It was with great sadness that I read the Timesonline article "Hugo Chávez orders army to take over Venezuelan rice mills".
To quote the article a bit, "The fiery socialist leader announced the move after accusing private producers of "mocking" the Venezuelan people by hoarding rice to evade government-imposed price caps, causing food shortages."
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that price controls cause shortages. He should have known what the result would be. So why is Chavez imposing them? The great socialist who is supposed to be doing such good for the poor of Venezuela is only making food scarce for them.
Another piece of the article, "In 2003, Mr Chávez introduced price caps on a range of basic foodstuffs including chicken, rice and sugar in an effort to rein in spiralling inflation, which at 31 percent is now the highest in Latin America."
Chavez is only proving the point that one failed intervention by the government leads to another. Having failed at monetary intervention they try to solve the problems they've created with price controls, but that only makes matters worse. Ultimately, socialism is imposed at gun point and intervention is revealed as naked violence.
