The Harris-Walz campaign has said they want to create a federal ban on corporate price gouging (usually mentioned when folks talk about price hikes in grocery stores). I see economists complaining about variations of this policy being bad, e.g. leading to food desserts. But as far as I can tell there hasn’t been anything specific proposed. Could someone explain our best guess at what they are proposing, and if it’s been serious analyzed/tested elsewhere?

They cite existing legislation in the states; maybe explaining what that legislation does/how it works would be helpful?

  • Artisian@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    3 days ago

    I’ll note that grocers record profits are orders of magnitude less than the price increases. Maybe somebody is getting rich off of the price increases, but I’m pretty sure Walmart is not.

    • LastWish@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      3 days ago

      "Hey, our wholesale costs went up 300%, so we raised it 400% because fuck you, we’re all doing it and you don’t have any other options " is still price gouging and collusion.

      • Artisian@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 days ago

        Agreed, that would be.

        But the most they could have done is 308% instead of that 300%, and I think they managed to get lots and lots of small stores to do it at the same time.