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The most active thread on DCUM over the weekend was titled, "Price gouging as her first policy announcement? Really?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Some days I feel like there is practically a contest on DCUM to see who can post the most uninformed post. Today is one of those days and this thread is one of those threads. A corollary to this is a widespread desire to be contrarian as if that automatically bestows some sort of intelligence on the poster. It doesn't. The original poster of this thread transgresses in both of these ways, at least in my opinion (admittedly, completely worthless). The original poster's primary point in her post is to question why Vice President Harris chose price gouging as her first major policy announcement and to argue that such a policy is unnecessary and brings back memories of 1970s price controls. As the very first response in this thread points out, this is not Harris' first major policy announcement. She had already announced plans for the national protection of reproductive health and support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Second, the original poster clearly knew nothing about Harris' proposal and, therefore, was misleading in her post. However, had the original poster made an effort to inform herself before posting, she might have some lingering confusion for which she could be forgiven. Harris did not exactly announce a policy but rather a plan to develop a policy. Her announcement promised the development of "clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can't unfairly exploit consumers to run up excessive corporate profits on food and groceries." She also committed to authorizing the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to “impose strict new penalties” on companies that price gouge. Harris would also address anti-competitive mergers and acquisitions that cause grocery price increases. Because none of the details of these initiatives were announced, a lot of exactly what Harris will do is unknown. But, nothing Harris outlined suggested that there would be price controls. Moreover, several states have existing anti-price gouging laws and don't impose price controls. Many of those responding are supportive of Harris, noting that posters have been complaining about inflation generally and grocery prices specifically for months. Now Harris is promising to address those concerns. The MAGA reaction is as expected. They accuse Harris of being a communist. There is literally no policy that Harris could announce which would not cause MAGA posters to claim that she is a communist. Somewhere in the middle were those who oppose former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump and would like to support Harris, but are opposed to this initiative. Some of them claim to be professional economists. What I have noticed over the past few years is that mainstream economists have adopted a fairly conservative view of economics. For instance, the acclaimed Lawrence Summers repeatedly argued that unemployment would have to reach 10% in order to control inflation. President Joe Biden somehow managed to get inflation under control while keeping unemployment at historic lows. I normally respect expertise. But, professionals in two specialities, weather forecasting and economics, really seem to be wrong more than they are right. I no longer have much faith in either one.