this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
594 points (97.4% liked)

politics

19159 readers
5063 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] cyd@lemmy.world -5 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Ad hominem aside, TheSanSabaSongbird's basic point, that price controls are an economically illiterate idea, is right. Prices are an economy's way of signalling scarcity, so messing with that signal prevents the underlying problem from being solved. Inflation has to be tackled through monetary and fiscal policy; the alternative approach, micromanaging prices, is how you get to the economy of Argentina.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 13 points 9 months ago

Products don't become more scarce when fewer competitors exist in the market, but it nevertheless causes prices to rise. Not all price changes are signals for increased production and the market is rarely the ideal frictionless exchange that can respond to rising prices as presented in intro economics books.

[–] matcha_addict@lemy.lol 4 points 9 months ago

That is a big over simplification of how prices work. As another commenter pointed out, lack competition and a high barrier to entry can cause elevated prices even in the absence of scarcity. Price controls are found all over the economy and do not have the effects you allude to.

[–] pearable@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

Price fixing works if you're coming at it from two directions. Set the price for consumers and subsidize the producers. Setting the price for consumers ensures middle men aren't taking absurd and unearned profits. Subsidizing will increase supply sufficiently that the artificially lowered price is not relevant. This ensures black markets don't arise selling those goods at a markup.

Tying inflation to monetary policy is not useful. The primary lever of monetary policy is debt lent by the federal reserve to banks. Cheap debt causes an inflation in the prices of housing, socks, and other investments. It does not have a large effect on the consumption of eggs or milk. There's no reason people's consumption, and thus the supply of groceries, should be impacted by cheap debt.

The initial burst of inflation was caused by supply shocks due our fragile global shipping infrastructure, fuel prices, productivity decrease due to COVID-19, and other related issues. Subsequent inflation was companies raising prices because consumers would know inflation was happening and be less likely to shop around, greedflation in other words.