Don't get me wrong, I'm no Chávez sympathizer by any stretch of the term. But people don't vote for populist outsiders just because they're stupid (although lack of education certainly plays a role here). They do so when they lose faith in established political parties.

The demise of Venezuela cannot be attributed to a single cause. Incompetent management of the economy, oil prices and relentless sabotage by internal economic interests (supported by external ones) all contributed to the current situation. And probably a hundred more causes could be found in less than an afternoon.

Venezuela is highly polarized so it's very difficult to get a fair and balanced outlook of what's happening there. But it's impossible to deny the evidence of stubbornly incompetent and corrupt management of public finances.

Printing unlimited money, supporting cuban dictatorship with oil billions, digging deeper in social division and looting public treasure... you can believe in whatever society model you want, but persistence in error to the point of leading the country to misery is irresponsible.

Let's be honest -- South American countries are not short of corrupt politicians at the best of times. Look at what's happening in Brazil, where a compromised leadership is being replaced by an even-more-corrupt bunch. At that point, a slightly-unhinged but fundamentally honest-looking ex-general starts looking like an attractive proposition.

Don't think that the new bunch will be more corrupt. And that doesn't invalidate the replacement.

Oh, they are already: "Cunha was caught last year with millions of dollars in bribes in secret Swiss bank accounts, after having falsely denied to Congress that he had any foreign bank accounts. Cunha also appears in the Panama Papers" - http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/21/dilma-r...

My point is, from the perspective of an average voter, replacing a corrupt bunch with another corrupt bunch is a pointless exercise, so might as well send in the strongman. That's pretty much the standard scenario in which democracy dies (Weimar, fascist Italy, II French Republic, all the way back to Julius Caesar).

I stand correct. All those schemes you mention were also used by the ones that are being replaced, and for even nefarious goals, like being able to manipulate the elections and perpetuate in the government.

If the new one just don't destroy the economy, or recover from inflation / unemployment, it has done more good than the previous one.

The new replacement is certainly more corrupt, they're involved in all kinds of known schemes, such as the Panama papers, Car wash operation, laundered money on Swiss banks, connections with drug dealers... Just do a quick search.

I stand correct. All those schemes you mention were also used by the ones that are being replaced, and for even nefarious goals, like being able to manipulate the elections and perpetuate in the government.

I see, so your problem is not with corruption, you just want to replace the government with something that sees fit. Very representative of current Brazilian middle-class thinking.

My guess is also they could not fathom how incompetent the government they voted for would turn out to be

You should never ignore the other options. Between someone who's incompetent but has good intentions (assuming you buy into the populist discourse) and someone who's very competent and will work very efficiently against your interests, I'd take the incompetent.

For a lot of people, Chávez was a measurable improvement over his predecessors.

Hm, I think neoliberals and commies are uniformly distributed on HN. I think the downvoting comes from that everybody who blames Chavez or the capitalists without mentioning stupidity just uses the Venezuela case for pushing his right or left agenda.

Where on the world did price control ever work?

Price controls are fairly widely spread, actually. Some examples that come to mind immediately: taxis in most countries, fees of medical doctors, lawyers, and some other professionals (e.g. real estate agents) in Germany and probably many other countries.

Prices must be set somehow, and there are many markets where setting them via regulation is a good thing. Taxis are a perfect example: since they're often used by travellers who are unfamiliar with a city, having a clear system determining the price is beneficial.

I think it's important to keep those examples of (mostly) beneficial price controls in mind, since obviously the examples where price controls fail spectacularly are more salient, and hence there may be a misleading bias in how price controls are perceived.

there is a difference between prices controlled in the interest of the the buyer or the seller.

For example, in many countries, professional lobbies (lawyers, doctors) influence their set price to what they deem "fair" which means it's in their interest as providers.

This is different from the government setting a maximum price on soap and milk, which is in the interest of the buyer but not the seller.

Taxis are special again, as they often exist in a state of government-controlled monopoly (i.e. taxi licenses are restricted).

Maybe i should had have added that I mean price control for products, not for services.

> Where on the world did price control ever work?

Was it ever applied isolated from other factors?

There's a lot of empirical evidence that price controls cause shortages, and the theory behind it is well understood. Wikipedia has a few examples, dating back to the Roman period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_controls#Criticisms

There are a lot of things economists don't know, but price controls -> shortages is one of the things that is well established (the exception is when the price limit is higher than the price of the object, and thus has no effect).

I think another exception would be when price controls are used only to stop monopoly rent. (or part of the same exception, depending on what you mean by "price of the object")

No. Rent control does lead to shortages. I have about $6 million to invest in rental properties. San Francisco is not being considered.

I'm actually liquidating all my California assets, as the INCENTIVE to operate rentals has been destroyed.

Have a read of this:

"Due to Rent Control, S.F. Has 31,000 Vacant Housing Units As Frustrated Landlords Give Up"

The Bay Citizen -- "In San Francisco, one of the toughest places in the country to find a place to live, more than 31,000 housing units — one of every 12 — now sit vacant, according to recently released census data. That’s the highest vacancy rate in the region, and a 70 percent increase from a decade ago."

The reason? The city's pro-tenant, outdated rent control laws that make it difficult to raise rents or evict a tenant.

"Increasingly, small-time landlords are just giving up, like one who has left two large apartments on the second and third floors of her building vacant for more than a decade, after a series of tenant difficulties. It’s just not worth the bother, or the risk, of being legally tied to a tenant for decades.

“Vacancy rates are going up because owners have decided to take their units off the market,” said Ross Mirkarimi, a progressive member of the Board of Supervisors. He attributes that response to “peaking frustrations in dealing with the range of laws that protect tenants in San Francisco that make it difficult for small property owners to thrive.”

Perversely, that is hurting the city’s renters as well, as a large percentage of the city’s housing stock is allowed to just sit vacant, driving up rents that newcomers pay for market-rate housing."

MP: As we know from basic economic theory, rent control laws are doomed to fail with many predictable unintended consequences in the long run: fewer new rental units are built or made available, many apartments are removed from the market, a decline in the quality of housing, lower rental rates for long-term tenants but much higher rents for new tenants, inefficient use of housing space, etc. In other words, rent control laws guarantee that there will be less affordable housing in the long run, not more.

PRICE CONTROLS CAUSE SHORTAGES.

When there is no incentive to produce a good or a service, 2 things happen:

1) the SUPPLY of the good or service will drop (no incentive to produce)

2) if the DEMAND stays the same or goes HIGHER (San Francisco demand for rental units) -- the price will go up for the reduced SUPPLY of the good or service.

That's why SF has high rents.

Huge demand. No investment in affordable rentals. ZERO.

Thus, SUPER HIGH rents.

Same in NYC.

- See more at: http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/05/because-of-rent-control-...

Your example does not apply. You don't get monopoly rent.

Without price control, your local utilities could extract monopoly rent. Pay up, or you can't take a shower. Shortages happen only when the price control is extreme enough to push the price below the cost of supplying/rationing the product.

If water costs $x per acre-foot to supply, and demand will cause the lake/river/well to run dry when the price drops below $y per acre-foot, but the monopoly makes the most profit selling at some much greater price $z, then the monopoly rent is $z-max($x,$y) and there will be no shortage if a cap greater than max($x,$y) is set.

> "Due to Rent Control, S.F. Has 31,000 Vacant Housing Units As Frustrated Landlords Give Up"

Maybe this can be fixed by introducing the radical idea that artificial shortages created by greedy owners who want to drive prices up but can't is wrong and should be punished.

So you want to say that price controls could work, but until now they always have been applied in situations where for other factors the economy was doomed anyway?

Exactly. It's just like communism. It always fails because of some implementation problems, not because the idea itself is idiotic.

Maybe if an idea can only be implemented idiotically, it is an idiotic idea?

Ah, the "spherical chicken" argument.

Something has to limit demand, as there is not unlimited supply. If prices are not allowed to rise to where demand slows (to a fair and equal exchange of value), and nothing else increase the cost of acquisition (awaiting queues, covenants/agreements, paperwork, background checks, etc), then the only way to limit demand on a limited supply is simply running out of supply.

Price controls don't work. They may not completely destroy the supply, but they will at least debilitate it, functioning in a way many come to accept as normal - not realizing the resulting damage.

Upvoted after reading first sentence because "spherical chicken argument"