Brownstone Institute
Grocery Rationing within Four Years
From the Brownstone Institute
There is a lack of public comment and debate about Kamala Harris’s call for price controls on groceries and rents, the most stunning and frightening policy proposal made in my lifetime.
Immediately, of course, people will reply that she is not for price controls as such. It is only a limit on “gouging” (which she variously calls “gauging”) on grocery prices. As for rents, it’s only for larger-scale corporations with many units.
This is nonsense. If there really are national price-gouging police running around, every single seller of groceries, from small convenience stores to farmers’ markets to chain stores, will be vulnerable. No one wants the investigation so they will comply with de facto controls. No one knows for sure what gouging is.
Don Boudreaux is correct: “A government that threatens to punish merchants for selling at nominal prices higher than deemed appropriate by government clearly intends to control prices. It’s no surprise, therefore, that economists routinely analyze prohibitions against so-called ‘price gouging’ using exactly the same tools they use to analyze other forms of price controls.”
As for rental units, the only result will be fewer amenities, new charges, new fees for what used to be free, less service, and a dramatically reduced incentive to build new units. That will only lead to a pretext for more subsidies, more public housing, and more government provision generally. We have experience with that and it is not good.
The next step is nationalizing housing and rationing of groceries because there will be ever fewer available.
The more the betting odds favor Kamala, the stronger the incentive to raise prices as high as possible now in anticipation of price controls come next year. That will provide even more seeming evidence for the need for more controls and a genuine crackdown.
Price controls lead to shortages of anything they touch, especially in inflationary times. With the Federal Reserve seemingly on the verge of cutting rates for no good reason – rates are very low in real terms by any historical standard – we might see wave two of inflation later next year.
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Next time, however, merchants will not be in a position to respond rationally. Instead, they will confront federal price investigators and prosecutors.
Kamala is wrong that this will be the “first-ever” ban on price gouging. We had that in World War II, along with rationing tickets on meat, animal fats, foil, sugar, flour, foil, coffee, and more. It was a time of extreme austerity, and people put up with it because they believed it was saving resources for the war effort. It was enforced the same as we saw with covid lockdowns: a huge network enlisting state and local institutions, media, and private zealots ready to rat out the rebels.
Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. It claimed broad powers to manage all production and consumption in the US. On January 30, 1942, the Emergency Price Control Act granted the Office of Price Administration (OPA) the authority to set price limits and ration food and other commodities. Products were added as shortages intensified.
And yes, all of this was heavily enforced.
In case you are doing the math, that’s a $200,000 fine today for noncompliance. In other words, this was very serious and highly coercive.
Technology limited enforcement, however, and black markets sprung up everywhere. The so-called Meatleggers were the most famous and most demonized by government propaganda.
What happens when the government restricts meat consumption?
During World War II, food rationing led to significant changes in consumption habits in the United States.
Adults and children over 12 were limited to 2 lbs of meat per week, which was monitored through rationing… pic.twitter.com/goCU1FGMnD
— Meat Head (@markeatsmeat) February 20, 2024
In a nation with more agriculture in demographic proximity, people relied on local farmers and various methods of bartering goods and services.
Years went by and somehow people got through it but production for civilian purposes came to a near standstill. The GDP for the period looked like growth but the reality was a continuation and intensification of the Great Depression that began more than a decade earlier.
There are fewer people alive now that recall these days but I’ve known some. They adopted habits of extreme conservation. I once had a neighbor who simply could not bear to throw away tin-foil pie pans because she had lived through rationing. After she died, her kids discovered her vast collection and it shocked them. She was not crazy, just traumatized.
How would such a thing transpire today? Look at the program SNAP, the new name for food stamps. For those who qualify, the money goes into a special account managed by the federal government. The recipient is sent an EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) card, which is used like a credit card in stores. It costs taxpayers some $114 billion a year, and works out as a huge subsidy to Big Agriculture, which is why the program is administered by the Department of Agriculture.
Transitioning that program to the general population would not be difficult. It would be a simple matter of expansion of eligibility. As shortages grow, so too could the program until the entire population would be on it and it would be mandatory. It could also be converted into a mobile app instead of a piece of plastic as a fraud-prevention measure. With everyone carrying cell phones, this would be an easy step.
And where could people spend the money? Only at participating institutions. Would non-participation institutions be entitled to sell food, for example, at local farmers’ co-ops? Maybe at first but that’s before the media demonization campaigns come along to decry the rich who are eating more than their fair share and the sellers who are exploiting the national emergency.
You can sell how this all unfolds, and none of it is implausible. Only a few years ago, governments around the country canceled gatherings for religious holidays, limited the numbers of people who could gather in homes, and banned public weddings and funerals. If they can do that, they can do anything, including the rationing of all food.
The program that Harris has proposed is not like other matters that she has flip-flopped on. She is serious and repeats it. She spoke about it even during the debate with Trump but there was no followup or critique of the scheme offered. Nor does such a crazy plan require some legislation and a vote by Congress. It could come in the form of an executive order. Yes, it would be tested by the Supreme Court but, if recent history holds, the program would be long in effect before the Court weighed in. Nor is it clear how it would rule.
The Supreme Court in 1942 heard the case of Albert Yakus, a Boston-based meat seller who was criminally prosecuted for violating the wholesale beef price ceiling. In Yakus vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled for the government and against the meat-selling criminal. That’s the existing precedent.
Nor does all this have to unfold immediately following the inauguration. It can happen as matters become ever worse following anti-gouging edicts and when inflation worsens. After all, a presidency that believes in central planning and forced economic austerity would last a full four years, and the coercion could grow month after month until we have comprehensively enforced deprivation by the end, and no one remembers what it was like to buy groceries at market prices with their own money.
I wish I could say that this is an outlandish and fear-mongering warning. It is not. It is a very realistic scenario based on repeated statements and promises plus the recent history of government management of the population. There is likely another wave of inflation coming. This time it will meet with a promise to use every coercive power of government to prevent increases in prices on groceries and rents.
What if voters actually understood this? What then?
Keep in mind the main legacy of the Covid years: governments learned the fullness of what they could do under the right circumstances. That’s the worst possible lesson but that is what has stuck. The implications for the future are grim.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
Many news outlets reported the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday by saying President Donald Trump had missed out (Washington Post, Yahoo, Hindustan Times, Huffington Post), not won (USA Today), fallen short (AP News), lost (Time), etc. There is even a meme doing the rounds about ‘Trump Wine.’ ‘Made from sour grapes,’ the label explains, ‘This is a full bodied and bitter vintage guaranteed to leave a nasty taste in your mouth for years.’
For the record, the prize was awarded to María Corina Machado for her courageous and sustained opposition to Venezuela’s ruling regime. Trump called to congratulate her. Given his own attacks on the Venezuelan president, his anger will be partly mollified, and he could even back her with practical support. He nonetheless attacked the prize committee, and the White House assailed it for putting politics before peace.
He could be in serious contention next year. If his Gaza peace plan is implemented and holds until next October, he should get it. That he is unlikely to do so is more a reflection on the award and less on Trump.
So He Won the Nobel Peace Prize. Meh!
Alfred Nobel’s will stipulates the prize should be awarded to the person who has contributed the most to promote ‘fraternity between nations…abolition or reduction of standing armies and…holding and promotion of peace congresses.’ Over the decades, this has expanded progressively to embrace human rights, political dissent, environmentalism, race, gender, and other social justice causes.
On these grounds, I would have thought the Covid resistance should have been a winner. The emphasis has shifted from outcomes and actual work to advocacy. In honouring President Barack Obama in 2009, the Nobel committee embarrassed itself, patronised him, and demeaned the prize. His biggest accomplishment was the choice of his predecessor as president: the prize was a one-finger send-off to President George W. Bush.
There have been other strange laureates, including those prone to wage war (Henry Kissinger, 1973), tainted through association with terrorism (Yasser Arafat, 1994), and contributions to fields beyond peace, such as planting millions of trees. Some laureates were subsequently discovered to have embellished their record, and others proved to be flawed champions of human rights who had won them the treasured accolade.
Conversely, Mahatma Gandhi did not get the prize, not for his contributions to the theory and practice of non-violence, nor for his role in toppling the British Raj as the curtain raiser to worldwide decolonisation. The sad reality is how little practical difference the prize has made to the causes it espoused. They bring baubles and honour to the laureates, but the prize has lost much of its lustre as far as results go.
Trump Was Not a Serious Contender
The nomination processes start in September and nominations close on 31 January. The five-member Norwegian Nobel committee scrutinises the list of candidates and whittles it down between February and October. The prize is announced on or close to 10 October, the date Alfred Nobel died, and the award ceremony is held in Oslo in early December.
The calendar rules out a newly elected president in his first year, with the risible exception of Obama. The period under review was 2024. Trump’s claims to have ended seven wars and boasts of ‘nobody’s ever done that’ are not taken seriously beyond the narrow circle of fervent devotees, sycophantic courtiers, and supplicant foreign leaders eager to ingratiate themselves with over-the-top flattery.
Trump Could Be in Serious Contention Next Year
Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan falls into three conceptual-cum-chronological parts: today, tomorrow, and the day after. At the time of writing, in a hinge moment in the two-year war, Israel has implemented a ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas has agreed to release Israeli hostages on 13-14 October, and Israel will release around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners (today’s agenda). So why are the ‘Ceasefire Now!’ mobs not out on the streets celebrating joyously instead of looking morose and discombobulated? Perhaps they’ve been robbed of the meaning of life?
The second part (tomorrow) requires Hamas demilitarisation, surrender, amnesty, no role in Gaza’s future governance, resumption of aid deliveries, Israeli military pullbacks, a temporary international stabilisation force, and a technocratic transitional administration. The third part, the agenda for the day after, calls for the deradicalisation of Gaza, its reconstruction and development, an international Peace Board to oversee implementation of the plan, governance reforms of the Palestinian Authority, and, over the horizon, Palestinian statehood.
There are too many potential pitfalls to rest easy on the prospects for success. Will Hamas commit military and political suicide? How can the call for democracy in Gaza and the West Bank be reconciled with Hamas as the most popular group among Palestinians? Can Israel’s fractious governing coalition survive?
Both Hamas and Israel have a long record of agreeing to demands under pressure but sabotaging their implementation at points of vulnerability. The broad Arab support could weaken as difficulties arise. The presence of the internationally toxic Tony Blair on the Peace Board could derail the project. Hamas has reportedly called on all factions to reject Blair’s involvement. Hamas official Basem Naim, while thanking Trump for his positive role in the peace deal, explained that ‘Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims and maybe a lot [of] people around the world still remember his [Blair’s] role in causing the killing of thousands or millions of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.’
It would be a stupendous achievement for all the complicated moving parts to come together in stable equilibrium. What cannot and should not be denied is the breathtaking diplomatic coup already achieved. Only Trump could have pulled this off.
The very traits that are so offputting in one context helped him to get here: narcissism; bullying and impatience; bull in a china shop style of diplomacy; indifference to what others think; dislike of wars and love of real estate development; bottomless faith in his own vision, negotiating skills, and ability to read others; personal relationships with key players in the region; and credibility as both the ultimate guarantor of Israel’s security and preparedness to use force if obstructed. Israelis trust him; Hamas and Iran fear him.
The combined Israeli-US attacks to degrade Iran’s nuclear capability underlined the credibility of threats of force against recalcitrant opponents. Unilateral Israeli strikes on Hamas leaders in Qatar highlighted to uninvolved Arabs the very real dangers of continued escalation amidst the grim Israeli determination to rid themselves of Hamas once and for all.
Trump Is Likely to Be Overlooked
Russia has sometimes been the object of the Nobel Peace Prize. The mischievous President Vladimir Putin has suggested Trump may be too good for the prize. Trump’s disdain for and hostility to international institutions and assaults on the pillars of the liberal international order would have rubbed Norwegians, among the world’s strongest supporters of rules-based international governance, net zero, and foreign aid, the wrong way.
Brash and public lobbying for the prize, like calling the Norwegian prime minister, is counterproductive. The committee is fiercely independent. Nominees are advised against making the nomination public, let alone orchestrating an advocacy campaign. Yet, one laureate is believed to have mobilised his entire government for quiet lobbying behind the scenes, and another to have bad-mouthed a leading rival to friendly journalists.
Most crucially, given that Scandinavian character traits tip towards the opposite end of the scale, it’s hard to see the committee overlooking Trump’s loud flaws, vanity, braggadocio, and lack of grace and humility. Trump supporters discount his character traits and take his policies and results seriously. Haters cannot get over the flaws to seriously evaluate policies and outcomes. No prizes for guessing which group the Nobel committee is likely to belong to. As is currently fashionable to say when cancelling someone, Trump’s values do not align with those of the committee and the ideals of the prize.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
Trump made sweeping claims that would have ended political careers in any other era. His health officials tried to narrow the edges, but the President ensured that the headlines would be his.
Autism has long been the untouchable subject in American politics. For decades, federal agencies tiptoed around it, steering research toward genetics while carefully avoiding controversial environmental or pharmaceutical questions.
That ended at the White House this week, when President Donald Trump tore through the taboo with a blunt and sometimes incendiary performance that left even his own health chiefs scrambling to keep pace.
Flanked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, CMS Adminstrator Dr Mehmet Oz, and other senior officials, Trump declared autism a “horrible, horrible crisis” and recounted its rise in startling terms.
“Just a few decades ago, one in 10,000 children had autism…now it’s one in 31, but in some areas, it’s much worse than that, if you can believe it, one in 31 and…for boys, it’s one in 12 in California,” Trump said.
The President insisted the trend was “artificially induced,” adding: “You don’t go from one in 20,000 to one in 10,000 and then you go to 12, you know, there’s something artificial. They’re taking something.”
Trump’s Blunt Tylenol Warning
The headline moment came when Trump zeroed in on acetaminophen, the common painkiller sold as Tylenol — known as paracetamol in Australia.
While Kennedy and Makary described a cautious process of label changes and physician advisories, Trump dispensed with nuance.
“Don’t take Tylenol,” Trump said flatly. “Don’t take it unless it’s absolutely necessary…fight like hell not to take it.”
Kennedy laid out the evidence base, citing “clinical and laboratory studies that suggest a potential association between acetaminophen used during pregnancy and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, including later diagnosis for ADHD and autism.”
Makary reinforced the point with references to the Boston Birth Cohort, the Nurses’ Health Study, and a recent Harvard review, before adding: “To quote the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, there is a causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder. We cannot wait any longer.”
But where the officials spoke of “lowest effective dose” and “shortest possible duration,” Trump thundered over the top: “I just want to say it like it is, don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it if you just can’t. I mean, it says, fight like hell not to take it.”
Vaccines Back on Center Stage
The President then pivoted to vaccines, reviving arguments that the medical establishment has long sought to bury. He blasted the practice of giving infants multiple injections at a single visit.
“They pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace…you get a vat of 80 different vaccines, I guess, 80 different blends, and they pump it in,” Trump said.
His solution was simple: “Go to the doctor four times instead of once, or five times instead of once…it can only help.”
On the measles, mumps, and rubella shot, Trump insisted: “The MMR, I think should be taken separately…when you mix them, there could be a problem. So there’s no downside in taking them separately.”
The moment was astonishing — echoing arguments that had once seen doctors like Andrew Wakefield excommunicated from medical circles.
It was the kind of line of questioning the establishment had spent decades trying to banish from mainstream debate.
Hep B Vaccine under Attack
Trump dismissed the rationale for giving the hepatitis B vaccine at birth.
“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s just born hepatitis B [vaccine]. So I would say, wait till the baby is 12 years old,” he said.
He made clear that he was “not a doctor,” stressing that he was simply offering his personal opinion. But the move could also be interpreted as Trump choosing to take the heat himself, to shield Kennedy’s HHS from what was sure to be an onslaught of criticism.
The timing was remarkable.
Only last week, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) had been preparing to vote on whether to delay the hepatitis B shot until “one month” of age — a modest proposal that mainstream outlets derided as “anti-vax extremism.”
By contrast, Trump told the nation to push the jab back 12 years. His sweeping denunciations made the supposedly radical ACIP vote look almost tame.
The irony was inescapable — the same media voices who had painted Kennedy’s reshaped ACIP as reckless now faced a President willing to say far more than the panel itself dared.
A New Treatment and Big Research Push
The administration also unveiled what it deemed a breakthrough: FDA recognition of prescription leucovorin, a folate-based therapy, as a treatment for some autistic children.
Makary explained: “It may also be due to an autoimmune reaction to a folate receptor on the brain not allowing that important vitamin to get into the brain cells…one study found that with kids with autism and chronic folate deficiency, two-thirds of kids with autism symptoms had improvement and some marked improvement.”
Dr Oz confirmed Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid) would cover the treatment.
“Over half of American children are covered by Medicaid and CHIP…upon this label change…state Medicaid programs will cover prescription leucovorin around the country, it’s yours,” said Oz.
Bhattacharya announced $50 million in new NIH grants under the “Autism Data Science Initiative.”
He explained that 13 projects would be funded using “exposomics” — the study of how environmental exposures like diet, chemicals, and infections interact with our biology — alongside advanced causal inference methods.
“For too long, it’s been taboo to ask some questions for fear the scientific work might reveal a politically incorrect answer,” Bhattacharya said. “Because of this restricted focus in scientific investigations, the answers for families have been similarly restricted.”
Mothers’ Voices
The press conference also featured raw testimony from parents.
Amanda, mother of a profoundly autistic five-year-old, told Trump: “Unless you’ve lived with profound autism, you have no idea…it’s a very hopeless feeling. It’s very isolating. Being a parent with a profound autistic child, even just taking them over to your friend’s house is something we just don’t do.”
Jackie, mother of 11-year-old Eddie, said: “I’ve been praying for this day for nine years, and I’m so thankful to God for bringing the administration into our lives…I never thought we would have an administration that was courageous enough to look into things that no prior administration had.”
Their stories underscored what Kennedy said at the announcement about “believing women.” Here were mothers speaking directly about their lived reality, demanding that uncomfortable conversations could no longer be avoided.
Clashes with the Press Corps
Reporters pressed Trump on the backlash from medical groups.
Asked about the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) declaring acetaminophen safe in pregnancy, Trump shot back, “That’s the establishment. They’re funded by lots of different groups. And you know what? Maybe they’re right. I don’t think they are, because I don’t think the facts bear it out at all.”
When one journalist raised the argument that rising diagnoses reflected better recognition, Kennedy bristled,
“That’s one of the canards that has been promoted by the industry for many years,” he said. “It’s just common sense, because you’re only seeing this in people who are under 50 years of age. If it were better recognition or diagnosis, you’d see it in the seventy-year-old men. I’ve never seen this happening in people my age.”
Another reporter then asked Trump, “Should the establishment media show at least some openness to trying to figure out what the causes are?”
“I wish they would. Yeah, why are they so close-minded?” Trump replied. “It’s not only the media, in all fairness, it’s some people, when you talk about vaccines, it’s crazy…I don’t care about being attacked.”
Breaking the Spell
For years, autism policy has been shaped by caution, consensus, and deference to orthodox positions. That spell was broken at today’s press conference.
The dynamic was striking. Kennedy, Makary, Bhattacharya, and Oz leaned on scientific papers, review processes, and cautious advisories. Trump, by contrast, brushed it all aside, hammering his message home through repetition and personal anecdotes.
Trump made sweeping claims that would have ended political careers in any other era. His health officials tried to narrow the edges, but the President ensured that the headlines would be his.
“This will be as important as any single thing I’ve done,” Trump declared. “We’re going to save a lot of children from a tough life, really tough life. We’re going to save a lot of parents from a tough life.”
Whatever the science ultimately shows, the politics of autism in America will never be the same.
Republished from the author’s Substack
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