CNBC’s Joe Kernen schooled Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the history of price controls during a debate on Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ economic policy.
Speaking on “Squawk Box” on Friday, the day after Harris accepted the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention, Kernen explained his free-market argument against price controls to Warren.
“I can explain to you how it works and why in the past when we’ve tried to artificially suppress prices, it hasn’t created competition,” Curnen said.
“If beef prices are too high, people won’t switch to chicken because there won’t be competitors coming to buy it at a lower price than the beef price. Trying to artificially control prices won’t work. It’s simply a matter of supply and demand. It’s a flawed idea,” he continued.
“So, did you have any questions?” Warren replied condescendingly.
“Well, if you really want to help the middle class, if you really, truly want to help people who are struggling at the grocery store, why would you put forward a flawed idea when the real problem isn’t price gouging? That’s the problem,” Kernen said.
“I understand if you just want to lecture me on this,” Warren replied, more condescendingly.
She argued that anti-price gouging laws are not the same as price controls, noting that many states, including Florida and Texas, have enacted anti-price gouging laws in past decades.
“And they used it effectively,” she said.
Warren said prices have risen during the pandemic for a variety of reasons, but she focused her ire on corporate greed, arguing that companies are exploiting the pandemic to rip off Americans by inflating prices far beyond the costs they incur.
“Senator, that’s a fallacy,” Kernen responded. “Can you explain why that’s false and at best misleading?”
Warren countered that her examples were misleading because they were essentially accounting anomalies, not evidence of price gouging. She interrupted Kernen, who accused her of trying to frame him.
“Senator, you can’t lose an argument because no one can talk back. It’s frustrating,” Kernen said.
He then Interview To accuse the administration of looking for a scapegoat for the inflationary impact of the Biden administration.
“How do you decide? It’s not the government’s job to decide these things. It’s stupid,” Curnen said.
“And they’re using it to deflect from the real cause of inflation over the last four years, which is there was demand after the pandemic, obviously there was a lot of demand as we reopened, and then all of a sudden there were supply chain issues and demand was fuelled by all the government stimulus. [Inflation Reduction Act] And all the other expenditures we made,” he added.
Some of the exchanges are widely Circulated A longer video of the debate, which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views on social media, can be watched below. CNBC’s YouTube channel.
Warren has been working on price-gouging legislation with the Trump administration during the coronavirus pandemic.
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