'
Last week, I listened to a couple of central
planners on NPR discuss Obamacare. I can’t
remember their names. It really doesn’t
matter. All of us have heard their
excuses before about the failures of the website, not to mention how stupid and
unappreciative us plebeians are for losing our “substandard” policies in lieu
of their mandated “superior” insurance that we can’t afford, or the provisions
which we’ll never use.
What made these commentators different than the rest
is their advocacy for government “ price and cost controls.” Now, anyone with a small degree of knowledge of
the not too distant past can attest to the failures of this policy. Hell, all we have to do is look to Venezuela. Their president seized a chain store
declaring confiscatory prices:
The president, who
took over from Hugo Chávez in April 2013, appeared on state television Friday
calling for the "occupation" of the chain, which employs some 500 staff.
"This
is for the good of the nation," Maduro said. "Leave nothing on the
shelves, nothing in the warehouses … Let nothing remain in stock!"
The
president was accompanied on television by images of officials checking prices
of 32-inch plasma televisions.
Daka's
store managers, according to Maduro, have been arrested and are being held by
the country's security services. Neither Daka nor the government responded to
requests for comment.
Maduro
has long blamed the opposition for waging an economic war on the country though
critics are adamant that government price controls, enacted by Chávez a decade
ago, are the real cause for the dire state of the economy.
With such
a shortage of hard currency for importers and regular citizens, dollars sell on
the black market for nine times their official, government-set value. Prices,
at shops such as Daka, are set according to this black market, hence the government's
crackdown.
Chávez
often theatrically expropriated or seized assets from more than 1,000 companies
during his 14-year tenure. This, among other difficulties for foreign firms,
led to a severe lack of foreign investment in the country which, according to
OPEC, has the world's largest oil reserves.
"This
is more like government-sanctioned looting," said 42-year-old
Caracas-based engineer Carlos Rivero. "What stops them going into
pharmacies, supermarkets and shopping malls?
Do we really want to become Venezuela? Many Americans apparently do.
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