Chicago grocery owner expresses doubts about Harris' gouging plan: 'What is the objective of this control?'

If Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the next president, local grocery store owners facing inflation may face price caps to prevent "price gouging."

Harris intends to impose federal price controls on groceries and other daily necessities as part of her economic plan. However, a grocery store owner in Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention is taking place, is uncertain about the purpose of these controls.

According to Hristos "Chris" Dallas, the owner of HarvesTime grocery store, most of the grocers he knows and associates with are very conscious of pricing their products based on what they pay for them, rather than what the market bears.

"Although it's not the same as other parts that affect pricing, the refrigerator cost me more when I installed it than the first store I opened. So, what exactly are we trying to control?"

On Wednesday, the Harris campaign declared that she would implement a "federal prohibition on price hikes on food and groceries" as president to prevent "large corporations" from exploiting consumers.

The policy has been criticized for potentially leading to shortages, black markets, and hoarding, as seen in past attempts to control prices through government decrees.

Dallas questioned whether the issue of "price gouging" is solely based on the difference between production costs and selling prices, or if it encompasses all the factors involved in bringing a product to market.

Dallas, a non-partisan individual, expressed confusion about what constitutes gouging in the context of a tomato grown in southwest Michigan. In the past, employees could be hired to pick the tomatoes at a certain wage. However, today, the same product requires significantly higher wages, which raises the question of whether this is due to price gouging or a natural increase in prices.

Politicians have a significant impact on inflation, and former President Trump's proposal for across-the-board tariffs would increase the cost of foreign products and make goods more expensive.

"I don't resent anyone for earning a fair wage, but artificially raising the minimum wage increases everyone's wages," he said. "When you produce a product that costs $3 in labor, it becomes $5 or $6 per item, regardless of whether it's food or clothing. As a result, the end price will increase."

"If something rises at one end, it will impact something at the other end," he stated.

Dallas stated that he opposes price controls at grocery stores, but he acknowledged that some level of price-control regulation might be necessary to protect small, independently-owned stores in rural areas from being overwhelmed by large grocery chains.

Dallas stated that the battle against increasing product costs is a daily struggle.

The Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general would be granted authority to impose severe penalties on companies that set exorbitant prices under Harris' price gouging proposal. Republican economists have condemned the proposal as "Marxist" and "irrational behavior."

The claim that food and grocery providers are artificially inflating prices was also challenged by them.

In a previous interview with Planet Chronicle Digital, Richard Stern, director of the Heritage Foundation's Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, stated that actual consumer prices have been increasing at a slower rate than producer prices, indicating that businesses may be engaging in self-price gouging.

"If the cost of doing business is increasing more than the prices, then the consumer price index will rise faster than the producer price index, which is not the case."

Harris' plan involves removing tax benefits from Wall Street investors through the Stop Predatory Investing Act, which aims to curb predatory practices by major investors who acquire numerous single-family rental homes.

Planet Chronicle Digital's Jeffrey Clark and Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.