Let them eat cake
From the wonderful world of Robert Mugabe:
President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe turned 83 on Wednesday to the strains of the song “God Bless President Mugabe” on state-controlled radio, along with an interview on state television, a 16-page paean to his rule in Harare’s daily newspaper and the prospect of a grand birthday party — costly enough to feed thousands of people for months, his critics argued — on Saturday.
Zimbabwe’s economy is so dire that bread vanished from store shelves across the country on Wednesday after bakeries shut down, saying government price controls were requiring them to sell loaves at a loss. The price controls are supposed to shield consumers from the nation’s rampant inflation, which now averages nearly 1,600 percent annually.
Who would have thought price controls would cause a shortage of the product being regulated? Governments have no way of simply “knowing” what the price of a good or service should be. Only the free market can make that determination. This is also the problem with having the U.S. government “negotiate” (a euphemism for price control) drug prices.
Advocates of government price controls need to spend some time reading and heeding Thomas Sowell. Setting the right price for goods and services is way too complex for mere humans. Only a retard could believe that it can be done.
There have been too many retards in too many governments throughout history.