product costs, energy, wages etc.) just like every household in America has.
Walmart is netting 2.34% and that includes all of their other merchandise as well.
How do these profit margins in the grocery business compare to large companies in other industries?
Google's (Alphabet) most recent reported net profit margin is 25.90%
Pfizer's net profit margin was around 30% the entire time it was able to sell its Covid vaccine with the support of the federal government and its mandates.
Moderna's net profit margin was over 50% during the same time period.
Now that very few people trust those vaccines to prevent getting Covid, their profit margins have cratered.
Why is there no talk about price gouging beyond food and groceries?
Consider the cost of college education over the last 40 years.
The cost of college tuition is up 710% since 1983 while overall inflation is up 194%.
Why is Kamala or Elizabeth Warren not talking about the price gouging that has been ongoing by colleges and universities for years?
Do you think it might have something to do with the almost total support of college administrators and academia for the Democrat party?
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| Source: https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/02/penn-professors-political-donations-elections |
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| Source: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/01/31/yale-professors-donated-almost-exclusively-to-democrats-in-2023/ |
Consider this comparison of donors to Biden and Trump in 2020 who listed their employer as a college or university.
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| Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/11/higher-education-workers-gave-five-times-much-biden-trump |
Do you think that Kamala and the Democrats have the slightest interest in stopping the college gravy train?
College costs could not go up without a supply of money to pay for it. Just as is the case with health care costs, college costs have become heavily dependent on the flow of federal money into the system. Health care costs generally tracked overall inflation in the economy until Medicare and Medicaid were introduced and normal market forces were disrupted beginning in the mid-1960's.
The same has been true with student loan money. As more student loan funds became available, the easier it became for colleges to raise tuition costs. Ironically, a program that was designed to assist students to afford college made it more unaffordable with each passing year.
This is what occurs over and over again when a well-intentioned "liberal" idea meets the real world. A desire to do good by government ends up being the undoing of the very people it was intended to help.
The only answer Democrats have now is to cancel all of that student loan debt.
Of course, that socializes the cost which is then borne by everyone else---those that paid their own college costs, those that sacrificed on other things to pay off their loans and those that chose not to go to college at all.
And if you start cancelling student loan debt what motivation is there for anyone to pay their own way in the future?
What is the motivation for someone to join the military to qualify for the GI Bill?
Surveys show that 70% or more of all enlistments into our voluntary armed services are motivated by the opportunity for education benefits under the GI bill. Do liberals understand that cancelling student loan debt may eventually lead to the need to reinstate the military draft? It is an unintended consequence that should not be ignored.
Why is it that it always seems to be that the politicians create the problem and then rush in later with promises to fix the problem with another misguided and ill-considered policy?
The same can be said for Kamala's plan to make housing more affordable.
Why has housing become so unaffordable the last few years?
1. Inflation caused by government spending and money printing
2. Higher interest rates that have resulted from #1 above.
3. Illegal immigration that has allowed 10+ million people to enter the country in three years which has placed unexpected demand pressures on housing costs.
All of this can be traced directly back to the policies of Biden and Harris.
Kamala now claims she is going to fix the problem of inflation and housing affordability by spending another $1.7 trillion?
Ironically, the total amount of student loan debt right now is $1.7 trillion as well.
How much money is $1.7 trillion. It is about the same amount as the entire GDP or South Korea or Australia.
Even the liberal media is skeptical of Kamala's "economic plan".
The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNN all expressed skepticism about her plan.
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| Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13754805/kamala-harris-washington-post-cnn-criticism.html |
Not only is Kamala looking for price gouging in all the wrong places, her other policy ideas seem to be right out of the Soviet Union, China and Venezuela.
There is not a very good record of any of these far left economic models working out very well for the people of these countries.
Look no further than Venezuela who voted in the socialists/communists with Hugo Chavez 25 years ago and now find that it is impossible to vote them out of power when they control the ballot boxes and are counting the votes.
How has that vote worked out for the Venezuelan people?
Venezuela was once the wealthiest country in Latin America.
That is no longer the case despite having the largest proven oil reserves in the entire world.
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| Source: https://www.baidarcenter.org/en/posts/1328 |
Such is the risk to voters in putting their trust in the wrong leaders at the wrong time.
Cast your vote wisely in 2024.
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