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    Harris y Trump presentan un claro contraste sobre la economía

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    Ambos candidatos abogan por ampliar el poder del gobierno para dirigir los resultados económicos, pero en ámbitos muy diferentes.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]La vicepresidenta Kamala Harris y el expresidente Donald Trump volaron a Carolina del Norte esta semana para pronunciar lo que se anunciaron como importantes discursos sobre la economía. Ninguno de los dos expuso un plan detallado de políticas: ni Harris, que se centró durante media hora en la vivienda, los comestibles y los medicamentos con receta, ni Trump, que durante 80 minutos desperdigó varias propuestas entre reflexiones en voz alta sobre inmigrantes peligrosos.Pero ambos candidatos, cada uno a su manera, enviaron a los votantes mensajes claros e importantes sobre sus visiones económicas. Cada uno de ellos defendió la visión de un gobierno federal poderoso, uno que utilice su poder para intervenir en los mercados en busca de una economía más fuerte y próspera.Solo discreparon, casi por completo, sobre cuándo y cómo debe utilizarse ese poder.El viernes en Raleigh, Harris empezó a imprimir su propio sello a la economía progresista que ha dominado la política demócrata en la última década. Este pensamiento económico abraza la idea de que el gobierno federal debe actuar con agresividad para fomentar la competencia y corregir las distorsiones en los mercados privados.El planteamiento busca grandes subidas de impuestos a las empresas y a quienes obtienen ingresos altos, para financiar la ayuda a los trabajadores de ingresos bajos y de clase media que luchan por crear riqueza para sí mismos y para sus hijos. Al mismo tiempo, ofrece grandes exenciones fiscales a las empresas que se dedican a lo que Harris y otros progresistas consideran un gran beneficio económico, como la fabricación de tecnologías necesarias para luchar contra el calentamiento global o la construcción de viviendas asequibles.Esta filosofía anima la agenda política que Harris presentó el viernes. Se comprometió a entregar hasta 25.000 dólares en ayudas al pago inicial a cada comprador de primera vivienda durante cuatro años, al tiempo que destinaría 40.000 millones de dólares a empresas constructoras de primeras viviendas. Harris afirmó que reinstauraría de forma permanente el crédito tributario por hijos ampliado que el presidente Biden estableció temporalmente con su ley de estímulo de 2021, al tiempo que ofrecería aún más ayuda a los padres de recién nacidos.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris and Trump Offer a Clear Contrast on the Economy

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      Both candidates embrace expansions of government power to steer economic outcomes — but in vastly different areas.Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump flew to North Carolina this week to deliver what were billed as major speeches on the economy. Neither laid out a comprehensive policy plan — not Ms. Harris in her half-hour focus on housing, groceries and prescription drugs, nor Mr. Trump in 80 minutes of sprinkling various proposals among musings about dangerous immigrants.But in their own ways, both candidates sent voters clear and important messages about their economic visions. Each embraced a vision of a powerful federal government, using its muscle to intervene in markets in pursuit of a stronger and more prosperous economy.They just disagreed, almost entirely, on when and how that power should be used.In Raleigh on Friday, Ms. Harris began to put her own stamp on the brand of progressive economics that has come to dominate Democratic politics over the last decade. That economic thinking embraces the idea that the federal government must act aggressively to foster competition and correct distortions in private markets.The approach seeks large tax increases on corporations and high earners, to fund assistance for low-income and middle-class workers who are struggling to build wealth for themselves and their children. At the same time, it provides big tax breaks to companies engaged in what Ms. Harris and other progressives see as delivering great economic benefit — like manufacturing technologies needed to fight global warming, or building affordable housing.That philosophy animated the policy agenda that Ms. Harris unveiled on Friday. She pledged to send up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance to every first-time home buyer over four years, while directing $40 billion to construction companies that build starter homes. She said she would permanently reinstate an expanded child tax credit that President Biden temporarily established with his 2021 stimulus law, while offering even more assistance to parents of newborns.She called for a federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries and for new federal enforcement tools to punish companies that unfairly push up food prices. “My plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules,” she said, adding: “We will help the food industry become more competitive, because I believe competition is the lifeblood of our economy.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Companies Counter Pushback on Price Increases With Promotions

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      “The consumer was a fat pig — now there’s nothing left, and they need to feed the pig again,” one banker told DealBook.The president of McDonald’s USA, Joe Erlinger, pushed back on “inaccurate” reports this week that said the chain had more than doubled its prices on some items over the last decade. But his retort wasn’t exactly reassuring: The average price of a Big Mac is up 21 percent from 2019.Erlinger’s rebuttal underlines the heat that some companies are facing as the news media, politicians and consumers focus on steadily rising prices. Whether persistent price increases reflect price gouging, or simply companies’ own rising costs, is a matter of fierce debate. Either way, one thing is clear: Consumers are becoming fed up.McDonald’s first-quarter earnings fell short of analyst expectations on sales, as “consumers continue to be even more discriminating” with their dollars, the chain’s chief executive, Chris Kempczinski said. Starbucks, Target and Yum Brands, the parent company of Pizza Hut and KFC, also reported earnings misses, each acknowledging increasingly cautious customers among other factors like the war in the Middle East.Consumer spending remained surprisingly resilient in the face of stubbornly fast inflation, but now savings from the coronavirus pandemic have dried up, economic growth has slowed and many companies are working to counteract the belief that their prices have gotten out of control.As one banker told DealBook: “The consumer was a fat pig — now there’s nothing left, and they need to feed the pig again.”The message: Consumers have hit their limit. During periods of rapid inflation, companies tend to push to see how far they can raise prices. “We’re taking smaller, more frequent price increases because it gives us the flexibility to be able to see how consumers are reacting and then adjust if or when necessary,” Kevin Ozan, the chief financial officer of McDonald’s, told analysts in 2022.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Targets a New Economic Villain: Shrinkflation

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      Liberals prodded the president for years to blame big corporations for price increases. He is finally doing so, in the grocery aisle.On Super Bowl Sunday, the White House released a short video in which a smiling President Biden, sitting next to a table stocked with chips, cookies and sports drinks, slammed companies for reducing the package size and portions of popular foods without an accompanying reduction in price.“I’ve had enough of what they call shrinkflation,” Mr. Biden declared.The video lit up social media and delighted a consumer advocate named Edgar Dworsky, who has studied “shrinkflation” trends for more than a decade. He has twice briefed Mr. Biden’s economic aides, first in early 2023 and again a few days before the video aired. The first briefing seemed to lead nowhere. The second clearly informed Mr. Biden’s new favorite economic argument — that companies have used a rapid run-up in prices to pad their pockets by keeping those prices high while giving consumers less.The products arrayed in the president’s video, like Oreos and Wheat Thins, were all examples of the shrinkflation that Mr. Dworsky had documented on his Consumer World website.While inflation is moderating, shoppers remain furious over the high price of groceries. Mr. Biden, who has seen his approval ratings suffer amid rising prices, has found a blame-shifting message he loves in the midst of his re-election campaign: skewering companies for shrinking the size of candy bars, ice cream cartons and other food items, while raising prices or holding them steady, even as the companies’ profit margins remain high.The president has begun accusing companies of “ripping off” Americans with those tactics and is considering new executive actions to crack down on the practice, administration officials and other allies say, though they will not specify the steps he might take. He is also likely to criticize shrinkflation during his State of the Union address next week.Mr. Biden could also embrace new legislation seeking to empower the Federal Trade Commission to more aggressively investigate and punish corporate price gouging, including in grocery stories.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More