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From: Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Three Body Problem
Date: 20 Aug 2024 15:05:59 GMT
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On 2024-08-19, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
> On 18 Aug 2024 20:00:50 GMT, Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> wrote:
>
>>On 2024-08-18, Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>>> On Sat, 17 Aug 2024 13:42:46 -0500, Lynn McGuire
>>>>
>>>>Incredibly sad.  And the Democrat candidate here in the USA is talking 
>>>>freezing food prices and making grocery stores report any changes in 
>>>>their prices, causing huge paperwork and never ending bureaucracies.
>>>
>>> The presumed Democratic candidate for President (she won't be the
>>> candidate until the convention chooses her) appears to be talking
>>> about artificially raising prices and keeping them raised far longer
>>> than the economic situation requires. And I don't want to see a quote
>>> from 5 years ago on the topic; people's ideas change over time.
>>>
>>> I suspect you have happened on a Putin/Trump Talking Point and have
>>> swallowed it whole. Surely by now you realize that these things are
>>> useful only as projections onto the Dems of what Trump (and so the
>>> Republicans, as long as they do not disavow him and all his works and
>>> all his ways) would like to do. Which is fine in itself -- it's always
>>> helpful to know what the other guys are planning.
>>
>>How about a quote from 4 days ago?
>>https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/15/kamala-harris-price-gouging-groceries/
>>    In a news release Wednesday, her campaign said the first 100 days
>>    of her presidency would include 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.”
>>
>>We know so little about Harris's policies; this is not a good first policy!
>
> The claim was that she proposed "freezing food prices and making
> grocery stores report any changes in their prices".
>
> Your quote simply doesn't back that up in any way.
>
> But keep on trying. Who can say what Kamala may have said, say, 15
> years ago in a private conversation now being outed by someone from
> memory with no backup at all. Or some source of similar likely
> validity.

Yes, freezing prices is a slight exageration of putting price controls
on, but only slight.  The mechanisms for enforcing them are the same: how
do you envision them as different?  


> This is actually an /excellent/ first policy -- going directly at the
> malefactors.

What malefactors???

However, I would suggest she have someone actually
> /study/ the situation to see if the problem she is trying to solve
> actually exists -- that is, that the higher grocery prices actually
> /are/ price-gouging and not legitimate economic behavior.
>
> There is no point in solving a problem that does not exist.

I agree with all of this. I would have no objection (other than a
mild waste of time and money) if she had proposed an urgent study of grocery
prices and whether "price gouging" is happening. But she didn't.

She said that the problem exists and that it is very urgent for the
federal government to have rules and regulations right now to stop them.
That it is so clear cut that she will have rules in place within 100 days.

Why do *you* believe that it is an excellent policy to have the
federal government involved in regulating grocery prices?

> Note: I buy a lot of store brands, and some of those, at least, have
> dropped back down, at least a bit. Those concerned about grocery store
> reporting should keep two things in mind:
> 1) If the stores always mark up the items they sell by the same
> amount, then /they/ aren't gouging.
> 2) If restricted to larger stores, or chains, then the report would
> probably be done by a computer anyway. We need not picture 100 new
> employees just to keep track of prices.

It's done by a computer, it's simple? Tell that the federal government -
how many multi-billion dollar computer programs have they abandoned over
the years?

My supermarket has very low prices on basics ($2.49/gallon for milk),
but has a large selection of luxury and prepared items with a much
higher markup (I'm sure some of the sushi items are 200% or more).  Are you
saying the federal government should have a say in this strategy?

Their fruit prices normally vary by as much as a factor of 3 or more
throughout the year - it matters if they are getting them from local
orchards or Brazil. Are you saying the markup has to be the same
throughout the year?

Just what is this magical computer keeping track of at the federal level?

Chris