In a conversation on the Harris campaign’s plan to fight against corporate price gouging, Senator Elizabeth Warren had to set CNBC’s Joe Kernen back on track after he launched into an Econ-101-esque “lecture.”
Kernen welcomed Warren by celebrating her speech at the Democratic National Convention, before blasting the Harris campaign’s economic proposal as “price controls, basically.”
“If beef is too high, people don’t move to chicken — competitors don’t come in to undercut where the beef prices are. Nothing works when you try to artificially try to control prices. It’s just a supply and demand issue. It’s a flawed idea,” Kernen said.
“So did you have a question here?” Warren, the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a law professor specializing in commercial law and bankruptcy, asked.
The phased Kernen then asked Warren why she would support the price gouging relief plan that he called a “flawed idea.”
“I understand if you want to do a lecture about this, but let’s just start with, where have you been for the last 30 years as three dozen states have price gouging laws and they have used them effectively?” Warren answered, adding that price gouging laws kept markets on the rails and kept consumers protected.
“As a result of [COVID], there were corporations that said, woah, now that we have inflation, now that prices are up overall, this is a great opportunity for us to raise prices, not just in passing along costs, but to go way, way, way above that,” Warren said, citing soaring profit margins, especially in less competitive industries.
Kernen, unsatisfied with the answer, shot back and called the plan a “fool’s errand” while attempting to cut Warren off.
“Let me finish now,” Kernen said, with Warren responding, “You didn’t let me finish.”
Watch the full interview here: