Letter: Price controls will only add to problem of inflation
The article “What is ‘price gouging'” (Aug 21,2024), is well written, but is misleading and incomplete. The article confuses price fluctuations with inflation, and Vice President Harris’ proposed price controls would be disastrous. It has consistently failed everywhere it is imposed. See Venezuela, the old Soviet Union and the attempt in the Nixon administration. It always leads to shortages before eventually being abandoned.
Shortages and surpluses result in price fluxes, but if they are temporary they are not inflation. Even high school economic students know inflation is caused by government fiscal and monetary mismanagement, the government injecting too much money into the economy. To put it bluntly, government policy made our money rapidly lose value, and both prices and wages spiraled up, with wages lagging well behind prices, and inflation is permanent. Prices will not come down when caused by inflation, except in times of deflation, which is also disastrous. The Great Depression was a period of deflation.
Ironically, the bureaucracy required to implement a Price Control monitoring system would require a large increase in wasteful government spending, adding directly to inflation.
Mike Barton
Kaysville