Despite groveling coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris by the liberal press, she still needs to solve an intricate puzzle: how to distance herself from President Joe Biden’s failed and unpopular economic record, all of which she supported, while at the same time not actually changing any underlying policy.

So far, she has stalled for time and still has not given a substantive interview or press conference since she helped push Biden out of the race. Even the most supplicant press corps in a generation is getting impatient with Harris’s refusal to answer even the most basic questions about public policy. 

Enter Harris’s major speech on economic issues this Friday in North Carolina, where she will reportedly combat the Biden-Harris weakness on inflation by blaming “corporate greed” and promising to direct the Federal Trade Commission to set new price controls on “food and groceries” to fight “excessive corporate profits.”

The details of how Harris will set food prices and determine which corporate profits are “excessive” and which are not, are, according to the most friendly press outlets, “not immediately clear” and “light on detail.”

Don’t expect any more clarity in Harris’s Friday speech.

Blaming corporate greed for inflation is as old as the hills, but unlike those hills, it is not based on solid ground. Biden has been trying the same argument for years now. His most recent State of the Union speech focussed on corporate “price gouging” and “shrinkflation.” With Biden as the salesman, most voters weren’t buying. But with Harris at the top of the ticket, Democrats hope voters will take a second look.

Democrats have plenty of polling to show voters may buy the story. The left-wing think tank Data for Progress, founded by Sean McElwee of Abolish ICE fame, has been pushing polling data showing that 75% of voters support “the federal government fining companies that raise prices past the rate of inflation.” Blueprint, a polling firm created for the sole purpose of helping Democrats win in 2024, shows that while voters believe government spending is the top contributor to high inflation, “corporate greed” came in second.

If you talk to any economist, even Democratic ones, they will tell you this is all ignorant nonsense. It’s not as though corporations can raise prices willy-nilly in a competitive market without losing sales, nor did corporations suddenly get greedy after Donald Trump left office. And as bad as the “corporate greed” diagnosis is, Harris’s price control solution is even worse. Price controls lead to lower production and even higher prices on the black market.

In all likelihood, Harris will never implement the price controls she is threatening now. It is a purely political talking point that polls well and can be cast aside as soon as the election is over. Like Harris, it is almost entirely fake.

But just as Biden has abused the Department of Education to create illegal student loan amnesties, Harris could abuse the FTC to implement price controls.

We have seen a similar farce play out in California. Democratic policies have been jacking up the price of gas in the Golden State for years. Instead of admitting their own policies are causing the high prices, California Democrats have instituted policies to punish oil companies for gouging. The end result is fewer oil companies active in the state and even higher prices.

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It is the same playbook we’ve seen in socialist countries across Latin America: Flood the economy with spending, trigger inflation, and then promise to crack down on “corporate greed.” The next stop is government ownership of oil production, which is something California Democrats are actually considering. 

The reality is there is no difference between Harris and Biden on economic issues. If anything, Harris would have spent even more money than Biden. She is a fraud. But to the extent that she is different, she is more authoritarian and left-wing than he is. Which is saying something! Something not good.