Chávez Threatens to Jail Price Control Violators

New York Times ^

[WBL 1952]

Faced with an accelerating inflation rate and shortages of basic foods like beef, chicken and milk, President Hugo Chávez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.

Food producers and economists say the measures announced late Thursday night, which include removing three zeroes from the denomination of Venezuela’s currency, are likely to backfire and generate even more acute shortages and higher prices for consumers. Inflation climbed to an annual rate of 18.4 percent a year in January, the highest in Latin America and far above the official target of 10 to 12 percent.

[patton]

That, too, is an insane idea. I wouldn't want anything to do with government beef - shades of wormy food on ships, courtesy of the british navy.

[patton]

Personally, I am starting to wonder if the man has syphalis. He is exhibing the classic symptoms.

[Larry Lucido]

Just curious: Do "WIN" buttons go up in price with inflation?

[Robwin]

Note the last paragraph which shows that more than just the economy is in meltdown under Chavez.

“There are competent people in the government who know that Chávez needs to lower spending if he wants to defeat these problems,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “But there are few people in positions of power who are willing to risk telling him what he needs to hear.”

[Dog Gone]

Just curious: Do "WIN" buttons go up in price with inflation?

LOL, I forget what I paid for them.

[griswold3]

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

"But recent expropriations of farms and ranches, part of Mr. Chávez’s effort to empower state-financed cooperatives, have also weighed on domestic food production as the new managers retool operations. "

[sono]

It's the free market economy ... selling the oil at below market prices might produce political capital but what Venezuela needs is real capital.

[USS Alaska]

“There are competent people in the government who know that Chávez needs to lower spending if he wants to defeat these problems,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “But there are few people in positions of power who are willing to risk telling him what he needs to hear.”

Citizens with an education and the where with all, are fleeing like rats off the titanic. In addition to ruining one of the strongest economies in South America he is in the process of driving out the very people needed to turn his economy around. A communist dictator can suspend human rights but he can't suspend human nature and the laws of economics.

[Abathar]

I slipped on my Mental Hazmat Suit and lurked over at the DUmmies site to see what they thought of this. I just can't believe they cheer this guy on like he is the Saviour of the world.

So many of these idiots think this is such a good thing, but if they were ever stuck living under those same conditions here they would protest so fast your head would spin.

[Chode]

if you will supply us with the food stuffs DearLeader... we will sell them at what ever price you say.

[theymakemesick]

From the article: "Venezuela, despite boasting some of South America’s most fertile farmland, still imports more than half its food, largely from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and the United States."

Bush ought to sell loaves of bread to Venezuela's poor below the "official government price" like Sluggo does with his oil here in the USA.

[blam]

Years ago while working in Silicon Valley (before it had that distinction) Nixon froze wages. However, there was a clause in the freeze that allowed a wage increase with a promotion. You guessed it...everyone was promoted and got their annual raise.

[lormand]

Ed Asner says that socialism has not worked because it has not been tried by the right people or leader.

Here is yet another chance for Ed Asner to be proven right.

[dleecomeback07]

This is what those who stayed home last November want this here.

[Noumenon]

Now if only we could include Democrats in that scenario...

This is my dream.

[ml/nj]

selling the oil at below market prices might produce political capital but what Venezuela needs is real capital.

They do derive income ("Capital" is really something else.) so long as their selling price is above their production cost. The market price doesn't really come into play in my question/observation, at least at current levels.

ML/NJ

[Felis_irritable]

This is fascinating to me. The NYT prints an article about a hard-left economy on the brink of catastrophe, and the only mitigating sentence in the whole article is "For now, Venezuela remains far from any nightmarish economic meltdown." Everything else is an accurate litany of the train wreck in the making.

So, the NYT really *does* understand economics. Then my question becomes, why do they push so many Marxist ideas for the US?

Oh, and the "First Lady of Cuba" comment was priceless.

[dleecomeback07]

Rumors are leaking here that Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano is part of a quiet group of Venezuelans with money who are funding escape of people from there.

We need to open our borders to these people who are fleeing Chavez.

[Dog Gone]

I was only a teenager, but I remember Nixon's efforts as well. Total failure.

A command economy is always a total failure. Venezuelan supermarkets are beginning to resemble Moscow supermarkets under Brezhnev.

That ought to ring some alarm bells.

[RightWhale]

That's right. It might be that the country would be taken down like Zim. We shouldn't expect anybody to come to their aid if it gets that bad.