BBC News says Venezuela's price controls on food are causing shortages.

[Grover_Cleveland]

When I took biology, chemsitry, and physics, we did experiments in the lab to see whether or not a theory was true.

In economics, we can't do those kinds of experiments in the lab. So we're left to rely on observing real world situations instead.

I find this news article to be fascinating. This will go down in future economics textbooks as a classic example of the effects of price controls.

I see the posting guidelines here limit how much of the article I can post. So here's some of it, but you can click on the link to read all of it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4599260.stm

10 January 2006

Venezuelan shoppers face food shortages

By Greg Morsbach

BBC News, Caracas

Since 2003, President Chavez has maintained a strict price regime on some basic foods like coffee, beans, sugar and powdered milk.

The reaction by coffee companies has been to hoard tens of thousands of tonnes of coffee in warehouses in the hope that the government would eventually announce fair prices.

...... shops are also running low on sugar, maize, powdered milk and beans.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. If Chavez can control prices, he can control the hoarding too.

This will be easily resolved with a quick discussion with these private companies.

[The Magistrate]

3. That Is The Key, Sir, In Such A Situation

Hoarding for speculation is an anti-social activity no government of any nature is required to permit.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. In this country we don't tolerate price gouging when there's a public

need, so it only seems reasonible that the Venezuela government has the power to explain to the private companies what their limitations are in affecting the supply and demand.

[Grover_Cleveland]

12. This isn't price gouging.

The money supply has been inflated so much that the price increases are just trying to keep up with inflation.

He's trying to make them charge less than what they paid for the goods in the first place.

[The Magistrate]

15. Life Can Be Hard, Mr. Cleveland

Success is not gauranteed in business any more than it is seduction or combat....

[Grover_Cleveland]

18. I never said they should be guaranteed success.

I simply said they should be free to try to achieve success.

If they fail on their own, that's not the same thing as being forced to fail by the government.

[The Magistrate]

20. Nonesense, Mr. Cleveland

Why is being forced to fail by a government any different than being forced to fauil by any other cause outside a businessman's immediate control?

These people wagered on a certain outcome; the result seems to be otherwise. They forfeit the stake. That is the end of it, just like a man who had a full house when someone else had four of a kind.

[Grover_Cleveland]

23. Failing in the marketplace is not the same thing as.....

... failing because the government forced you to fail.

The difference is that the government is using coercion, the miliatary, and threats of improsonment.

This is from the article:

Venezuela's leftwing leader has authorised the use of the National Guard to "find every last kilogram of coffee" being stockpiled by coffee roasters.

That is just like Bush going after marijuana in the U.S.

[The Magistrate]

25. Again, Sir, Nonesense

That is merely one factor a businessman must consider; it is no different than being undercut by a better capitalized competitor or ruined by a drought or the invention of a superior process or product.

[Grover_Cleveland]

30. No.

It's not the same thing.

Those other things don't involve military coercion and threats of imprisonment.

[The Magistrate]

32. That Is No Difference At All, Sir

That is just one more form of external factor beyond the merchant's control; there is nothing special about it. As a general practice, at least recently, businessmen have sufficient influence over governments that they can safely regard such prospects as within their control: this is simply what happens when a government is not controlled by businessmen.

[The Backlash Cometh]

51. At least they're only threatening.

It takes a capitalist like Bush to really cross the line. What did they tell the Taliban prior to 9/11? Some thing like, if you don't work with us, we'll bury you in a carpet of bombs?

[Grover_Cleveland]

52. Bush is a fascist, not a capitalist.

Adam Smith most definitley did not endorse using the military to obtain coffee, oil, or any other commodity.

[The Backlash Cometh]

62. Bush is a capitalist. He's a pure capitalist. CEO from top to bottom.

Just because you don't like what you see, doesn't change anything.

[The Magistrate]

73. Mr. Smith, Mr. Cleveland

Nowhere expresses any disfavor towards that idea. In comment on speculative ventures such as colonization, he recognizes the necessity of force to protect the enterprise, and considers it in consequences one of the things for which government charter and participation, and joint stock structure, is adviseable.

[Grover_Cleveland]

78. OK. That's a good point.

Thanks for the correction. I haven't read every word that he wrote.

I am against any use of the military for obtaining coffee or oil.

[The Magistrate]

81. Mr. Smith Is An Old Favorite Of Mine, Sir

A most canny old Scot, with very few illusions left but a liking for people just the same. It is often the case that people who cite him have not read him closely. He had not the slightest objection to the use of a nation's military to secure items necessary to its prosperity that could not otherwise readily be obtained. Nor did he have a very high opinion of merchants and their attempts to manipulate market price, calling it a species of oppression practiced against the people.

"The laboring peple are necessarily the greatest proportion of society, and it is nonesense to maintain what is beneficial to the greatest number can be injurious to the whole."

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Grover_Cleveland]

53. I agree with you.

Using the military to obtain oil seems very similar to obtaining the military to obtain coffee.

[The Backlash Cometh]

60. True, but then we take it the next step.

Venezuela's Chavez is trying to resolve a problem that is bigger in his country, than it is in ours: Poverty. And capitalism nor free market, especially not free market, is any good at resolving the problem of poverty and hunger. Both need a certain level of cheap labor to operate, so they will do virtually nothing to stop it.

Chavez, being a Christian man, will put the poverty issue high on his list of priorities. That's why he should be given a chance to find a better way for his country.

It's insolent and arrogant to believe that pure capitalism can resolve all the problems of the world. After two hundred years, the only thing that we can be sure of is that without price controls or government interference when the markets dipped too far, that there would have been greater hardship in this country than what has resulted, because your free market models don't tell you one very important thing and that's: what does government do when hungry people decide to resolve their problems with civil revolution? At that point, the government will also intercede and that interferes with your free market principles too, doesn't it? Just as it does when we go into Iraq for the oil, or if Chavez goes searching for beans.

[The Backlash Cometh]

49. Venezuela is not the USA.

I suggest you allow them to continue with their social experiment, because we may find ourselves facing the same problems a hundred years from now.

The biggest meddlers in the market is not government, it's those malevolent corporate forces that one of the Roosevelts warned us about. The USA right now is in a situation that is exactly opposite of Venezuela. We are being controlled by corporate interests and we're not doing any better.

[Grover_Cleveland]

54. Well it certainly is interesting to watch.

I am very curious to see how it turns out.

[The Backlash Cometh]

64. So do I.

[Demeter]

46. Considering How Many Businesses Bush Has Killed These 5 Years,

I can't think that anyone who can afford to hoard stock in a warehouse is in danger of going out of business.

[The Backlash Cometh]

47. Why do you have to presume that capitalism has a divine right

to exist in every corner of this planet? Chavez has only been in office for a short while. Give him time to work out the kinks, and to get rid of the disruptors and CIA destabilizers who would like to put a post mortem on his socialistic methods.

[Grover_Cleveland]

55. Capitalism does not and can not have rights.

Rights belong to people, not to systems.

I am against using the military to obtain coffee.

[The Backlash Cometh]

68. Are you also against using the military to stop civil revolution when

the poor and hungry begin to revolt?

[The Backlash Cometh]

48. If they're hoarding supplies which they already have, they aren't

even trying to make the system work. You're already assuming that they aren't going to get anything for their effort. You don't have a clue what other governmental inducers Chavez may come up with to compensate them if there are any great losses. The system is fluid if it's allowed to be fluid. But the USA, and free marketers around the world, aren't well known for sticking their noses out of latin America's business.

[Grover_Cleveland]

56. Hoarding is one of the classic symptoms of price controls.

Economics 101 teaches us that price controls lead to shortages, hoarding, black markets, inferior quality, and special favors for the well connected.

Paul Krugman talks about this in this column:

http://www.pkarchive.org/column/6700.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

67. I love Paul Krugman.

But I suspect that he's as interested as we are in seeing if Chavez can pull a rabbit out of a hat. Remember, their culture is very different than ours, and poverty is a main concern. What Venezuela has going for it is oil. This may be that country's only chance to develop to a higher economy, but first they have to take little baby steps. First the hunger issue is resolved, next the education issue and from there, helping his people start their own small businesses and property ownership. We've never been able to see a latin American country work out its problems on its own, because the CIA was always there to make sure it failed without the US intervention. Maybe our own survival depends on seeing it allowed to happen without intervention.

[Grover_Cleveland]

11. How can he control hoarding?

Will people be put in jail for possession of coffee?

[The Magistrate]

16. That Is One Possibility, Sir

In a properly organized and functioning state, government power should be a thing merchants fear....

[Grover_Cleveland]

19. I wonder if they have jury nullification.

I would never vote to put anyone in jail for possessing cofffee, or marijuana.

[The Magistrate]

22. Probably Not, Sir

The law there has more in common with Code Napoleon than Common Law: judges decide, would be my strong suspicion. It would not trouble me at all to put a man in jail for attempting to contrive an artificial scarcity for his own profit, and that would be the charge: wnat the commodity was would be immaterial.

[Grover_Cleveland]

26. The "artificial scarcity" was caused by price controls.

Going after the merchants won't solve anything. It just makes the siuation worse.

[The Magistrate]

27. If The Businessmen Are Hoarding, Sir

Then there is no real scarcity of the product; they merely do not want to sell it at a particular price, and hope to get a higher one later. No government is required to allow this.

[jseankil]

2. Venezuelan Economy = House of Cards

It's economy is propped up by high oil prices. Worst performing stock market in 2005.

[The Magistrate]

5. All Economies Are Houses Of Cards

The fate of this particular stock market is of little importance. What matters is whether the average standard of life, of caloric consumption and education, is improving for the greatest proportion of the populace.

[John Q. Citizen]

7. Funny that. Our economy is going sideways because of high

oil prices. It's a house of cards also.

[bluestateguy]

4. I guess the companies will have to be forced to produce

They can either play ball, or the government can force them to do so. Toodles!

[Grover_Cleveland]

10. How can that be done?

How can they be forced to produce?

[bluestateguy]

13. That's not my problem

I'm not a whore for corporations. I don't listen to their whining. If they won't serve a public need, then they can be forced to do so, or disposed of by the state. Their choice.

[Grover_Cleveland]

14. Two things.

First of all, it's not just corporations. It's the little independent guys too.

Secondly, this paragrpah from the orignal article sounds a lot like the way the U.S. treats marijuana:

Venezuela's leftwing leader has authorised the use of the National Guard to "find every last kilogram of coffee" being stockpiled by coffee roasters.

That sure sounds like a military/police state to me.

[The Magistrate]

17. It Sounds Like A Proper Use Of Government Power, Sir

Against a conspiracy by merchants against the public good....

[Grover_Cleveland]

21. It sounds like forced labor to me.

Forced labor is always wrong.

[The Magistrate]

24. States Employ Force, Sir, To Secure Their Ends

It is really about the only tool they possess to do so, and force is at the back of all state action. Like any other tool, it is neutral in itself, and one must judge by the end for which it is employed. In this instance, the end of breaking a market corner is a good one, and so the use of force towards it does not trouble me at all.

[Grover_Cleveland]

28. But coffee is not something that the state should be involved in.

They should get rid of the price controls and let the people be free to make their own choices.

[The Magistrate]

31. Why Not, Sir?

The government is erected to secure the public good. The people of Venezuela want coffee. A few people are sitting on large supplies of the stuff they refuse to part with. Why should the choice of these latter handful determine the options available to the mass of their fellow citizens?

[Grover_Cleveland]

35. Because it is creating a coercive military dictatorship.

And that's a bad thing.

[The Magistrate]

36. Perhaps For Businessmen Who Hope For A 'Killing' By Hoarding, Sir

It would be called a bad thing. Others might well take a different view.

"Whether a weapon is offensive or defensive tends to depend on which end is nearest you."

[Grover_Cleveland]

38. I'm against using any weapons for this.

I find money to be a much more effective way to acquire my groceries.

[The Magistrate]

40. In Normal Circumstances, Sir, Money Is My Own Preference

But normal circumstances do not always prevail.

Col. Chavez is seeking certain ends, and merchants seek to obstruct these ends. He has the power of the state at his disposal, and the willing support of a sizeable majority of the populace of the country. This makes the merchants' attempt unlikely to succeed. There are two ways to secure their co-operation: it can be purchased, or it can be coerced. Which is employed is a matter of taste, and of the availability of the different tools. Coercion is generally cheaper, and generally more popular as well. People are under no illusions about the realities of business: they know the merchant is a gouger and a thief by trade, and enjoy seeing one compelled to stand and deliver much more than they do seeing one slipped a couple of sawbucks on the sly to shut up and get on with on it.

[Grover_Cleveland]

57. I disagree with your claim that merchants are "thieves."

Merchants earn money by providing people with goods that they are willing to pay for.

That's honest, respectable work.

And it's infinitely superior to using the military to obtain goods.

I signed up for this website precisely because I so strongly object to Bush's use of the military to obtain oil. Why is using the military to obtain coffee any different?

[The Magistrate]

71. A Merchant, Sir

Contrives income by buying cheap and selling dear, exploiting a position between the producer and the consumer. Throughout human history, this has been regarded as a shady enterprise at best, and there is real warrant behind the traditional feeling. In an instance like this we are discussing, a concerted effort to force up prices by holding goods off the market to create an artificial scarcity afflicting consumers, the criminality and exploitation of the business is obvious to any fair-minded observer.

Your scruples over how goods are maintained may be admirable, but they are somewhat beside the point of actual practice, which it is my habit to concentrate upon. Markets are dependent on order; order is dependent on the state; the state is an engine of violence; the military and police are the organs by which it functions. There is no more common and traditional usage of military force than the obtaining of resources for the state that are required by its people and their prosperity. That, however, is not quite what the current exercise in Iraq is aimed at. It is aimed at something similar to wehat these coffee merchants in Venezuela are attempting, namely a market corner that drives up the price of resources already under control. Those who swallowed the slogan "kick their ass and take their gas" were more than usually naive in the matter. The price of fuel has done nothing but rise in consequence of the invasion of Iraq, and the supply of oil on the market has been reduced in consequence of it. This is not an accident or a failure: it was the purpose of the enterprise.

[Grover_Cleveland]

76. I love merchants. Without them, I would starve.

I need to eat food or else I will die of starvation.

I love the merchants who sell me food.

[The Magistrate]

79. You Would Starve Without Farmers, Sir

At a pinch, you could do without merchants....

[tsuki]

37. Ah, deregulation...a GOOD thing. I bless it every time I fill my

vehicle with gas. Corporations and CEOs deserve windfall profits at the expense of the masses.:sarcasm:

[Grover_Cleveland]

58. Actually......

In the year 2000, there was an OPEC oil embargo. President Clinton, a Democrat, did NOT set price caps. So prices rose enough to equalize supply and demand, so there were no shortages.

In the 1970s, there was an OPEC embargo. President Nixon, a Republican, enacted price controls. This prevented the price from rising to the equilibrium point, so there was a shortage, and people had to wait in line for hours to buy gasoline.

The idea that Republicans believe in free markets is preposterous.

[w13rd0]

29. Does the US then...

...take the marijuana and assure fair prices for its purchase, and ensure that no one is hoarding marijuana as a means of manipulating pricing?

Nope, although I might support that effort were they to do so.

And forced labor? Participant states in the Bolivarian Revolution ensure that the workers make a living wage. Oh wait, it's not they that you claim are being subject to the "forced labor", it's the multinational agriculture combines and such. Those non-person corporate entitites. Heck, corporations aren't people, and I for one refuse to extend to them "human rights" unless they are full and fair participants in a healthy, progressive symbiotic relationship with their host peoples.

[Grover_Cleveland]

33. The U.S. government destroys the marijuana.

The only "fair price" for marijuana or coffee or anything else is that which is agreed upon voluntarily by both the buyer and seller.

[The Magistrate]

34. Very Few Social Transactions Are Purely Voluntary, Sir

[Grover_Cleveland]

39. Every time you buy groceries, it's voluntary.

There are no military weapons involved when you buy groceries.

[The Magistrate]

41. You Must Eat, Sir

And may do so only by acquiring groceries. You must lay hands on them somehow, or you will cease to live. Not a good illustration for your purpose, actually. As to there being no weapons involved, you are not thinking the matter through. It is the weapons of the police, whether present at the moment or not, that discourage you from simply snatching the stuff from the shelves and walking out the door. It is often the weapons of a military force that maintain the trade lanes by which products on those shelves arrive. It is frequently the weapons of a military, directed against laborers, that maintain the cost of items on the shelf within a range you can readily afford. Government, Sir, is violence, and trade and society depend upon it. This is simply violence aimed in a direction you are unfamiliar with, and so it startles you, and that startlement clouds your thinking on the matter. But what is going on is really very ancient, and much more the rule than otherwise: the idea that the merchant should control the government is no more than a couple of centuries old, and it is by no means certain the result of the experiment will prove to have been wholesome.

[Grover_Cleveland]

59. I obtain my groceries thought the free market, not through the military.

Our military is already way too big. I favor cutting our military budget by 50% or more.

The last thing I want is to use the military more than it's used now.

[The Magistrate]

72. Your Free Market, Sir

Exists only through the order maintained by the state, and that order rests, and always has rested and always will, upon the military and police wielded by the state.

[Grover_Cleveland]

77. I've never seen any military troops at the stores where I buy food.

What I do see are friendly people who smile and say hi. None of them has ever pointed a gun at me.

[The Magistrate]

80. You Need To Look More Closely, Sir

Do you seriously maintain that civil order exists of itself without the application of dtate force?

[rooboy]

42. The corporatists of Venezuela ARE the police state.

Chavez is trying to get supplies to the people who need them. They've had enough of the libertarian/Ayn Rand bullshit theories.

[Grover_Cleveland]

61. Libertarians and Ayn Rand......

..... were against using the military for anything other than to defend a country from the invading military of another country.

This is an area where I agree with those people.

However, I actually voted Green Party in the last election.

[John Q. Citizen]

8. I wonder what the economists will say about our health care shortage?

[Grover_Cleveland]

63. They would favor more government spending on it.

But they would oppose using the military to do it.

Canada, Sweden, and France have good universal health care. And they do not use their military to do it.

[julianer]

9. One tiny point that may have

evaded your attention is that Chavez is trying to undermine capitalist markets by his subsidies.

If capitalists seek to profit by hoarding they are asking to be nationalised, IMO.

[Grover_Cleveland]

65. Price controls like this always cause hoarding.

It happened in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and every other country that had price controls.

This situation is by no means unique.

Please read any economics textbook of your own chooseing and read the chapter on price controls.

[punpirate]

43. Here's a couple of things that the article hasn't mentioned...

... first, a high percentage of arable land is not owned by small local farmers. The large estadas as they are called--most of which are the main coffee producers in the country--are owned principally by British conglomerates. Most of the coffee sold is not sold in Venezuela, but rather is shipped to Europe for sale. That means that both the profits and the bulk of the product are going back to Europe.

Another byproduct of this situation is that Venezuela is forced to import 85% of its food, and much of that is animal products from Argentina and Brazil.

60% of the population is very, very poor. About 80% of the population would be considered poor by US standards. As a result, several years ago, Chavez began taking oil money and subsidizing the diet of the poor by creating a series of missiones, by providing food at a discount in special markets in poor neighborhoods, by a program to buy back unused land and returning it to the poor to farm--mostly in order to reduce the amount of its imports and to raise the income of the poorest of the people in the country.

Now, what is happening now is an attempt by wealthy food producers and importers to raise prices by hoarding. This has been done, first, in an attempt to increase their profits by making the government subsidies meaningless economically, and, second, to cause dissent among the population for political purposes. Virtually all of the manufacturers and producers in the country are well-tied to Chavez' political opposition.

Offhand, it sounds to me like the producers are engaging in a conspiracy to fix prices. In this country, they'd be prosecuted for that. Why does it seem strange, then, for Chavez to want to do the same in Venezuela?


edit typo.

[The Magistrate]

44. Excellent Points, Sir

One of the difficulties with discussing economic affairs is that people often seek to treat of them in a vacuum, but they in fact occur in specific situations within particular realities of structure and form. In a vacuum, a feather and a cannonball fall at the same speed; in an atmosphere, they most certainly do not.

[Grover_Cleveland]

66. Since you said he has a policy of reducing imports......

..... I believe that that is reduciung poor people's access to imported food.

I just ate some bananas. I'm sure they were imported. I don't want the government to reduce food imports. I like bananas.

[punpirate]

70. No, what I said...

... is that he has a policy of increasing locally-grown food, to reduce the need to import. Just read through it again, and you'll see the logic in it. You suggest, erroneously, that it's an arbitrary restriction on imports. In fact, that's what the suppliers are doing.

[Grover_Cleveland]

75. Then how do you explain......

If they are growing more food locally, when why do they have shortages?

[The Magistrate]

82. Is This A Serious Question, Sir?

Where the bulk of agricultural land is employed producing cash crop for export, and much of the rest lays fallow, necessarily there will be a great need for import of foodstuffs. When a program to alter the use of land is begun, aimed at devoting a greater proportion of it to growing foodstuffs for domestic consumption, just as necessarily there will be a great lag in the progress made towards reducing and eliminating that need for importation. You do not seriously imagine that the need for imports of foodstuffs is based on an insufficiency of land to produce the necessary artricles in the country? The need exists because of choices made by large landowners, and a pattern of economic activity based on supplying the needs of distant markets at cut-rate prices, rather than domestic needs. That benefits some in the country, but disadvantages many more, and it is well within a government's prerogatives to alter such a pattern if it deems it suitable to the country's needs as a whole to do so.

[bananas]

45. Is economics a religion?

When I took biology, chemsitry, and physics, we did experiments in the lab to see whether or not a theory was true.

In economics, we can't do those kinds of experiments in the lab. So we're left to rely on observing real world situations instead.

Scientists know that there are serious problems drawing conclusions from "real world situations", and refer to such observations as "anecdotal data".
More often than not the conclusions drawn are flat-out wrong, when they are subjected to scientific analysis.

As you point out, it's impossible to actually test economic theories scientifically. That seems to make them on par with religious belief systems. A faith-based economic theory might be that God is punishing Venezuela for defying the military coup which Jesus Bush attempted in April 2002.

So a serious question - are economic theories really just another form of religious belief system?

[Grover_Cleveland]

69. No. Economics is not a religion.

We can't test astronomy in the laboratory. Instead, we have to observe astronomy in the real world.

But that does not mean that astronomy is a religion. Astronomy is a science.

Likewise, we can't test the effects of price controls in the laboratory. Instead, we have to observe the effects of price controls in the real world.

I don't believe in any kind of deity. I prefer real world evidence in order to believe something.

Please salect any economics textbook of yor own choosing, and read the chapter on price controls. The fact is that price controls cause shortages and hoarding.

[bananas]

91. Perfect example of a religious response: "It's in the bible"

Please salect any economics textbook of yor own choosing, and read the chapter on price controls. The fact is that price controls cause shortages and hoarding.
I look in a religious book, it talks about the invisible hand of God.
I look in an econ book, it talks about the invisible hand of The Marketplace.

The comparison with astronomy is good. Astronomy is a science now, but it used to be a religion. Heaven was up there, the planets were gods, the sun was God. When people died they went to heaven - up there, where the stars and planets were. Astronomy was a well-developed science back in the ancient Egyptian and Mayan civilizations, and the astronomers were priests. Has economics reached the stage where we can call it a science, or is it still too burdened by irrational magical beliefs in supernatural entities like "The Marketplace" which has invisible hands that will smite those who worship other gods, such as the demon "Price Controls"?

Real World Example: Wolfowitz, who is now Pope of the World Bank, was Bishop of Iraq. He wrote the laws and regulations for Iraq that would turn it into an economic marvel based on the Science of Economics and the Holy Free Market. Iraq is an economic disaster. If econ is a science, it's a pretty crappy one, it's about as scientific as astronomy was in the dark ages.

[Grover_Cleveland]

74. OH MY GOD! THIS IS SCARY AS HELL!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/01/05/venezuela.coffee.ap/

National Guard seizes 330 tons of beans

Troops and inspectors have begun raiding inventories held by private companies in an effort to ease the scarcity, authorities said on Wednesday.

National Guard troops have so far seized about 330 tons of coffee stored by wholesalers in Yaguara and Guacara, near the capital of Caracas, and more raids were planned, said Gen. Marcos Rojas Figueroa of the National Guard.

Doesn't anyone besides me find this to be scary????????

If they'll use the military for something as trivial as coffee, then there is no area where they won't be willing to use the military.

Did they take a lesson from Bush and the war for oil??????????

[The Magistrate]

83. It Cheers Me No End, Sir

You are comparing apples to oranges in the line you press here, and are doubtless aware you do so....

"Can't nobody here play this game?"

[Crunchy Frog]

90. You seem to scare rather easily.

I wouldn't suggest that you give yourself the vapors over it.

I'm no expert in Latin American history or politics, but I'd dare to venture that this event is fairly minor in comparison with much of the sorts of things that have historically taken place in the region.

No, I'm not particularly alarmed by it. I can't imagine them having sufficient power to do anything with their military whose effects would extend past their own borders. But please, you feel free by all means to prepare yourself for the impending invasion.

[jseankil]

84. Chavez is forcing retailers to sell coffee at a loss

And some here applaude him.

.....
"The increase in the price of raw coffee beans was initially applauded by impoverished farmers. But the government did not raise the price at which retailers sell processed coffee to the shops. Coffee processing companies are now being forced to sell coffee for a slim profit or at a loss."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,12716,1683002,00.html

[The Magistrate]

85. The Operative Phrase, Sir

Seems to be "slim profit". The reason why the owner of a coffee processing plant should not learn to do with less like anyone else escapes me. Where a profit is dependent on paying an artificially depressed price to a producer and the laborers who produce the article, then that profit is not earned but extorted, and the person who acquires it has no rights anyone is bound to respect.

[jseankil]

86. Son, The article states that their are losses as well

Who are you to say the profit is extorted? Let the market decided if it's extorted and the price will adjust. This is coffee, not medication.

[The Magistrate]

87. In Business, Sir, Losses Are Always A Possibility

There are no gaurantees for a businessman.

You question might just as well be turned around to enquire who you are to say that everything is fair and square and on the up and up. That was a mere meaningless ornament, rather than a serious piece of argument. There is an old saying that if you are in a fair fight, you have cocked up miserably, and a businessman with serious capital invested has exactly the same feeling towards a free market: if he is in one, he has cocked up badly. The whole endeavor of business is aimed at distorting the market in one's own favor by whatever means seem available. As a practical fact, as opposed to a theoretical conceit, it is nonesense to speak of markets determining prices for most commodities.

[jseankil]

88. Throwing supply and demand out the window

You claim this goverment intervention is just another external factor, another something businesses will have to adjust too but with it there are no adjustments allowed. You've set the bar, you removed the free from free market, Investment and competion will dry up, growth will erode.

[The Magistrate]

89. What Makes You Think, Sir, Supply And Demand Were Indoors At The Start?

Do you seriously believe that prior to Col. Chavez' election, the price of labor and of staples in Venezuela was set by purely voluntary agreement between labor, capital, and consumers, without the least influence by government authority? Do you imagine that a situation wherein a tiny portion of the populace owns the great preponderance of land simply arises of itself, and maintains itself as naturally as an unsupported body near the surface of the earth falls towards its center? All of these things are dependent on government action, and more precisely, on government violence wielded towards a particular direction. All that is happening here is that the tools of government are being used in a direction novel to you, and novel to the general way they have been used recently. The use of government power in favor of the businessman is so routine as to seem natural: the use of it in favor of the working poor is not routine, and so startles, and some in their startlement imagine something new and hitherto undreamed of, the use of governent coercion in the marketplace, is going on. But all that is occuring is that a different interest has got hold of the gripping end of the stick, and people unused to the striking end are collecting some welts, which previously they were accustomed only to dealing out to others.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

92. Hi, I'm going to lock this thread

since the original poster was banned.

best,
wakemeupwhenitsover
DU moderator