I'm John Bachelor with my colleague and friend Professor Richard Epstein, a senior fellow at the

Hoover Institution, where early days into a campaign that will be all the way fierce in 50-50 to November. We're told.

However, we're looking for policy and the Vice President now suddenly the candidate is emerging with the policy that bears scrutiny.

In detailing the presidential campaign's economic agenda, Vice President Kamala Harris

will highlight

highlights an argument that blames corporate price

gouging for high grocery prices.

Professor, I'm going to stop there because my amateur version of this is corporations are suffering

with inflation as we all are.

And that's been true for some time since the elaborate government spending of these last years.

Is that gouging to pass on your costs to the customer?

No, it's not gouging.

She is an economic illiterate of the worst sort.

To put the situation in its general form, if you're talking about price gouging, you've got to show some degree of monopoly power,

which allows you to raise rates above

competitive levels and this is a highly deconcentrated industry and to say that

somebody is gouging when they raise prices this is the obvious point that you just stated, which is if your

costs go up and you don't raise your revenues, you're going to go bankrupt. And if you want to try

to figure out why it is that the cost are going up. You need look no further than your

friendly federal government. What it does is it prints a large amount of money,

makes very expensive government transfers of one kind or another from

student loan relief and otherwise.

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