Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman speaks on the White House, Feb. 9, 2016.
Photo:
Susan Walsh/Associated Press
Margaret Brennan interviewing Harvard economist and former Obama adviser
Jason Furman
on
CBS’s
“Face the Nation,” May 22, 2022:
Furman: I don’t suppose . . . that these anti-price gouging payments would do a lot to deliver inflation down. They simply improve the kind of shortages that customers most likely hate much more than the excessive costs.
Brennan: You have been quoted as saying company greed is a foul concept of inflation. Is that one other manner of claiming that what Democrats are speaking about is only a gimmick?
Furman: I feel it’s fairly gimmicky, these worth gouging payments, as a result of, , [President Biden’s] obtained numerous additional demand. What occurs when demand goes up? Prices go up. There’s an outdated saying the treatment for prime costs is excessive costs. That’s somewhat little bit of a painful factor to take care of, but it surely’s what elicits the extra provide. It brings extra producers into the market, and it’s what brings costs down and we have to let that course of work. You attempt to intervene with it, you’re going to make issues worse. We tried that within the seventies, it was a giant failure. We shouldn’t be repeating it once more.
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Appeared within the May 23, 2022, print version as ‘Notable & Quotable: Gimmicky.’
Source: www.wsj.com”
