Chavez is at it again
Having already stolen many oil companies from their owners, though “nationalization,” the Great Thief, Hugo Chavez, Dictator of Venezuela, is threatening to do it again, but this time to the food stores of Venezuela, to the chains and to the corner stores. To be fair to Chavez, some of the firms he has nationalized has been through purchases. But some, such as with the oil companies, have been through ordinary takings. (For more on Chavez’s nationalization program and its effects of company service and efficiency, go this NPR “All Things Considered” story that aired Fat Tuesday–click on the “Listen” button to hear the radio report.)
If you haven’t read Chad Turner’s post from Feb. 9th, “Price Controls–Chavez Style,” read that first and then read this article by Christopher Toothaker of the AP on BreitBart.com. Chavez is using the threat of takings, of “nationalization,” to get food stores to sell food at price control levels–meaning, at losses. In other words, “sell goods at a loss or you lose your business,” of course, that is to be expected in a socialist dictatorship, where people are given the choice of lose or lose.
To make matters worse, Chavez is financing the Venezuelan government operations, not just from spending the great oil wealth that rightfully belongs to the Venezuelan people (the rightful inheritance of both current and future Venezuelans), but he is also financing his government spending by printing money, devaluing the money holdings of the Venezuelan people. This inflation of the currency drives up the natural prices (what we call equilibrium prices), while the ceiling prices remain fixed.
Chavez is blaiming the greed of the store owners for the food shortages, yet it is his own price ceiling policies and inflation that have produced these shortages, the policies by which he stays in power to achieve his greedy goals to remain in control of the great oil wealth of Venezuela.
Here is a dictator who is squandering the oil wealth of the Venezuelan people who has, through his big-hearted price control policies, predictably kept food off of the tables of the poor in his country, and our own Congress is trying to emulate him by passing a hike on the minimum wage which will have the predictable effect of throwing teens and poor people out of jobs and cutting their hours. Before this session of Congress is over, you can bet that the subject of price controls for prescription drugs and for medical procedures will come up again (once a favored policy of Sen. Clinton when she fashioned the Clinton healthcare proposals in the early 1990s).
For not seeing the effects of price controls, Chavez is either stupid or evil. If our Congress can’t learn from other people’s mistakes with price controls, what does that say about our Congress?
MC
