College Student Presidential Candidate Does Not Know Economic History

Learning is not necessarily integrated. Human experience over the centuries provides lessons, some more obvious than others. But every generation has to relearn lessons, and some don’t.

The lessons about economic growth that have been taught throughout history are clear. Growth is inevitable, and although wealth may be accumulated, or distributed, by the elite few, the lives of the vast majority over the centuries have been miserable, brutal, and it is short.

The exception, the Great Economy, began three centuries ago around the North Sea in the Dutch Republic and England, according to economic historian Deirdre McCloskey, in societies when people began to respect and encourage trade instead and offending and mocking it.

They discovered that when people exchanged goods and services in free markets, with property rights protected by limited government and the rule of law, the economy could grow in ways that improved people’s lives and not theirs. not just a few but many.

Suddenly, not just for a second, a large number of people went from living on $3 a day, just to make ends meet—and in times of famine or war, even that—to $130 a day.

The 20th century proved to be full of lessons on how to generate widespread and widely distributed economic growth—and how to slow it down. Growth occurs when free markets are allowed to operate in societies with high trust and the rule of law.

It ends, and living standards decline, in societies where governments are monetizing the economy, trying to control wages and prices, impose centralized economic planning, and stifle voluntary market interactions.

Sometimes governments put in place such measures temporarily during war, with varying results depending on the nature of the war. In peacetime, the results are devastating—Weimar Germany, the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong’s China, and most recently, oil-rich Venezuela.

And, perhaps, to Kamala Harris’ America. Since President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid four weeks ago, the vice president has been tight-lipped about what policies he will pursue as president. His website is not without its share of problems.

He has never asked questions and has never done anything like a strong interview from the press—many of whose members, in their zeal for self-determination, have not which showed dissatisfaction with his neglect.

It was only last Friday that he made headlines, announcing the government’s “first ban on price fixing” – he read the word “fixing” – on food and groceries. Perhaps this was an attempt to solve an obvious problem for any candidate with the Biden-Harris pedigree, the fact that the administration’s policy, by pouring money into already affluent consumers closed, it raised the rate of inflation that the under-60 voter had ever experienced. an adult.

But this was obviously unreasonable. The grocery business is highly competitive and has low profitability. If one firm “spoils” customers too much, they may go elsewhere. Catherine Rampell of The Washington Post wrote: “It’s hard to overstate how bad this policy is. “Of course, this can lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding.”

Rampell has since taken a different stance after Harris’ candid speech fueled his campaign profile, but his first performance remains compelling and consistent with historical experience, including price controls imposed by former President Richard Nixon 53 years ago this month.

Equally economically illiterate is Harris’ proposal to give first-time homebuyers a $25,000 federal grant. Just as colleges and universities have eliminated federally subsidized college loans in their favor, it’s clear that developers and home sellers will raise their prices by $25,000 and add subsidies.

As Jason Furman, head of former President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, said of the rate hike announcement, “This is not a sound policy, and I think the best hope is that it it ends up being too much talk, and it’s not true.”

Is it fair to argue that Harris has learned nothing from the dismal history of price controls on the basis of a single proposition? Yes, if that’s the only thing he’s promoted all month as the de facto and de jure Democratic nominee for president.

Yes, because he hasn’t abandoned the same outrageous promises he made in 2019 in his 2020 nomination campaign — anti-fraud, taxing the police, ending health insurance. well, “disposal” of the drug company’s legal rights. Tweets from anonymous workers rejecting these policies are useless.

The irony here is that a party favored by college graduates, many of whom are confident in their knowledge and intelligence, chose a candidate who shows no signs of learning from the dismal history of economic ukases.

Learning is not necessarily integrated.

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