If there is one thing that most Americans can agree on, it is that almost everything that regular people have to buy or spend money on in order to survive has gotten way the hell too expensive. Groceries, rent … well, mostly groceries and rent.
That is why, at Friday’s campaign stop in North Carolina, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to announce her plans to put an end to all of that, one of which will be a federal ban on price gouging.
(Pause for terrified shrieks!)
Harris also plans to address the problem of mergers between grocery stores and food producers “specifically for the risk that the proposed merger would raise grocery prices for consumers,” the campaign said in a statement.
Because hey! If capitalists believe that competition keeps prices down, they should want to limit the ability of individual companies to monopolize any given market, right?
Harris also plans to address the increasing costs of prescription drugs and housing, both of which are caused by greed and not any kind of necessity.
Harris reportedly plans on singling out the meat industry, with the statement noting that “soaring meat prices have accounted for a large part of Americans’ higher grocery bills, even as meat processing companies registered record-breaking profits following the pandemic.” As a known enjoyer of chicken wings, I would very much appreciate this! How are we living in a world in which there are still dollar oyster nights everywhere but I’m seeing a dozen chicken wings for $26 at normal-ass bars? Legally, oysters are fancier than chicken wings and this just confuses everything.
It would be one thing if we were paying more for things because of labor costs or even because of demand — as we were when the supply chains were snarled during the pandemic. But then companies got a taste for those higher prices leading to higher profits — and when the supply chains untangled themselves, prices stayed the same.
As much as I hate to say this, we actually don’t pay as much for many things as we should and as much as we would pay if everyone throughout the supply chain were being paid fairly. Employers here want to keep wages down, which means that the people who make the things that we buy have to be paid even less, and in many cases, nothing.
For instance, in the 1950s, when most clothing people wore was made here by unionized ILGU workers, the average cost of a middle class woman’s dress was about $30, which today would be about $390 (which is also why people would only have, like, five dresses total). That was fair. It also meant that the people who made those dresses were able to spend money themselves and contribute to the economy.
But we’re not paying more so that everyone in the supply chain can make a living wage, we are literally paying extra so that CEOs and stockholders can get richer. We’ve literally heard them on sales calls bragging about the profits they’ve made from raising prices. These companies are charging more simply because they can get away with it. Because no one is telling them “No.”
It’s time for them all to be told “No.”
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