President Biden is taking on the issue of corporate price gouging, and consumers desperately need some relief. But the question is whether he’s serious about tackling the issue, or is this just a campaign stunt? Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: President Biden’s taking on the issue of corporate price gouging and consumers desperately need some relief. But the question is whether he’s serious about tackling the issue or is it just a campaign stunt? I don’t know, man. I look at this story and I’m happy about it. I’m happy that Biden said, you know, he’s been talking about inflation, inflation, inflation. He’s been beat to death on inflation. They’re gonna probably, if they win the election, the Republicans win the election, inflation’s gonna be a big part of it. But you know what? He’s been told year after year in his administration, you have something available to you. You have executive orders. You have ways to do price controlling. And now on this very late date, it’s almost too late to me. People aren’t gonna get how important this story is, but pick it up.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. He’s got this new task force that he has announced, and the task force, their job is gonna be investigate this price gouging that we already know is happening with these corporations, the grocery store chains, the manufacturers, electronics, all of it. And we know it’s happening, by the way, because they’ve openly admitted it. We sat right here standing in the same spot doing the story of the executives that are on tape saying, well, in times of rapid inflation, we inflate our prices anyway, so that we.
Mike Papantonio: We’ve done that story several times.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. And so they’ve openly admitted it. There is no question about it. But what we’ve got now with this task force, it may be too little too late. And that is why there is a part of me that feels like, I think this is being done for political reasons.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I don’t really care about that. Whether it’s political or not, it’s the right thing to do.
Farron Cousins: It is.
Mike Papantonio:: I’m proud of Biden for doing it. It’s just like everything else right now. He’s playing catch up. And you don’t have time. I mean, I don’t think you have time. I think the last State of the Union speech moved the numbers favorable to him by four points or something like that. But you can’t, it’s gotta be a long game. You don’t have that much time left. And I’m glad to see that he comes up with this and says, yes, we can control prices. We can threaten corporations. We can tell ’em that if you don’t do this, we’re gonna go after your money that’s offshore. If you don’t do this, we’re gonna change your tax code in a way that you’re not gonna like. If you don’t do this, we’re going to investigate and we’re gonna regulate more. There’s all kinds of threats that he had that he’s had the entire time. And while the Democrats have been beat to death, I mean, they have been.
Farron Cousins: Oh, absolutely.
Mike Papantonio: It’s like number, it’s like way, way high in the list of what people, inflation. And he could have controlled the inflation where it came, when fuel went out of control. He had just, it’s an executive order. There’s ways you can do that. But he hasn’t done it. And he’s, and I don’t, it’s hard for me to always blame him when he’s surrounded with advisors that are supposed to be telling him this. He’s, like it or not, he is not getting up every day thinking about how do I improve this problem or that problem. His advisors should be doing that. Right?
Farron Cousins: Right. And look, Elizabeth Warren has been on top of this particular issue for several years now.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Good example.
Farron Cousins: And so it’s not like they didn’t know about it. It’s not like it was something that they just stumbled upon a couple weeks ago. They have known for a very long time. And Elizabeth Warren basically handed them the roadmap and said.
Mike Papantonio: She did.
Farron Cousins: She said, here are the bad guys.
Mike Papantonio: And they ignored her. They ignored her.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Not only did she hand here’s the bad guys, Farron, she says, this is specifically how you deal with it.
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: She told him that. She told the administration that three years ago. So now where are they left? They’re left with this late date of doing something that’s very important, that might be one of the best things he’s done as president. And all of a sudden it almost becomes meaningless because you don’t have time to sell it. You don’t have time to even talk about it. People are gonna see this segment, maybe they’re gonna, oh, well that’s good. Or maybe they’re gonna, you’re not gonna see it written about. Corporate media’s not gonna write about this. You know, it’s not blood. It doesn’t sell.
Farron Cousins: Well, what he’s gotta do is not just form the task force and say, I’m done. He has to get out there at the podium and not just talk about the issue. He’s gotta name names.
Mike Papantonio: Yes.
Farron Cousins: And he has got to point fingers. He has gotta say, this guy at this company, this woman at this company. They’re overcharging you x amount of dollars.
Mike Papantonio: Pictures, photos and names. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: I agree with you. It’s what we do on this show. Thanks for joining me, Farron. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all this week. But all these segments are gonna be posted right here on this channel in the coming week. So make sure you’re subscribed. I’m Mike Papantonio, and this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you stories every week corporate media won’t tell you because they’re advertisers, they don’t allow it. They just said, no, we’re gonna pull advertising if you tell this bad story about one of our products that we’re selling, or they’re either, they’re so connected to a political party, they’re too Democrat or Republican, and they can’t tell the story, they can’t color outside the line of the talking points for that political party. We don’t have that problem here. If you followed us, you’d understand that. Hope to see you next time.
