On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, after a coup against their former standard-bearer Joe Biden, we face a very disturbing question. What if Kamala Harris isn’t the idiot the media has made her out to be? Harris was clearly chosen for this role. She’s been groomed for it for nearly...
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1) Harris presented something that she called an “opportunity economy”. How different do you expect this to be from “Bidenomics”?
Not much, to be honest. Democrats are looking to rebrand the same agenda they had during both Obama’s two terms and “Biden’s” one term. It’s all an extension of the original plan, which is to nationalize all the important sectors of the economy – housing, health care, energy, transportation – that the Federal Government didn’t already control, e.g. communication and defense.
This strategy is simply to break the private economy — dislocate trillions of investment capital, displace millions of workers, disrupt supply chains – and then create new “opportunities” for those most harmed by these policies, the lowest strata of wage earners young people, by giving them handouts. This is classic ‘divide and rule’ politics engaged in by the oligarch class to set the lower class, in their terminology the ‘proletariat,’ against the middle class, the “bourgeoisie.’
Nothing new here. Typical “Break your legs and hand you a crutch” politics.
2) How are the measures that Harris’ economic plan includes going to be paid for?
Debt at first and the hoped for transition to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) after the debt passes the point of sustainability, where they just print money and tax your earnings at whatever rate they need to in order to maintain power, via programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
3) Harris promised to push forward a federal government law against price gouging as a solution to Americans’ frustration with the high cost of living. What effect would a law like this have on prices? How would a small business react to such a law?
The Democrats have been prepping this talking point for more than a year by sending out Elizabeth Warren to complain about corporations gouging us on food prices. But if you look at retailer, especially supermarket, corporate profits you’ll see their costs rising with our costs. The average bottom line margin for a supermarket chain is around 2%. If Harris and Warren think this is “Price Gouging” then they have no idea what the term means.
Real costs of production will rise. Prices will rise. The government will then use a flat fining structure to punish the bad guys.
Because of this small businesses will go under. Larger firms can always absorb the cost of new regulations better than smaller businesses. They are the primary target because they are the engine of economic growth. Harris is nothing new, just another in a long line of doctrinaire communists promoted via anti-democratic processes to serve an overclass desperate to hold onto power as their old system of wealth extraction reaches its terminal stage.
4) How do you assess the possibility that a federal law against price gouging might backfire and trigger shortages?
All price floors and price ceilings lead to shortages, never surpluses. This is literally first semester macro-economics. Harris and her handlers know this. In fact, they are counting on creating shortages. It’s part of the strategy in the end to destroy the country they lead.
This is not stupidity or incompetence. It is policy.
5) Harris promised to address housing affordability by issuing $25K support for first-time house byers. How would you expect such a measure to affect the housing market?
It can’t stop the deflation of housing prices, it will only further dislocate the market by keeping prices up and suckering people who can’t afford a home into thinking they can. What needs to happen is sincere price corrections which reallocate scarce capital back to generating jobs that create wealth rather than subsidizing the things you buy once you have wealth.
Starter homes now cost $180-200 per square foot to build in the US. At those prices, there are no new affordable homes. The tiny home industry in the US is booming. People are trying to right size their debt with their income. And are now coping with the insanity by telling themselves they can raise a family in 500 sq.ft. They can’t.
So, again, what’s the goal? It’s not to put people in new homes. It’s to put people in smaller homes and/or choose to live in a rented space whose cost is subsidized by the government in the medium-term to nudge them towards the preferred outcome… living in cities with no food security, no real security, and constant/total surveillance.
6) How realistic do you find Harris’ promise to build 3 million new houses?
We can build any number of houses. The US has more than enough productive capacity to build 3 million houses. That’s not the right question. The right question is should we build any new houses, and for what price?
It’s a talking point. A pathetic attempt to buy young voters who are increasingly looking at them and thinking they are crazy people.
7) How successful do you expect Harris to be in distancing herself from the criticisms and negative effects that the Biden/Harris administration’s policies had on the US economy in recent years? How would you describe her target audience and why would this tactic work for it?
She won’t be. You can’t run as the “reform candidate” when you are the incumbent. And nothing she has proposed is functionally any different than what was done previously while she was in office. Her target audience for this is the wholly unsophisticated young voter who is entering a broken workforce and economic landscape today and seeing nothing but a lack of real opportunities. They are hoping for a new round of “Obama Youth” to marshal into an effective fighting force for “Hope and Change.”
What they are doing is purposefully increasing the possibility of full-blown civil war.
8) How should we expect Harris’ economic plan to increase the US national debt?
Exponentially. Again, that is the goal. They will use ruinous fiscal policy to run out the clock on Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve who are telling them that if they want their Communist revolution they will pay for it at 5.5% or higher. All of these ‘subsidy’ programs –food, housing, etc.—are meant to extend the current pricing regime until after the end of Powell’s term in 2026 and then close the loop, bringing the Fed back into the fold.