White House falsely claims grocery prices have ‘come down’ under Biden — while Harris revives price-gouging claim

[HARK!]

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s chief spokesperson falsely said Tuesday that grocery prices have “come down” recently — when federal data show they cost 21.1% more than when Biden took office in 2021, including a persistent 1.1.% bump over the past year.


White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the unfactual claim when asked by a reporter if Biden agrees with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign-trail argument that “price-gouging continues” with groceries.

White House falsely claims grocery prices have ‘come down’ under Biden — while Harris revives price-gouging claim

President Biden’s chief spokesperson falsely said Tuesday that grocery prices have “come down” recently — when federal data show they cost 21.1% more than when Biden took office i…

nypost.com

21%? That looks like more fudged Bidenomic math to me.

 

[Michie]

Sure has not gone down in my neck of the woods!

 

[HARK!]

Sure has not gone down in my neck of the woods!

Mine either. Who should I believe, this Administration, or my own lying eyes.

 

[Michie]

Mine either. Who should I believe, this Administration, or my own lying eyes.

I would believe your grocery budget. My mom wanted a bad of Doritos the other day, 7.50. Everything is through the roof and I know there has to be gouging going on. Food prices are still going up. They have not gone down. Same goes for hygiene products, cleaning supplies, pet foods, etc. I do not know what planet this administration lives on.

 

[wing2000]

Oh look, another fine piece of journalism from the NY Post.


Transcript:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?538092-1/white-house-daily-briefing

Question: The, the vice president um released a political ad this morning where she mentioned that price gouging is a problem in the United States when it comes to grocery prices. And I wanted to see if there's anything that the Biden Harris administration is doing to address price gouging if there are targets in mind and the activity that the administration has on this issue.

Press Secretary: So look, obviously, we have been very much an administration has focused on lowering cost. That is something that we continue to do as one of the most recent events that the president and the vice president had was indeed talking about how to lower prescription drugs. And so that is something that you know that we've done over the past couple of years as it relates to the campaign, as it relates to the ad, I've got to be mindful just I have to say this at the top Paris campaign can speak specifically to, to the ad, but we have made some progress in lowering prices as I just mentioned about the Medicaid, the Medicare, what we've been able to do with beating back farmer and lowering some prices there when it comes to health care and they have taken on price gouging. This is something that we have done here in this administration, including partnering with state attorneys generals to crack down on anti competitive behavior in grocery and agriculture markets. That is something that we have done in the past 3.5 years in this administration. And so obviously, it's something that we have focused on what we want to do. And this is an issue that Americans care about the economy. We want to continue to lower costs for Americans. We want to make sure that big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share and we want to make sure that we build an economy that works for all from the bottom up, middle out. This is all connected, all connected and what the president and this vice president has tried to do over the 3.5 years has to believe that price gouging despite the efforts that you describe that price gouging continues with grocery prices. Oh, yes, we've talked to of this.

--> We have seen now to be clear, we have seen grocery prices come down over the past year or more. And so that is important and a lot of that is the work that's been done from this administration. The president has called out companies, right, who we know were doing just that raising the cost and, and, and, but what we believe is that we want to make sure that the Americans are not paid for suckers. You've heard the president say this, they are not played for suckers and that we're going to continue to do everything that we can to protect them. And so again, we've done work on dealing with price gouging, working directly with state State Attorney Generals to crack down on certain certain actions that we have seen and we'll continue to do that.

 

[Gene2memE]

'Food at Home' CPI basket is up 1.1% in the past 12 months, and essentially flat for the past six months.

Here's what the BLS has to say:

Food

The food index increased 0.2 percent in July, as it did in June. The index for food at home rose 0.1
percent in July. Three of the six major grocery store food group indexes increased over the month while
the other three indexes declined in July. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs rose 0.7 percent
in July as the index for eggs increased 5.5 percent. The fruits and vegetables index rose 0.8 percent
over the month and the nonalcoholic beverages index increased 0.5 percent.

The index for other food at home fell 0.5 percent in July, after rising 0.5 percent June. The cereals and
bakery products index also decreased 0.5 percent over the month and the dairy and related products index
declined 0.2 percent.

 

[HARK!]

My mom wanted a bad of Doritos the other day, 7.50.

 

[mourningdove~]

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s chief spokesperson falsely said Tuesday that grocery prices have “come down” recently —

This administration must think we're all 'out of our minds', for them to be telling us that prices have come down ... and expect for us to believe it.

 

[Pommer]

Oh look, another fine piece of journalism from the NY Post.


Transcript:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?538092-1/white-house-daily-briefing

Question: The, the vice president um released a political ad this morning where she mentioned that price gouging is a problem in the United States when it comes to grocery prices. And I wanted to see if there's anything that the Biden Harris administration is doing to address price gouging if there are targets in mind and the activity that the administration has on this issue.

Press Secretary: So look, obviously, we have been very much an administration has focused on lowering cost. That is something that we continue to do as one of the most recent events that the president and the vice president had was indeed talking about how to lower prescription drugs. And so that is something that you know that we've done over the past couple of years as it relates to the campaign, as it relates to the ad, I've got to be mindful just I have to say this at the top Paris campaign can speak specifically to, to the ad, but we have made some progress in lowering prices as I just mentioned about the Medicaid, the Medicare, what we've been able to do with beating back farmer and lowering some prices there when it comes to health care and they have taken on price gouging. This is something that we have done here in this administration, including partnering with state attorneys generals to crack down on anti competitive behavior in grocery and agriculture markets. That is something that we have done in the past 3.5 years in this administration. And so obviously, it's something that we have focused on what we want to do. And this is an issue that Americans care about the economy. We want to continue to lower costs for Americans. We want to make sure that big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share and we want to make sure that we build an economy that works for all from the bottom up, middle out. This is all connected, all connected and what the president and this vice president has tried to do over the 3.5 years has to believe that price gouging despite the efforts that you describe that price gouging continues with grocery prices. Oh, yes, we've talked to of this.

--> We have seen now to be clear, we have seen grocery prices come down over the past year or more. And so that is important and a lot of that is the work that's been done from this administration. The president has called out companies, right, who we know were doing just that raising the cost and, and, and, but what we believe is that we want to make sure that the Americans are not paid for suckers. You've heard the president say this, they are not played for suckers and that we're going to continue to do everything that we can to protect them. And so again, we've done work on dealing with price gouging, working directly with state State Attorney Generals to crack down on certain certain actions that we have seen and we'll continue to do that.

“Grocery prices not going up as fast”≠”prices have come down”; but it’s in politician-sprecht,

The Biden Administration has differing policy-goals from a potential Harris Administration, we worked on the things that were important and took care of the inflation as best we could, but this ‘ price-gouging’ thing is a Harris policy, ask her!

 

[ThatRobGuy]

If Harris sees the circumstances as a symptom of "price gouging" (which, with regards to some of the industries in question, is debatable), proposed plans of "price fixing" are one of the few areas where both left-leaning and right-leaning economists both agree that it's not a good strategy.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/16/business/harris-price-gouging-ban-inflation/index.html

Gavin Roberts studied anti-price gouging laws some states passed during the pandemic. One of the biggest effects he observed, especially at grocery stores, was that these laws motivated people “to go buy goods more than they would if prices had risen.”

When prices are high, in most cases, the best policy action in response is actually taking no action, Roberts, the chair of Weber State University’s economics department, told CNN.

Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration, shared Roberts’ view that anti-price gouging laws could inadvertently harm consumers. “This is not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality,” he told the New York Times.


Her proposals are the retail equivalent of the "rent control" efforts that were pursued in the past...and that was another situation where Nobel prize winning Economists from both "schools of thought" ended up concurring "yeah, this wasn't a good idea".

"You're not allowed to charge more than X" and/or "You can't raise the price more than X per year" style policies take more manpower (in terms of strategizing) than what the government has to work with, in order to be able to employ the precision needed in order to avoid being vastly disruptive to the markets as a whole. (as they found out when they tried to do it with rents back in the day)

Without being a subject matter expert on each and every producer's organizational structure, operating costs, staffing, overhead/logistics (and obviously not being psychic, meaning you can't predict which things outside of the organizations' control may cause supply chain issues or supply costs), simply saying "You can't raise bread prices by my than X% from the previous year's price" is lazy economic policy.

I suspect it's a way for some politicians to distance themselves from the link between the policies they advocated for 3 years ago, and the effects of those policies we're seeing now.

"We supported artificially pumping a bunch of extra money into the economy which creates upward pricing pressure... what's that?? The prices went up?? There's no way anyone could've predicted this (except for the numerous people who predicted exactly this, but their opinion didn't count, they just wanted to rollback the covid restrictions early and kill grandma), this must be happening because grocery store owners are greedy corporate monsters"

 

[Hazelelponi]

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s chief spokesperson falsely said Tuesday that grocery prices have “come down” recently — when federal data show they cost 21.1% more than when Biden took office in 2021, including a persistent 1.1.% bump over the past year.


White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the unfactual claim when asked by a reporter if Biden agrees with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign-trail argument that “price-gouging continues” with groceries.

White House falsely claims grocery prices have ‘come down’ under Biden — while Harris revives price-gouging claim

President Biden’s chief spokesperson falsely said Tuesday that grocery prices have “come down” recently — when federal data show they cost 21.1% more than when Biden took office i…

nypost.com

21%? That looks like more fudged Bidenomic math to me.

Definitely fudged numbers. I don't know what gas is doing but while eggs had come down a little they are back up again this week by 12¢ per egg higher - or about 2 dollars more for an 18 pack, it's a huge increase in just one week.

While I had found an available and less expensive tub of coffee it's up this week by a little over .50¢ over last month when I bought it.

These price increases aren't nothing. I'm doing my first of the month shopping and the cart is up to 300.00 dollars. I want to cut a hundred off but I don't know what to remove yet...

This is just ridiculous with prices. Absolutely ridiculous... Not that long ago this wouldn't have been 150...

 

[HARK!]

Definitely fudged numbers. I don't know what gas is doing but while eggs had come down a little they are back up again this week by 12¢ per egg higher - or about 2 dollars more for an 18 pack, it's a huge increase in just one week.

Crude oil is up, but gas prices are dropping. This is a sign that the economy is slowing. Yesterday the market took a dive. This will put more pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates. This will weaken the dollar, as much of the world is rejoicing that the value of the dollar is already weakening.

 

[wing2000]

If Harris sees the circumstances as a symptom of "price gouging" (which, with regards to some of the industries in question, is debatable), proposed plans of "price fixing" are one of the few areas where both left-leaning and right-leaning economists both agree that it's not a good strategy.

"If" being the operative word. Harris has yet to detail how she would attack "price gouging".

 

[wing2000]

Crude oil is up, but gas prices are dropping. This is a sign that the economy is slowing. Yesterday the market took a dive. This will put more pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates. This will weaken the dollar, as much of the world is rejoicing that the value of the dollar is already weakening.

....and that those factors play into the price of groceries?

 

[HARK!]

....and that those factors play into the price of groceries?

Of course. It's the economy.

 

[HARK!]

"If" being the operative word. Harris has yet to detail how she would attack "price gouging".

Some companies might be gouging, but the market won't support that for long. Some people will abstain from buying those processed foods, and probably be healthier for it. Eventually competition will step in and offer a similar product at a lower price.

Economists on both the Right and the Left agree that price fixing doesn't work.

 

[wing2000]

Some companies might be gouging, but the market won't support that for long. Some people will abstain from buying those processed foods, and probably be healthier for it. Eventually competition will step in and offer a similar product at a lower price.

Economists on both the Right and the Left agree that price fixing doesn't work.

I agree.

I also don't think either candidate can do much about it.

 

[RileyG]

Sure has not gone down in my neck of the woods!

Same here. Bidenomics has killed our prices. Ugh.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I agree.

I also don't think either candidate can do much about it.

Nor should they based on the feed back from the economists that spoke with CNN in that interview I linked earlier.

They both kind of said "the best thing to do is nothing, and let the market find equilibrium"

 

[HARK!]

I agree.

I also don't think either candidate can do much about it.

The death of the US dollar is inevitable. If we stay on our current path, I suspect that the dollar will be dead before 2029. That is when I project that the US won't be able to borrow enough money to pay the interest on the debt. We could put that off to give us some more time; but the question is, would a politician take the bold steps needed to make that happen? Either way, it's not going to be a jolly walk in the park.