Goodness… Let’s take it in pieces.
The campaign’s proposals include a “first-ever” tax credit for builders of homes sold to first-time buyers, as well as up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance for “eligible” first time buyers, a move that her campaign estimated could reach four million households over four years.
So…. welfare for “eligible” (a.k.a. “people from whom the politicians want to buy support”) home buyers. Much like government spending in education, healthcare, etc., the effect will be for the price of every home to go up by $25k. Meanwhile, it will drive prices further up by increasing demand.
She has also called for capping the monthly price of diabetes-drug insulin at $35 for everyone
Price controls from the government never work. Never. Ever. In the history of economies. What happens is that the incentive to create whatever the product is is removed, so people stop making the product. Why make a product that you can’t make money on? Then the government has to step in to become the means of production too. Then you have… communism. All of this must, of course, be enforced with the violent power of government.
, finding ways to cancel medical debt,
Just like with student loans, there is no such thing as “canceling debt.” The government does not have the power to make debt disappear. The government does have the power to pay that debt or force a private enterprise to write off the debt, but in both cases, all that is doing is transferring the debt from one person to another person. It is the forced transfer of wealth. Again… communism.
and giving families a $6,000 tax credit the year they have a new child.
They made fun of JD Vance for suggesting an increase to the child tax credit, but here we are. Even as it is, the child tax credit is a form of welfare by shifting the expense of government to people without children. We can debate whether or not it is good for the general welfare for the general public to subsidize families in this way, but it is what it is.
She is supporting a federal law banning firms from charging excessive prices on groceries and urged action on a bill in Congress that would bar property owners from using services that “coordinate” rents.
More price controls enforced by the violent power of government. If we want rampant shortages of food and housing with a collapse of the dollar, by all means… let’s go this route /sarcasm.
There is a very clear contrast on the ballot this year. It’s not Liberal vs. Conservative. It’s Communist vs. Populist. I’m not a fan of either, but one is a proven path to tyranny and ruin.
The NY Post front page today nails it.
Her attacks on grocery stores – “gauging”, as she says – proves what an ignorant moron she really is.
Hear is Kroger’s (owner of Pic-n-Save) quarterly profit margins since Kommie became veep:
April 30, 2024 2.09%
January 31, 2024 1.99%
October 31, 2023 1.90%
July 31, 2023 -0.53%
April 30, 2023 2.13%
January 31, 2023 1.30%
October 31, 2022 1.16%
July 31, 2022 2.11%
April 30, 2022 1.49%
January 31, 2022 1.71%
October 31, 2021 1.52%
July 31, 2021 1.47%
April 30, 2021 0.34%
January 31, 2021 -0.25%
Once in the last 14 years they topped 5%, followed in the next quarter by a return to 1.81%.
Yep, unlike the federal g’vment them grocers are really out there “gauging” folks to death.
Kommie-lala and her boss have been in their offices for 3 years… grocery prices have gone steadily up from day 1… why is this suddenly a campaign promise? Where has Kommie-la and where has Biden, and where has the Democratic party been since Jan 20, 2021? Oh that’s right… they’ve been here https://finance.yahoo.com/news/treasury-secretary-janet-yellen-dismisses-114400670.html
>“They explained and they’ve announced that they understand that households are struggling with costs, including food costs, and they’ve undertaken cuts in the price of bread, milk, diapers [and] other core purchases that are necessities for households,” she said. “I think that’s to be applauded. I think that kind of thing is helpful.”
Sounds like the opposite of gouging to me… you jv?
Who in this country believes that any store selling groceries is “Gouging”? jv any comment?
“Harris, just more of the same.”
Ouch, even the left isn’t buying what Commie-la is pitching.
https://nypost.com/2024/08/17/us-news/left-wing-washington-post-slams-harris-price-gouging-crackdown/
>”Instead of “level[ing] with voters” and saying “inflation spiked in 2021 mainly because the pandemic snarled supply chains, and that the Federal Reserve’s policies, which the Biden-Harris administration supported, are working to slow it,” the veep “opted for a less forthright route: Blaming big business,” the newspaper wrote.”
How much of Chicago burns during the DEI/DUI duo’s coronation events this week? Apparently not all of their tribes are happy campers and are promising fits of rage. I’m actually entertaining the idea of watching the national evening news again.
Some times price controls are good…… for politicians.
And today, I’m proud to announce that Medicare has reached an agreement with all manufacturers on all 10 drugs selected in the first round of negotiations. The new lower prices for all 10 drugs will go into effect in January of 2026– not this January, next January. – Babblin’ Joe, with Kommie, Prince George’s Community College, Largo, Maryland, 8/15/24
Why wait until ‘26? Because they actually are protecting big pharma (as dems and repubs alike always do… gotta keep those millions of donations incoming, ya know).
Seven of the ten drugs patents expire before ‘26. Two have already expired this year. Two expire in ‘26. Only one expires much later, in ‘36, and it just so happens that this particular drug received the lowest percentage of negotiated price reduction.
Federal data itself shows price reductions of 35-68% after competing drug companies start making generic versions of previously patent-protected drugs.
In reality, the Biden/Harris admin “negotiations” were useless, and will most likely keep prices higher by blocking real-world competition, as generic producers may not find it worthwhile to fund startup costs and slog through the FDA approval process.
My understanding is that she isn’t talking price controls but price gauging, which isn’t federally regulated. Some states have regulations on them. I don’t think it would affect day to day pricing, but only after “pandemic” type situations. But she hasn’t been exactly clear on it yet. Wisconsin has a law on the books already, where are the screams of price fixing for our law??? But, the devil is in the details.
As far as rent prices, I am actually FOR the restriction of coordinated software usage for rent prices. If every dairy company got together and decided to raise prices for butter, it is price fixing, and it is illegal. This could already fall under that from some of the things I have read in the past, but again. Not sure a different law would fix this, but maybe.
And I am for a $25K tax credit to builders of houses for first time buyers who actually sell to first time buyers. I am not sure on the $25K for the actual buyers. More details would be needed. It would have to be undisclosed to the sellers, IMO. And if it were to happen, there should be some contingency on how long you own the property maybe hand it out in a 5 year plan? We already have first time home buying incentives, I don’t know how much giving them more money would help out. I don’t think it will have the disastrous pricing outcomes that talking heads like to say. But, I do like the incentives for builders (again, with caveats in home size and sale price probably).
Drug companies regularly milk the American consumer vs anywhere else in the world. Why do we pay 5-7x the price for the EXACT same company’s insulin? A lot has to do with insurances, middlemen, and the fact that we CAN pay more. This is why I am for the gov’t using it’s weight to negotiate prices down for drugs. My daughter takes about $1000 (retail) a month in anti-seizure medication. Lamictal and Clobazam. Thankfully she is on the state sponsored insurance for her disability and we don’t pay anything, so I would hope to all hell that the State has negotiated down the pricing on that from what it is at the pharmacy.
>Drug companies regularly milk the American consumer vs anywhere else in the world. Why do we pay 5-7x the price for the EXACT same company’s insulin? A lot has to do with insurances, middlemen, and the fact that we CAN pay more. This is why I am for the gov’t using it’s weight to negotiate prices down for drugs. My daughter takes about $1000 (retail) a month in anti-seizure medication. Lamictal and Clobazam. Thankfully she is on the state sponsored insurance for her disability and we don’t pay anything, so I would hope to all hell that the State has negotiated down the pricing on that from what it is at the pharmacy.
The reason for it is not just high profit. The reason we pay more for the drugs is that America invents about half of all new drugs on the world-wide market. There is a large cost and risk to this practice so as long as the patents last, a premium is paid. Many new drugs are not even introduced in other countries until generics are legally or illegally produced. The reason the Biden admin have ‘lower drug prices’ promised in 2026 (not now when they could use the publicity) isn’t from hard-nosed negotiations, it is that the patents on those drugs are running out. The Dem ‘deals’ are offering big pharma HIGHER prices than the generics due to come out will cost from other countries that manufacture existing drugs and will begin producing generics as soon as generics are legal. Dems are not stopping any price gouging, they are propping up the brand names after the generics are on the market. Heh, heh, words, right? The Government gives itself credit for lapsing patents.
The point is that the more expensive free market is also where the bulk of research and development is done, because the incentive is there for it. Europe has fallen off in the drug invention department, and that fall off roughly coincides with Europe’s adoption of socialized medicine. The number of people who will spend their lifetime on a new drug for philanthropic reasons is woefully small. The pool of intelligence widens quickly when significant compensation is offered. It is that free market thing that you say you believe in, but want to neuter at every opportunity, legal or not, trying to work again. Legally, they can only price control drugs with expired patents at this time. They would have to change the entire drug patent system to legally ‘force’ big pharma to lower the prices of a patented drug (though they can try and negotiate, but that usually ends up giving more to Big Pharma than just expensive prices in the short term).
I wondered how you did not know more of this with a child that needs so much in drugs until I read the last part where you noted that you pay nothing for them save the taxes that we all pay for them.
T, I totally understand the R&D that needs to be paid back. But I was talking about drugs that have been around for decades. Things like insulin that has been around for decades. Or like Martin Shkreli, that just was able to raise the price of Daraprim from $13 to $750 because they had virtually no competition. I have no issue with the high prices for new drugs. I don’t think they should price control patented drugs. We do need to incentivize continued discovery and research. But, I don’t have much of a problem price controlling the ones that are patent expired. They have 20 years to make back their investment at the high rate.
Those drugs that the fed negotiated, there is no guaranty that there will be a generic version of those particular drugs even after the patent expires. It depends on the need and possible profit margin that can occur. We have no idea what the price would be in a year and a half, just estimates and guesses ASSUMING there will be generics. And even after negotiating them down, if there is a generic, the fed can still offer that as well at a possible even lower price. As we know, there are plenty of private industries that milk the federal gov’t for higher prices when they can even if there IS competition.
I also feel that any drug that is discovered / developed on a public campuses or a company that takes public subsidies for developing should be obligated to forfeit the patents on those drugs or exclusive pharma rights. It isn’t a lot, but there is a relationship between the campus and pharma. And campuses SHOULD license them, but I would be against exclusive rights. You take tax payer money, the tax payer should benefit too.
FYI. I do know a decent amount about this because of my daughter. We tried multiple different drugs to narrow in on her seizure medication finally. And if I was paying out of pocket, I would probably look to getting the generic version of the drug and testing those, but we were recommended the name brand version and will go with the recommendation because it works. We have only had 1 or 2 mild seizures over the past 2 years. Strangely… almost exclusively when she poops in the morning. It is such an odd thing and funny if it weren’t kinda scary.
I don’t really disagree with that provided the control doesn’t kill production, but I think incentivizing only new drugs will drop a significant number of (should be) cheap drugs out of internal production primarily on the price controlled drugs and we will be dependent on international production. I don’t know how big of a deal that would end up being, but price controls have not worked on private production in the past and nationalizing an industry to better control it just adds more Government control which has also ended spectacularly badly in real history to date as well. I think this would be tacitly approving the halting of many price control targeted drugs.
>FYI. I do know a decent amount about this because of my daughter.
It is not that I do not believe you, my point was that the price was nothing so it was not a consideration for you so a whole boat of potential problems were not considered. That is not the case with many people. If the best medicine for her was $500/month out of pocket, but drug B was fully or mostly covered and worked 80% as well, which do you go for?
My biggest disagreement with you is here is you talking about your daughter’s poops in public, but if you are bookmarking it for future embarrassment at birthday parties I guess it is okay.
T. I will get you the book “Everyone Poops”. Nothing to be ashamed of.
https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Poops-Taro-Gomi/dp/1797202642/ref=asc_df_1797202642/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=692875362841&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16853022420469883157&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9018840&hvtargid=pla-2281435179738&psc=1&mcid=78fda405ae483806b4649e471d5420c0&hvocijid=16853022420469883157-1797202642-&hvexpln=73&gad_source=1