Caps on Prices Only Deepen Zimbabweans’ Misery

[AngryAmish]

Source: ny times

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, July 28 — Robert G. Mugabe has ruled over this battered nation, his every wish endorsed by Parliament and enforced by the police and soldiers, for more than 27 years. It appears, however, that not even an unchallenged autocrat can repeal the laws of supply and demand.

One month after Mr. Mugabe decreed just that, commanding merchants nationwide to counter 10,000-percent-a-year hyperinflation by slashing prices in half and more, Zimbabwe’s economy is at a halt.

Bread, sugar and cornmeal, staples of every Zimbabwean’s diet, have vanished, seized by mobs who denuded stores like locusts in wheat fields. Meat is virtually nonexistent, even for members of the middle class who have money to buy it on the black market. Gasoline is nearly unobtainable. Hospital patients are dying for lack of basic medical supplies. Power blackouts and water cutoffs are endemic.

Manufacturing has slowed to a crawl because few businesses can produce goods for less than their government-imposed sale prices. Raw materials are drying up because suppliers are being forced to sell to factories at a loss. Businesses are laying off workers or reducing their hours.

The chaos, however, seems to have done little to undermine Mr. Mugabe’s authority. To the contrary, the government is moving steadily toward a takeover of major sectors of the economy that have not already been nationalized.



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I'm sure that this will work out well.

[robcon]

1. There are still DUers who look at Mugabe as a hero.

Delusions die hard.

[1932]

2. I'm reading an interesting biography about Edward Bernays, the father of propaganda

and there's a chapter about the spin he did to undermine the democratically elected government of Guatemala on behalf of United Fruit Company.

At the end of the chapter there's a great quote from someone about how the one thing more powerful than all the spin was the combination of the majority of Americans being afraid of being labeled communists during the Red Scare and plain ignorance of what was really happening in Guatemala.

[tidy_bowl]

3. Mugabe is a madman n/t

[mainegreen]

4. Yet there is no price cap on food/items at Mugabe's local grocery store.

It's fully stocked! Amazing!

Sick bastard.