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🏛️ Harris's federal food price-gouging ban is a discredited price control

On the reported Harris proposal for a first-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging in food and groceries, all three besties who spoke take the same side: there is no gouging in the data (Kraft Heinz revenue $25B to $26B and EBITDA $6.1B to $6.3B across the period, grocer gross margin down two points, CPG three-year TSR falling, strawberries and potatoes back below pre-COVID), so the cause of food inflation is the Fed balance sheet going $4.2T to $7.2T and M2 going $15.2T to $21.2T, not corporate margin. A cap therefore cannot lower prices: producers manage to margin and cut output, supply shrinks and prices rise - the 1970s Nixon/Ford/Carter experiment, and every socialist experiment before it. Chamath expects the campaign to make a few phone calls and drop it; Sacks reads it as her first real policy tell.

0 CONVICTION
peaked 65.2 GREEN
DORMANT
band
▼ SHORT KR
expression · bearish politics-market
WRONG
result · return -33.7% · vs SPY -51.2%
2025-08-16
born 2024-08-16 (E192) → window closed

⚖ Why this result

fully deterministic — computed from daily closes on the scoring date; nothing below is editable or hand-set

  1. Window: 2024-08-16 → 2025-08-16 — first mention + 12-month horizon, then the window locks.
  2. The call: ▼ SHORT KR (primary play). KR rose 33.7% over the window → return (sign flipped for a SHORT) = -33.7% (the call lost money).
  3. Benchmark: holding SPY over the same window returned +17.5% → vs SPY = -33.7 − (+17.5) = -51.2% — what this call made or lost against just owning the index. This is the number the result uses.
    Direction-only read: -16.2% — did KR move the predicted way relative to the market. The two only differ on a SHORT: this call was right about direction relative to the index but still cost money versus holding it.
  4. Rule fired:
    · RIGHT — return ≥ +10% AND beat SPY by 5+
    · HALF — return ≥ +5% OR beat SPY at all
    ▶ WRONG — everything else
  5. Credit: supporters of a WRONG earn 0 each, opposers the opposite — this feeds the scoreboard. supported: Chamath, Friedberg, Sacks | proxy-sensitive: KHC→PARTIAL (+15.8%)

Conviction timeline

bands: green ≥ 65 · watch ≥ 45 · ember ≥ 15

Plays vs SPY · % since first mention (2024-08-16)

Plays

expressionsymbolkindrelevancerationale
▼ SHORT KRstock PRIMARY grocer directly in scope of a food price cap - the margin and shortage overhang if enacted
▼ SHORT KHCstock adjacent Friedberg's named example of a supposed gouger whose numbers show no margin expansion
▼ SHORT XLPetf adjacent consumer staples complex carries the same policy overhang

Mention log newest first

Sacks
Sacks politics-market 48% · n=87 · E192 (2024-08-16) · explicit_prediction · strength 2 ▶ 1:08:41 SUPPORT
“The idea of price controls is widely discredited across the political spectrum. I mean, I think virtually all economists agree on this.”
Chamath
Chamath politics-market 51% · n=95 · E192 (2024-08-16) · explicit_prediction · strength 2 ▶ 1:07:50 SUPPORT
“If you cap what a company can charge, because what they'll do is they'll just stop producing. They'll manage to the margin that they'll just stop.”
Friedberg
Friedberg politics-market 42% · n=74 · E192 (2024-08-16) · explicit_prediction · strength 3 ▶ 1:02:41 SUPPORT
“So arguably, I would say that trying to step in and cap prices will reduce competition and as a result, will reduce investment in improving productivity.”

Who built this conviction

each voice's total push on the score, in conviction points across every mention — supports and opposes · share = % of all mention-driven movement

Friedberg
Friedberg 42%
1 scoring event · 64% of moves
+42.0 → net +42.0
Chamath
Chamath 51%
1 scoring event · 20% of moves
+13.1 → net +13.1
Sacks
Sacks 48%
1 scoring event · 16% of moves
+10.1 → net +10.1

⏳ decay drained -55.2 over the idea's life — that's time passing, attributed to no one

Score events

episodekindΔafternote
E192 2024-08-16 init +42.0 42.0 E192 born by Friedberg (explicit_prediction x3)
E192 2024-08-16 reinforce +13.1 55.0 E192 Chamath support x2 (new voice)
E192 2024-08-16 reinforce +10.1 65.2 E192 Sacks support x2 (new voice)
E193 2024-08-23 decay -2.6 62.6 E193 silent
E194 2024-08-30 decay -2.5 60.1 E194 silent
E195 2024-09-06 decay -2.4 57.7 E195 silent
E196 2024-09-20 decay -2.3 55.3 E196 silent
E197 2024-09-27 decay -2.2 53.1 E197 silent
E198 2024-10-03 decay -2.1 51.0 E198 silent
E199 2024-10-11 decay -2.0 49.0 E199 silent
E200 2024-10-18 decay -2.0 47.0 E200 silent
E201 2024-10-25 decay -1.9 45.1 E201 silent
E202 2024-11-01 decay -1.8 43.3 E202 silent
E203 2024-11-08 decay -1.7 41.6 E203 silent
E204 2024-11-16 decay -1.7 39.9 E204 silent
E205 2024-11-23 decay -1.6 38.3 E205 silent
E206 2024-12-07 decay -1.5 36.8 E206 silent
E207 2024-12-13 decay -1.5 35.3 E207 silent
E208 2024-12-20 decay -1.4 33.9 E208 silent
E209 2025-01-04 decay -1.4 32.6 E209 silent
E210 2025-01-11 decay -1.3 31.3 E210 silent
E211 2025-01-18 decay -1.3 30.0 E211 silent
E212 2025-01-25 decay -1.2 28.8 E212 silent
E213 2025-01-31 decay -1.2 27.7 E213 silent
E214 2025-02-07 decay -1.1 26.5 E214 silent
E215 2025-02-15 decay -1.1 25.5 E215 silent
E216 2025-02-21 decay -1.0 24.5 E216 silent
E217 2025-03-01 decay -1.0 23.5 E217 silent
E218 2025-03-08 decay -0.9 22.5 E218 silent
E219 2025-03-15 decay -0.9 21.6 E219 silent
E220 2025-03-22 decay -0.9 20.8 E220 silent
E221 2025-03-29 decay -0.8 19.9 E221 silent
E222 2025-04-05 decay -0.8 19.1 E222 silent
E223 2025-04-11 decay -0.8 18.4 E223 silent
E224 2025-04-19 decay -0.7 17.6 E224 silent
E225 2025-04-26 decay -0.7 16.9 E225 silent
E226 2025-05-02 decay -0.7 16.3 E226 silent
E227 2025-05-09 decay -0.7 15.6 E227 silent
E228 2025-05-17 decay -0.6 15.0 E228 silent
E229 2025-05-24 decay -0.6 14.4 E229 silent
E231 2025-06-13 decay -0.6 13.8 E231 silent
E232 2025-06-21 decay -0.6 13.3 E232 silent
E233 2025-06-28 decay -0.5 12.7 E233 silent
E234 2025-07-04 decay -0.5 12.2 E234 silent
E235 2025-07-11 decay -0.5 11.7 E235 silent
E236 2025-07-19 decay -0.5 11.3 E236 silent
E237 2025-08-01 decay -0.5 10.8 E237 silent
E238 2025-08-09 decay -0.4 10.4 E238 silent
E239 2025-08-15 decay -0.4 10.0 E239 silent