Price controls never work (08-16-2024--Hour3)

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_00]: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with some phone calls in this third and final hour of the week. Ahead of Kamala's visit to Raleigh, let's go here to Craig. Hello, Craig. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello, Pete. Thank you for taking my call. Yes, sir.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I heard the comment earlier about Kamala talking about building 3 million houses on farmland.

[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, she didn't say where they would be. She just is saying she's calling for 3 million new housing units in her first term. So there's not a lot of other details that we got there.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, if they did build it on farmland, there's a distinct possibility that she may be buying that from the Chinese.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I hadn't even considered that. They have been buying a lot of farmland.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_00]: True. Oh, so what happens also if you use up a lot of farmland and convert it into housing, then what does that do to the price of food that now is not being grown on said farmland?

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, they would just open more Chinese restaurants, I guess.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_00]: There you go. Bringing it full circle. Craig, I appreciate the call, sir. Have a great weekend.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_00]: This is the problem with the central planners. I said it at the very end of the last hour.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_00]: The fatal conceit of the central planner, which is that they believe that they know everything.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Just to kind of give you a condensed version of it, is they believe they know everything.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't mean like everything like art and literature.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying everything in their little fiefdom of whatever economic policy they're crafting.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: They think that they will be able to dictate the market.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And that they could put this idea from Marxism.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_00]: This idea rose with the industrialization era and the progressive era part of it where there was this belief that if we have these technocrats,

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_00]: that they could, you know, micromanage all of these things because they had the expertise.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_00]: They knew the policy.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: They could, you know, direct resources and all of this.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is how you end up with a really big nail.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00]: What are you talking about, Pete?

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: What does that, what does a big nail have to do with anything?

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a famous story out of the Soviet Union where the factory that was making all of the nails had made all the nails they were told to make.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So now the factory isn't doing anything.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But you can't just have the factory not doing something.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So they had to, because if you think about it, the supply chain, right, they've got all of the raw material coming in to make all of the nails.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And so you can't, you can't just stop production.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So rather than continue to make more nails than they were required to make, they made a very, very large one.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Like a really ridiculously cartoonishly large nail.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why you end up with that.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You may think that you can trick the market, but the market, which, what is the market?

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_00]: What is the free market?

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's get elemental, right?

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_00]: What is the free market?

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00]: The free market is us.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: The free market is you.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_00]: It is me.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It is our decisions that we make at any given moment.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_00]: There are trillions of decisions being made every single minute of every single day.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And all of the factors that go into those decisions change minute to minute.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the fatal conceit of the central planner.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_00]: They believe that they could know every single one of these factors for every single person in every single moment.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Think about the hubris, the conceit required to think that you could know such a thing.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why these systems always fail.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you have to force people to abide by the dictates.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And then to try to get the dictates changed requires what?

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Political pull.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_00]: The politics of pull.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_00]: It's all about influence.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_00]: How do I get?

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So if you are the nail factory, right?

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: If you own the nail factory under this economic fascism where you're dictated to, but you own the factory.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, then you're going to try to grease some palms.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, let me get you some black market nails.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Or let me just give you some money, which probably has no value at that point.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But let me give you some money.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll trade favors or something.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So then I can get more production out of my facility.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And this translates into every part of the economy.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Let me go over to Ray.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Ray.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the program.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Hello, Pete.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for taking my call again.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, sir.

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_05]: When you were talking about, while ago, you called it Kamala Claus.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_05]: That made me think of something.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And I was about 10 years old.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_05]: I had no knowledge of economics or anything like that.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_05]: But just common sense.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_05]: I was talking to a person in our family, a man about 55 years old.

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_05]: And he said, I don't see why the president doesn't just give everybody a million dollars and we'll all be rich.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_05]: My little mind immediately come out and said, well, think about it.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_05]: If they if you did that, everybody would have a million dollars.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Everybody would be rich.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Nobody would want to go to work and nothing would be produced and nobody would have anything to buy with a million dollars.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Out of the mouths of babes.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_00]: What's that?

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I said out of the mouths of babes.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Even.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Even a child understands it.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_05]: It just popped into my mind.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Ten years old.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Just funny to me.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's it is.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a very short term thought.

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_00]: It like literally doesn't survive past the moment.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_00]: The if put into place, that kind of a concept, it would not survive past the moment.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Because while you're tenure, your 10 year old mind did not go down the essentially the inflation route, which would be first off.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_00]: You got to print all of that money.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: You got to take it from somewhere or else.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_00]: But then everybody's got a million dollars.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_00]: The price of everything then goes up because everybody's got a million dollars.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_00]: If if if everything if you got to pay everybody a million dollars, then you got to charge more money for all of the goods that you're selling.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Because everybody has a million dollars.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: People start bidding.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: You've got you've got supply and then you've got demand.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And if the supply is based on a current demand based on that demand and supply is kind of regulated by the pricing.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: If everybody's got a million dollars, now everybody can buy anything they want.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And the prices would rise necessarily because otherwise all the supply gets completely wiped out.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's that's that's crazy.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Just I guess that's just what they mean by too many dollars chasing too few goods.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what it means.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I thank you for taking my call.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Appreciate it.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Have a great weekend.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly what that's inflation.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Too many dollars chasing too few goods.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: It's it's just like her twenty five thousand dollars for new home buyers.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You're creating an inflationary effect because now everybody has the same base, the same twenty five K.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And that raises the price gets built right in.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It's funny because the left seemed to understand this.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_00]: When it was related to what was it?

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_00]: The airlines, right?

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_00]: When the airlines had to raise their prices because of the fuel costs and the lefties were like,

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, you know, they're never going to bring those prices back down.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like you understand the concept, obviously.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You just don't apply it across the board.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Why is that?

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, because the political philosophy is religious.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Really.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Marxism is a religion.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And there is a belief in these things that do not occur.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It's fantasy.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And no matter how many examples of it you provide them, it doesn't shake the belief because utopia heaven is what they are.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: What they're marching forward to.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Price controls have never worked in any instance.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_00]: They create shortages.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And then it eventually.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Sky rockets the price.

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_00]: When the price controls are finally surrendered.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what always happens.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Always.

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Critics are dismissing her plan as an election year stunt.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Brian Rydell, a budget expert at the Manhattan Institute, told the Washington Examiner that he does not think it's a serious proposal that will come to fruition.

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_00]: He said the announcement is a deflection and the Biden administration has failed to own up to its role in pushing up inflation through runaway spending, deficits, tariffs and regulation.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's exactly right.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Here's a message from.

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Please withhold my name to protect the innocent.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: OK, so this is a message from Seamus.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll call it.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Or her.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Pat.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_00]: There you go.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Pat.

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Or Alex.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, central planning would be a lot different if the planners had foresight into or even understood the concept of second and third order consequences and dynamic systems.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Good space last night.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I think your first and second hour topics are related.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Elites lack the wisdom to understand there are things they don't know.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Correct.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Alex.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Or Pat.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Or Seamus.

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I work with clients with PhDs to GEDs.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_00]: The latter are often way more knowledgeable than the former.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And Jimmy, welcome to the program.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Jimmy.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, Pete.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, what's up?

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So she's going to be like Oprah Winters.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_02]: She's going to hand it out.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_02]: You get a house and you get a house.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And the low information voters are going to see, I can get a house.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And then we're on the road to Venezuela.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And that is going to take a guy from Argentina to save us.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think you're overlooking the real benefit here is that Kamala wins.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_00]: That's really the play here.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And that she will not be around when the repercussions of these terrible economic ideas bear fruit.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Or actually, don't bear fruit.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_00]: They wither and die.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_00]: See, that's the important thing to keep in mind.

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_00]: That she benefits, Jimmy.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the key.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_02]: It scares me that a person with her lack of knowledge and all she has is good feeling.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Vibes.

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_02]: The good feeling gal.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_00]: She's got the vibes, Jimmy.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate the call, sir.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Have a great weekend.

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_00]: There was an interview I did during COVID.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It was about Fauci and it was about the pandemic response and all of that.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_00]: But the same lesson applies in economic terms, which is sort of the wisdom of the crowd.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that was actually the name of the book and I interviewed the author.

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And the example he gave, and again, it was about Fauci, that if you fill up a baseball stadium,

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_00]: which, of course, you were not allowed to do at the time because, you know, it was the pandemic.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_00]: But if you fill up a baseball stadium, Anthony Fauci might very well be by IQ or however you want to measure it.

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But he may be the smartest guy in that stadium, right?

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_00]: 70,000 people.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_00]: He might be the smartest guy in that stadium.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_00]: But he's not smarter than everybody in the stadium together.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: There's just too many people with too many experiences and knowledge about areas that he would not possibly have.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And when you put all of those people together and harness their knowledge and their intelligence, they would be smarter than he is.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the market.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_00]: The market, the free market is all of the 69,999 other people.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I guess it would include Fauci too.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_00]: So everybody in that stadium, that's the free market.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Making decisions and sending signals to producers of goods, providers of services that are telling them, I want what you're selling.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And if people don't want what they're selling, then they don't buy it.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And then the company's like, well, we got to either lower the price.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_00]: We got to change the product or we go out of business.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_00]: This is not rocket science.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Even though people want to use all these fancy words to make us think it is.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_00]: If I can understand it, you know it's not rocket science.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Keith, welcome to the program.

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Keith.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_06]: Hi, Pete.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_06]: How are you doing?

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I'm good, man.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_00]: What's up?

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_06]: When I was about eight or 10 years old, Nixon implemented this phase one, phase two price control stuff.

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_06]: Did he not?

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I have heard that.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know the specifics of how it went down.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm aware of this endeavor that Tricky Dick did.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, it looked like you could only go up so much on Chuck Roast or whatever.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, they just started naming it different stuff.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, they came up with new names for it to get around, you know, rules on it.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, it was ridiculous.

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Now that's right.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_00]: The market finds a way.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: It always does.

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, you end up with what's called a black market, which when I was a kid in Europe, that's where people got a lot of stuff.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_06]: You couldn't buy it legally, but you could buy it.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_00]: No, you're exactly right, Keith.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was just about to mention the Soviet era black markets and the party leadership.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_00]: They got access to all of the high end stuff and the poor got nothing.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_00]: But then if you knew somebody that worked at, you know, one of the government plants or something like you could work out trades and all this stuff.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_00]: There was an entire underground economy servicing and providing stuff for people because the government was incapable of doing so under a command control system.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Keith, I appreciate the call, man.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Have a great weekend.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Price controls never work.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_00]: OK, they never work.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a terrible idea.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that she and her campaign thought that this would be a good idea is insulting.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_00]: It's insulting.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, it might work because when you control our education system now for two, three, four generations and you don't tell people that they should be insulted by an idea of price controls being pitched to them in exchange for their votes.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Then they don't know.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And they think, well, you know what?

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Can, you know, capping rents on me and giving me all the free food and giving me money for a house and forgiving my student loan debt and free money.

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Kamala Claus.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_00]: They don't know.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's almost as if the people who built the system to produce.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_00]: The citizens that we have now.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Did so with this intent.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Almost.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_00]: A couple of emails here.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Bill says, Pete.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_00]: If Kalama Mama and company use up all the formerly agricultural lands by building affordable housing developments, where are they going to keep all of the solar farms?

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a good point.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a good point.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_00]: We're.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember having a discussion with a friend.

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And we were driving through Asheville.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And he is of the the the liberal persuasion.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And not that there's anything wrong with that.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_00]: No, he was.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're we're driving through.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_00]: We drive past the big solar farm on the Biltmore estate property.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Have you seen you probably seen it if you've driven through?

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_00]: It's visible from I think that I think it's 240.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_00]: The connection.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, it covers the whole side of a of a mountain.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And I find that to be ugly.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it looks ugly.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the thing about art.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You can't tell me if art is good or bad.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I am going to think what I think about that art.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_00]: So I look at this and aesthetically it is not pleasing to my eye.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But to him, he was like, I think it looks beautiful.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, bull.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_00]: There's no way you think that looks beautiful.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_00]: You could say that that's a good use of the space or something.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Beautiful.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_00]: It looks beautiful.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, how about we just then solar panel all of the mountains?

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_00]: How about that?

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Just clear cut all the trees and just solar panel the entire mountaintop because it looks

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: beautiful.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It looks better.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It would look better than the natural state.

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, no, we can't do that.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_00]: No, because we need all of the trees and that sort of thing.

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_00]: So you're sacrificing.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_00]: All of our air for aesthetics.

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_00]: This is the this is what I mean.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_00]: This is like just it's silliness.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It's virtue signaling.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what that was.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_00]: It was virtue signaling.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I can't say this thing looks worse than the natural state.

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I got to say that a mountain covered in solar panels looks more beautiful than the trees.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Really?

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Give me a break.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why people come to look at all the solar panels changing color in the fall.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Give me a break.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Mike, welcome to the program.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Hello, Mike.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Hi, Pete.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Nice to talk to you.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_03]: A quick comment.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_03]: My girlfriend and I were having an argument about price fixing.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a fan of Milton Friedman.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Let the market, you know, find its own way.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_03]: And I said, I used to work in a supermarket.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_03]: There's no profit.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_03]: She says, not the supermarket is the manufacturer.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_03]: So I did my research.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Got some articles in Forbes.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And it looks like only a few manufacturers control the whole market.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Which market?

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Three companies control all the cheese.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Three or four control all the meat.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Three cereal companies control 90% of the cereal.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_03]: So their profit really has gone up, in some cases, 400% and selling less items.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And I was shocked.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And I hated that my girlfriend was right.

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_03]: But it's...

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So wait, so your belief that, what, three or four companies making the most...

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Because, like, I will tell you that I do not believe that there's only three companies that make all the cheese.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'd say Kraft has the biggest market.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_03]: OK.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_03]: And then, like, cereal.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_03]: You got...

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no.

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's stick with cheese.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll stick with the cheese here.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_00]: All right, cheese.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So you got Kraft.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you've got...

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_00]: What other companies?

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I'm sure there's some others.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_03]: But it's hard to name, isn't it?

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But not...

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I could.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can't name them.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why I was hoping you could.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh...

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there are other companies.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So there...

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So there are more than three?

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Most of the...

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_03]: The article on Forbes said that most of the manufacturers...

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_03]: There's only three to four companies that really control the market of each segment.

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_03]: OK.

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So let's...

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll call them A, B, C, and D.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, actually, we'll just call them three companies.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_00]: You've got three companies.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And they make...

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_00]: They control, quote, they control the market.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So they make...

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_00]: So they make their cheeses, OK?

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And they're price gouging.

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_00]: They're raising...

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_00]: They're going to raise all of the money.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And when company A raises their cheese price, company B says, oh, I'm going to raise my cheese price.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And then company C says, I'm going to raise my cheese price.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the idea here, right?

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_03]: That's basically what's happening in the grocery store.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_03]: So why...

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_03]: OK.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So hang on.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what market share means?

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_00]: So if company A and B start raising their prices, couldn't company C, as, say, the smallest of the three companies,

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_00]: couldn't they reduce their price or leave it the same and capture more market share?

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, they could.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, for instance, I bought some cheese the other day of an unknown brand.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And it tasted just as good as Kraft, and it was half the price.

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So there are...

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So there are other products available, despite the fact that these three big companies may own most of the market share.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_00]: There are other cheeses that you can purchase for cheaper pricing.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So when people start making the same decision you made, they are sensitive to the pricing,

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_00]: and now it's not worth it to buy the brand name when this other cheese tastes just the same,

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_00]: so I'm going to buy the cheaper cheese.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_00]: What kind of signal then does that send to the market?

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: It says, oh, we've raised our prices too high.

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_00]: So what do they do?

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_00]: They reduce the prices.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Also, they're competing against each other, unless, of course, you're alleging some illegal collusion on price fixing.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_00]: But they're going to say, oh, well, you know what?

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_00]: If Company A makes the... or sells the most amount of cheese, and they're selling it for, you know, $10 a box,

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_00]: but I can sell it for $8 a box, and then I can capture more of the market share.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I can have more customers.

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And if more people buy my cheese at $8, I make more money than Company A selling it for $10.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Of course, yes.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I mean.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I believe that the market eventually finds its level.

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_03]: That's why I like Milton Friedman writing.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_03]: But there is a little...

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_03]: It's possible collusion, and I'm not sure.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you're talking about price fixing, where you've got people in these companies that are colluding, right?

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_00]: They're saying, let's all raise our price and have it set at this same number, right?

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_00]: That's not a free market any longer.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I know.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_00]: So that would be illegal.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_00]: So short of illegal activity, which there is already laws for, price controls don't work.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Because that is the very thing you're describing, price fixing.

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the government telling all of the companies you have to sell at a certain price point.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: They're price fixing.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So if it's illegal for the companies to do it amongst themselves, why should it be legal for the government to do it?

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_03]: No, I have no argument on that.

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think your girlfriend's correct.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Just because there are few companies, few large corporations that dominate a sector does not mean that it is not a free market and does not mean that it is, quote, price gouging either or price fixing or anything like that.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_00]: That's not...

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't necessarily prove it.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, Forbes, depending on what you're reading, Forbes is a lot of...

[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Because Forbes used to have a very solid name for economic reporting, financial reporting.

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_03]: That's why I remember it as being a very good economic newspaper.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_00]: But they've kind of gone off the cliff over the last decade or so.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_00]: They have relied more and more on freelance contributors.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And they're usually under, like, analysis or something like that.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not true reporting any longer.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And, again, having few players in an industry that dominate most of the market share, that is not a negative.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Not in my mind.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Because if Kraft is not making a good product, nobody's going to buy it.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's forced to buy the Kraft cheese.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And if their cheese wasn't so darn good, right, people wouldn't be spending and willing to spend the money to buy it.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_00]: You just got to be willing to make changes if the price gets out of control.

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_00]: That's all.

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate the call, Mike.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a fair point.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate going through the exercise with you.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, real quick.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to get your product or service in front of about 10,000 people multiple times a day,

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_00]: send me an email at Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com and ask me about advertising.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_00]: It's super affordable.

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_00]: It's baked into this podcast forever.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And podcasts have a higher conversion rate than other social media platforms, making it the best bang for your buck.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Send me a message.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And I can show you how it works.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Run the numbers with you.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Again, that's Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I have some messages here.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Jan says, Pete, yeah, it's easy for you to say.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_00]: That that guy's girlfriend is wrong.

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_00]: She can't make you sleep on the couch plotting to smother you while you sleep.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_00]: That's true.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why I give the best advice.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see here.

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_00]: This is also Jan.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_00]: The Biltmore Solar Farm is not that big.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It's more for show than anything else.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Like true, like all true green energy projects.

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I kid.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But yes, they are ugly.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a good business.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of money to be made from the solar business, but they are ugly.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_00]: A field needs to be a minimum of 100 acres to be really effective as an alternative energy source.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, they are ugly.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And I say that as one who has solar panels.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I bought solar panels for my house.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I put them on my roof.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And my Duke power bill is like 15 bucks a month.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So I sell my energy back.

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_00]: They don't actually ever pay me, though.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_00]: It's weird.

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder why.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Come to think of it, I've never gotten a check from them.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Hmm.

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Kamala's price control scheme.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Either one or maybe both are true.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Number one, she is pandering to the masses that are economic illiterates.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Number two, she is really that vapid.

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Or option three, both one and two.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It could be both.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_00]: That's right.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Since Kamala wants to go after the food industry gougers, she should make Timpon the gouging czar.

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_00]: She wants to start on the meat industry first, so let her send Tim on a tour of the cattle farms and let him step in what she's trying to sell us.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_00]: How about them apples?

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Stan wants to know, I'm curious, what exactly is a moonbat?

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And what are examples of behaviors or I should look for in order to identify them?

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the moonbats are the swarming, screeching, winged rodents, basically.

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_00]: That's my idea of a moonbat.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And howling at the moon kind of thing, too.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not a term of endearment, just for the record there, just to be clear.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_00]: All right, that'll do it for this episode.

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_00]: You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendershow.com.

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.