To the editor: Jonah Goldberg's column on Vice President Kamala Harris' proposal on price gouging should be read in classrooms around the world as the perfect example of using statistics to lie about the effect of government actions on inflation.
First, your choice of “heavily regulated” sectors is strange. Particularly strange is the claim that cars have become “more affordable” because they are a “less regulated” product. On the contrary, numerous regulations have been implemented since 1968, covering everything from seat belts to fuel consumption.
He blames high housing costs on regulation, but zoning and building codes have been in place for many decades. Those regulations didn't stop the housing market from collapsing during the 2008 financial crisis, which was fueled by private-sector greed.
Furthermore, comparing “national health care expenditures” in 1970, before many of today’s treatments for diseases existed and the population was much younger, is simply misleading.
If statistics are to be the basis of Goldberg's column, perhaps he can explain why corporate CEOs earn on average hundreds of times what their typical workers make today, compared with less than 30 times the typical salary in 1970.
Stephanie Scher, Pasadena
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To the editor: I think there are two conflicting desires on the part of the public when it comes to government funding of anything.
First, everyone wants funding to be the minimum necessary to get the job done. The second, and much more emotionally charged, is that not a single cent of government money should be allowed to be stolen or mismanaged.
This second desire leads to administrative overload, where every time someone finds a new way to cheat the system or some unlucky bureaucrat makes a mistake, many more rules are put in place to ensure it doesn't happen again.
It would be wonderful if we could make outcomes-based laws that rationalize all the inefficiencies of government, but until then I would like to remind Goldberg and others that government was designed to be inefficient in this country, hence the importance of separation of powers.
Michael Lampel, Granada Hills
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To the editor: Goldberg's column is an accurate analysis of the theoretical and practical problems of government price controls, but it misses the mark.
Harris's claims are based on evidence of excessive and uncompetitive concentration ratios in the grocery business that have been identified by the National Grocery Association, the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Whether further investigation proves this to be true remains to be seen, but the economic principle underlying his campaign rhetoric is sound. His identification demonstrates the perspective and experience of his prosecutor.
Thomas Mone, Los Angeles
