{"id":15656,"date":"2013-11-14T09:19:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-14T17:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=15656"},"modified":"2013-11-14T09:19:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-14T17:19:00","slug":"and-a-footnote-to-consider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/14\/and-a-footnote-to-consider\/","title":{"rendered":"And a footnote to consider"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of matters governmental that seem laughable from a distance but are hellish portents: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/World\/Americas\/2013\/1113\/Venezuela-to-businesses-Everything-must-go-or-else.-video\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8217;s the latest<\/a> from that bastion of central planning, Venezuela.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it&#8217;s a joke to think about soldiers being sent to force retailers to sell only at what some pol or &#8216;crat thinks is the &#8220;fair price.&#8221; But not so funny a joke, eh?<\/p>\n<p>And how familiar is this?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The problems that Maduro says he is trying to combat \u2013 price speculation, hoarding of goods by manufacturers and distributors, abuse of Venezuela&#8217;s currency system, contraband flowing into neighboring Colombia \u2013 all exist, Venezuelan political analyst Luis Vicente Leon says. But he argues they are to be expected in a system in which access to dollars is strictly controlled, causing a dire effect on manufacture and imports, while the government sells certain goods at subsidized rates and prints money to try to combat inflation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The president says these things happen because a group of enemies is trying to destabilize the government, when in reality they are classic distortions caused by the government&#8217;s economic policy,&#8221; Mr. Leon says. &#8220;Not even Chavismo can control prices using laws, it has been shown throughout the history of economics to be impossible.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, the only thing we learn from history is that we don&#8217;t learn from history. And I expect the U.S. isn&#8217;t too far away from failing to learn that lesson one more time &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of matters governmental that seem laughable from a distance but are hellish portents: here&#8217;s the latest from that bastion of central planning, Venezuela. Yes, it&#8217;s a joke to think about soldiers being sent to force retailers to sell only at what some pol or &#8216;crat thinks is the &#8220;fair price.&#8221; But not so funny a joke, eh? And how familiar is this? The problems that Maduro says he is trying to combat \u2013 price speculation, hoarding of goods by manufacturers and distributors, abuse of Venezuela&#8217;s currency system, contraband flowing into neighboring Colombia \u2013 all exist, Venezuelan political analyst Luis&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/14\/and-a-footnote-to-consider\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">And a footnote to consider<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}