Harris’ great idea: price controls

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump recently made a taunting joke about Kamala Harris:

I chuckled yesterday when I read that. It’s a reference to the fact that Harris copied Trump’s “no tax on tips” proposal.

But you know what? Harris didn’t suggest that at all. Instead, she came up with price controls:

In a statement released last night, Harris’ campaign said it would enact the “the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries—setting clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries,” with enforcement power given to the Federal Trade Commission. You heard that right: price controls.

It’s not clear how an “excessive” profit would be defined, nor why policing that would be in the purview of the federal government, nor why food prices in particular ought to qualify. It’s not clear what types of behavior that are currently legal would be outlawed.

Price controls have been disastrous whenever they’ve been implemented. Prices are signals, ways of communicating how much of a good is needed by consumers and how much ought to be produced.

To me it seems odd that Harris would choose this particular method, when she’s been engaged in trying to pretend she’s not a leftist. Then again, the leftists who control the Democrat Party these days have only a few arrows in their quiver, and this sort of “blame evil big business and fix the problem with more federal government control” approach is most definitely one of them. It appeals to envy and ignorance, two commodities that certainly aren’t in short supply.

More here:

Of course, the press lapped it up, with several journalists on social media treating it like Harris had just stepped down from upon high to present the Ten Commandments. Nothing matters on that front. If the Harris campaign says it, it’s going to be spun as “joy” and “optimism” wrapped in abject brilliance.

For normal Americans, though, these policies have consequences, and price controls would be an economic disaster. One only needs to look at the history of the Soviet Union to understand that, or if you’d like a modern day analogue, Venezuela. When government is used to cap the prices, from groceries to rent, it inevitabily leads to stagnation or even regression in the market.

I’m further informed by commenter “sdferr” that Harris’ father was a Marxist economist who proposed just that sort of thing for Jamaica in the 1970s. Interesting. Even Snopes – not a voice on the right – agrees that Harris’ dad was indeed a Marxist economist:

Taking a closer look at Harris’ work and the economics school of thought he professed, we were able to confirm that he inscribed himself in Marx’s intellectual tradition. …

… Donald J. Harris, a professor of economics at Stanford University, also did his research from a post-Keynesian perspective. Fowé was noting his line of inquiry admiringly. Keynesians stipulate that markets alone cannot ensure full employment and instead advocate for government intervention. Post-Keynesians agree, but argue that in intervening, the government should focus on equality and redistribution of wealth. …

Harris was also preoccupied with exploitation and other concepts that came directly from Karl Marx’s theory of capital. For example, The Economist recounts that he once argued that the inequality that beset Black people in the U.S. did not come from a form of “colonial rule” where white people dominate. Instead, he argued that the problem was capitalism. In this sense, Harris was indeed marxist in his thinking.

Of course, children don’t necessarily ascribe to the parents’ ideologies. But in this case, Harris’ behavior is very much in line with leftist economic theories and behavior. My guess is that she’s relying on the supposed ignorance of the electorate on such things, and pandering to the desire of many to blame “corporations” – or maybe it’s her own ignorance being demonstrated here. Or perhaps both.

Trump and Musk as a dancing duo

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Brian E” suggested I would like this, and of course I do:

It’s especially apropos because of Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt.

Note, also, what most people often ignore – the lyrics to the song. I draw your attention to these lines in particular: “We can try to understand/The New York Times’ effect on man.”

The song was released in December of 1977, almost fifty years ago. It was written by the you-know-whos.

The selling of Kamala: Part I – the happy warrior

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I called this “Part I” because I have so many thoughts on the subject that I plan a multi-parter. The title is a riff on this book.]

In some ways, the Kamala Harris campaign may have been brilliant so far. The Democrats were faced with a really knotty problem – what to do about Joe – and they maneuvered around it without apparently alienating more of their base, and to the relief of those people who were heartily sick of both Trump and Biden.

Whether the resultant bump for Harris is real, and whether it will last, I can’t say. But I do know it’s gone far more swimmingly than I imagined it would, given the raw material with which they had to work.

They’ve tapped into an exhaustion with the previous candidates, a bait-and-switch move accomplished by sleight of hand in which the youngish Harris was substituted for the elderly and doddering Biden, leaving the somewhat-elderly Trump standing alone in the “old white guy” category. Previously, he could present himself as a more energetic and somewhat more youthful alternative to the obviously impaired Biden. Now, in contrast to Kamala, it’s Trump who seems somewhat old. I’m not criticizing him for that; it would be true of any 78-year-old, however vigorous for his or her age.

What’s more, they somehow did it without – at least so far – activating a sense of boredom with the fact that it’s Kamala we’ve just had nearly four years of – and that they’ve been a bad four years, at that. She didn’t just come out of a cave; she’s been the VP all this time. The fact that she’s done almost nothing – and certainly nothing of which to be proud – while in office, is somehow made into a virtue because it means that she can act somewhat as that blank screen Obama used to talk about, despite the fact that she’s been a vice president and associated with the administration’s policy for all these years. It’s a neat attempt at alchemy. If it works, she might win.

And then there’s the “joy” thing. Harris has been a giggler and an inappropriate laugher, but now that’s repackaged as “joy.” It’s her version of “hope and change.” She doesn’t cackle; she’s joyous, and she’ll make you joyous, too. It probably seems real to many Democrats, who are feeling more joy than they have in at least a year, because they’re no longer worried about Biden’s fading health. Biden who? Don’t have to worry about him or his corrupt son anymore. What a relief!

It’s not unprecedented for Democrats to market themselves as bringers of happiness. In fact, there’s quite a history there – for example, FDR, who peddled happiness amidst hard economic times:

Al Smith:

Here’s a possible theme song for the Harris campaign:

Meanwhile, RFK Jr. …

The New Neo Posted on by

… may be doing a slow fade:

New York Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba ruled in favor of Clear Choice PAC and found Kennedy violated New York state law by listing a New York address as his residence on the ballot access petition despite living in California. Kennedy listed a New York address because his running mate is also from California, and having both candidates on a ballot from the same state could cause electoral problems.

Following the New York high court’s decision against him, Kennedy told reporters his ballot access in other states could also be threatened due to the ruling.

It is unclear at this time if Kennedy used the New York address in all of his petitions to gain ballot access.

It’s also unclear whether RFK’s candidacy hurts Harris or Trump more, but the left seems to want him off the ballot.

Ilhan Omar wins her primary

The New Neo Posted on by

I expected Omar’s victory. It’s just another sign of the times – and not an encouraging one. Here’s an analysis:

But a few factors worked in Omar’s favor this time. She again outraised [her opponent] Samuels by a lot, but this time also outspent him, an apparent acknowledgment of the need to work to ensure an upset win didn’t happen. Just as significantly, AIPAC stayed out of her primary.

Progressives can breathe a sigh of relief with her win, but Samuels did still manage to win about 43 percent of the vote, a significant share for a primary challenger who was well outraised and spent.

I’m assuming that AIPAC stayed out of the race because it wanted to focus on the primaries where it thought it had a very good chance to win: those involving Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, who were both pushed out of the running. All of these district are so deep blue that the Democrat who wins the primary almost certainly will be the winner in the election.

Jewish voting patterns in the US, and in Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

Many people seem extremely interested in this topic, far beyond what might be expected by the sheer numbers.

But it’s not as easy as one might think to poll Jews on their voting behavior. Here’s a discussion about it. The gist of the situation is that the numbers are small, there is no one group doing the polling and results depend on the pollster’s agenda, and a representative sample of Jews is very hard to get. The latter question is an especially important one because results depend on the number of Orthodox Jews polled, and it’s not an easy task to get that right and to get responses from that group.

Another problem with polling is that Jews in big blue cities vote differently than rural Jews or Jews in red states, so the mix of urban and rural, blue and red, has to be calibrated carefully, too.

I don’t think we really know that much about how Jews are voting, except that it’s virtually certain that the majority in this country vote as Democrats.

While I’m at it, there’s something else I’ve been meaning to mention, which is that I don’t think most people are aware of the huge differences between the Jews of the US and the Jews of Israel in terms of personal history and ethnicity. I’m not just talking about growing up in this country versus growing up in that country; I’m talking about background. Jews are far from a unitary group in either country, but in general the Jews of America are much less likely to be the direct descendants of Holocaust survivors. Sure, they have relatives who died in the Holocaust, but for the most part they are not close relatives, whereas the Ashkenazi Jews of Israel have a higher percentage of very close relatives who were murdered or who were Holocaust survivors with direct experience of the conflagration.

Another demographic difference is that only about half of Israel’s Jewish people are descended from European Jewry. The other half are refugees, and/or the children and grandchildren of refugees, from Arab countries. The US contains some of the latter group as well – in fact, I know a couple of them – but they constitute a much smaller percentage of America’s Jewish population than of Israel’s Jewish population.

In Israel:

Nearly half of all Israeli Jews are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Europe, while around the same number are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia. Over two hundred thousand are, or are descended from, Ethiopian and Indian Jews.

The Ashkenazi Jews of Israel are more inclined to be on the left and the Mizrahi Jews of Israel (those from Arab countries) are more inclined to be on the right (see this). And of course, as in the US, the more religious Jews in Israel have more children than less religious and/or secular Jews:

Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] women have 7.7 children on average while the average Israeli Jewish woman has over 3 children.

All of this affects voting behavior, and is one of the reasons – IMHO – that the Jews of Israel are to the right of Jewish voters here. It also sharpens the voting issues in Israel that people feel their lives are at stake, day after day, in a way so obvious it can’t be denied.

Can Trump get through the firewall?

The New Neo Posted on by

The media is bound and determined to present Trump in the worst light possible, and Harris in the best light possible. To do this they will outright lie, distort the facts in more subtle ways, and ignore what doesn’t fit their narrative. For the most part, social media puts its finger on the anti-Trump scale, too.

It is propaganda, and do not underestimate its influence, which is pervasive.

One of Trump’s many problems, now that the Democrats got the impediment of Joe Biden out of the way, is to cut through all of that. During the 2016 campaign the anti-Trump propaganda was already present, but since then we’ve been subjected to nine years (starting in the summer of 2015) of it, nonstop and escalating. The lies build on the previous lies to form an edifice of anti-Trump lies, and there is also widespread ignorance about the good things that haven’t been covered or that have hardly been covered.

At this point there are a lot of Trump supporters and there are also a lot of people who would never vote for him (or perhaps for any Republican). It may be that those two groups are roughly equal in number, so let’s ignore them for a moment. It’s those voters in-between who matter in this particular election. But even they have been subjected to that relentless 9-year anti-Trump campaign in all its manifestations.

Let’s take commenter “Bauxite” at this blog, who does not like Trump but who is not – if I’m correct – any sort of Democrat. He (I assume “Bauxite” is a he; apologies if I’m wrong) writes:

If Harris was relentlessly being defined as a San Francisco progressive, who holds all of the positions that she held until about two weeks ago and utterly failed to manage the border, she might have to come out and actually take questions from the press and respond.

Instead, for the first two weeks of her campaign, when the fight to define her was on, Trump chose to focus his attacks on calling her a DEI hire and questioning her racial identity. These attacks did not land, to put it mildly. Harris is more than happy to have a campaign about diversity, firsts, and Donald Trump’s bad manners.

If Harris isn’t taking any flack on issues that the electorate actually cares about, she’s going remain behind her moat. Trump has already kissed away the best timing he will ever have in this campaign with frivolous drivel. It is debatable whether he has time to recover. It is less debatable whether he possesses the character and temperament to recover.

I disagree utterly with the first paragraph there. The MSM has its own agenda and they will interview Harris if and when they think it will help the Democrats, or if something absolutely seismic occurs with her – and those interviews, if they do occur, will be designed to enhance her campaign. The press does not respond to Trump’s accusations except to supposedly “debunk” them.

For paragraph two, I agree that we’ve heard little from Trump except tangential remarks that could hurt him as well as help him. The “Kamala wasn’t black till recently” remark was at the National Association of Black Journalists get-together, and it was in response to a question about whether Kamala was a DEI hire. The questions at that interview were in the form of “gotcha” queries and the press controlled the narrative. In fact, his remark may have helped him with black male voters, but it’s not clear whether that’s correct, and in any case it allowed the press to control the narrative.

But the press controls the narrative for the most part anyway, and they have a virulently anti-Trump agenda.

Take a look at the transcript of that Trump appearance. He said more – a great deal more – than that remark about Kamala’s ethnicity. But the press picked up on that and practically nothing else, as though that’s all he said. And that’s what always will happen, and Trump can’t avoid making occasional remarks that they’ll exploit.

Is this a character flaw of Trump’s? I’m not at all sure, because sometimes the amplification of his controversial remarks actually helps him more than it hurts him. Those who hate him will not be changing their minds, but what about those in the middle? I don’t know the answer, but that’s the question.

However, all one has to do is remember the Romney campaign in 2012 to realize that the press will do this to any Republican candidate. You can say that it’s easier to do it to Trump because he gives them more ammunition, but as I’ve said, the ammunition cuts both ways. Romney wasn’t into saying controversial things, but the press made the most of what he did say and it very much framed his image, particularly among women. Remember “binders of women”? If not, take a look. And if you think it didn’t matter, think again; it was a big deal among the vast majority of the women I know.

So the question I would ask everyone is this: how do you know what Trump has said and what he hasn’t said about Harris? Isn’t it that the MSM has amplified a controversial remark, and then it’s discussed and discussed until the next remark comes along that they can exploit?

As far as Harris is concerned, it was only on July 21 that Biden said he wasn’t running, and endorsed her. That was about three weeks ago. You can take a look at Trump’s public appearances since that date, and see the full transcripts of his remarks at this site. As far as I can see, he’s done the aforementioned interview with black journalists, a press conference, and a rally in Atlanta since then. He’s also posted on TruthSocial, and then last night there was the interview on “X” with Musk.

If you look, for example, at the transcript of the Atlanta rally (about a week ago), you’ll see plenty of hard-hitting policy criticism of Kamala Harris. But it doesn’t get covered that way, and most people aren’t in attendance at the rally.

The press conference transcript is here. Of course, as with all press conferences, Trump is responding to questions, and therefore doesn’t have total control of the topics. But here’s a quote about Harris (he said many other things about her, but this is the one most relevant to Bauxite’s critique and suggestions) [my emphasis]:

Question: How have you recalibrated your strategy to compete against Harris?

Donald Trump:

I haven’t recalibrated strategy at all. It’s the same policies, open borders, weak on crime. I think she’s worse than Biden because he got forced into the position. She was there long before. She destroyed San Francisco. She destroyed California as the AG, but as the DA, she destroyed… San Francisco… Friend of mine, Bob Tisch, you all know the Tisch family, he was in many cities with companies. He said the greatest city in the country is San Francisco. That was about 20 years ago, and he passed away a while ago and he would be looking down, said, “What happened?” He thought it was the best city in the country. He had divisions there, loads, and he would be looking down in horror now when he sees. She destroyed no cash bail, weak on crime. She’s terrible.

And then there’s this from the transcript of yesterday’s interview with Musk:

Well, the good thing is that you and I have and some people, very few, we can get the word out. Although sometimes it’s hard because they don’t want to print it, you know, like, like we’re having a great conversation right now. Kamala wouldn’t have this conversation. She can’t because she’s not. You know, she’s not a smart person, by the way. She can’t have this conversation.

Or:

[Harris] is considered more liberal by far than Bernie Sanders. She’s a radical left lunatic. And if she’s going to be our president, very quickly you’re not going to have a country anymore. And she’ll go back to all the things that she believes in.

She believes in defunding the police. She believes in no fracking, zero. Now, all of a sudden, she’s saying, no, I will. I really want to see frackets — that if they got in the day she got in, she’ll end fracking. …

A lot of people thought she’d pick sort of the opposite [as VP], but she picked an anti-Israel radical left person. But she is far worse, they say, than Bernie Sanders. If we have her as a president, if we have a Democrat at this moment as a president, I don’t think our country can survive.

Until now, Trump has also posted on TruthSocial, but that’s more or less an echo chamber. I don’t know what messages he’s posted there, but I can almost guarantee they have included branding Harris as a San Francisco progressive who’s been destructive to that city, because that’s something he’s been saying for a while. Now he’s posting on X again, starting very recently (I believe yesterday), and checking it out just now I saw this:

Exactly what Bauxite is complaining that he didn’t do. But perhaps Trump could be criticized for not doing this sooner? Well, I went to YouTube, and found that the same ad was posted there two weeks ago. Where did the ad air? I don’t know, other than YouTube, and I don’t watch TV for the most part.

This is a lengthy post, but my basic message is one I’ve delivered before, and not just about Trump: how do you know a person or people haven’t done something, if the MSM isn’t reporting on it? Of course a candidate should be able to get past that – must be able to get past that – but how? People may not trust the MSM (and many social media outlets) but one or the other or both still shape their perceptions – and that’s even true of many people on the right as well as the left. This may happen by omission even if we’re unaware we’re being influenced.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Kamala is the media’s sweetheart all of a sudden. Please see this. And also:

(2) What’s going on in Kursk? Darned if I know, but it seems embarrassing for Putin at the moment.

(3) Trump has returned to Twitter/X:

As of this writing, Trump’s account has put out five posts already, and they seem to be coming out every few hours. It’s also pretty obvious the former president isn’t the one doing the posting. Instead, the messages are well-curated and professionally presented. They aren’t in all caps. They aren’t rants about Brian Kemp and Joe Rogan. They are a complete shift in tone.

Seems like a good idea. Will it matter?

(4) The EU is threatening Musk:

Europe’s Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton reminded the world’s richest man of his legal obligation to stop the “amplification of harmful content.”

The EU in July charged X, which Musk bought in 2022, for failing to respect its social media laws. The platform faces multimillion euro fines.

“As the relevant content is accessible to EU users and being amplified also in our jurisdiction, we cannot exclude potential spillovers in the EU,” Breton said in a statement posted on X.

Breton added that “any negative effect of illegal content” could lead the EU to take further action against X, using “our full toolbox, including by adopting interim measures, should it be warranted to protect EU citizens from harm.”

Poor fragile EU citizens who need to be protected against whatever Trump will say. It’s not hard to see why these bureaucrats are so widely detested. As I wrote in a comment today, I believe that the left in Europe would love to use lawfare on Musk and arrest him a la what the left did to Trump. Whether they could succeed depends on whether they could extradite him. Perhaps a Harris administration would oblige.

(5) Such an interesting chart: