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Caps on Prices Only Deepen Zimbabweans’ Misery
new york Times. ^ | August 2, 2007 | MICHAEL WINES

Posted on 08/03/2007 2:52:40 PM PDT by george76

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.

“We are at war,” one of Mr. Mugabe’s vice presidents, Joseph Msika, said in a speech on July 18. “We will not allow shelves to be empty.”

His June 26 decree, much of which was later enacted into law, was draconian: businesses were ordered to reduce their prices by about 50 percent. Shop owners who refused to comply would be jailed. Stores that closed or refused to restock goods would be taken over by the government.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bulawayo; economics; economics101; mugabe; robertgmugabe; zimbabwe
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To: ccmay
This will be an object lesson in economic laws that will be in the textbooks until the end of civilization.

Not so long as the Commies are running the schools.

21 posted on 08/03/2007 4:05:15 PM PDT by Iconoclast2 (Two wings of the same bird of prey . . .)
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To: Nonstatist

Here is the kicker. Mugabe’s government will eventually collapse and he and his apostles will retire to France with billions.


22 posted on 08/03/2007 4:07:31 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (The Democrat Party: "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.")
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To: george76
Perhaps he should have a whole bunch of these made:


23 posted on 08/03/2007 4:11:47 PM PDT by mgstarr (KZ-6090 Smith W.)
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To: george76
Yet merchants and the government’s many critics say that much of the cut-rate merchandise has not been snapped up by ordinary citizens, but by the police, soldiers and members of Mr. Mugabe’s governing party who have been tipped off to the price inspectors’ rounds.

And so it proceeds like clockwork. The current ruling class is literally running out of things to steal and hence will turn on itself squabbling over the ever-diminishing loot.

This is socialism's final victory. The middle class has been assassinated, leaving masters and slaves. It isn't difficult to guess who will starve first.

24 posted on 08/03/2007 4:17:11 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: ccmay
I'm sure the suffering is dreadful, but we should not lift a finger to prevent the coming catastrophe

The people are starving and there's nothing the U.S. can do to help them. Any aid sent would go directly to Mugabe and his henchmen.

The masses aren't able to revolt when they don't even have food. I don't know if there is an answer to this situation, either external or internal.

25 posted on 08/03/2007 4:44:57 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Remember and pray for SSgt. Matt Maupin - MIA/POW- Iraq since 04/09/04)
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To: Billthedrill

Handouts is whats keeping this thing from imploding. Handouts from expatriates, from the UN, from donations elsewhere, and so on. Maybe this could go on indefinitely, although it might just end when the lunatic dies. After all, hes over 80.


26 posted on 08/03/2007 4:45:00 PM PDT by Nonstatist
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To: Graybeard58

Like Mexicans, they are getting money from Zimbabweans in South Africa. People’s ingenuity to survive should not be underestimated.


27 posted on 08/03/2007 4:46:46 PM PDT by Nonstatist
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To: Billthedrill
This is socialism's final victory. The middle class has been assassinated, leaving masters and slaves.

Coming to Venezula soon. Chavez is a Mugabe wannabe.

28 posted on 08/03/2007 4:48:22 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Remember and pray for SSgt. Matt Maupin - MIA/POW- Iraq since 04/09/04)
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To: ccmay
There aren't any herds...

Cooperation and profit, not existing goods, are wealth. The stock of existing goods in any country will not last a month without the real underlying basis. This government does not grok, and thinks it can print wealth when it prints money, and that nefarious enemies are the only thing stopping it from doing so. We have seen it all before a dozen times, and it ends in collectivization and slaughter.

29 posted on 08/03/2007 4:50:21 PM PDT by JasonC
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To: Graybeard58
Sure there is, Mugabe should be read a riot act and told to pack his bags for the Riveria, there to spend the rest of his unnatural life where he can't inflict further suffering. Or if he doesn't want to, he can drop dead.

Nobody having the stones for this, the people can either take matters into their own hands and do it themselves internally, or they can simply get up and walk to a sane country and leave Mugabe alone with his goons, commanding the tides to turn back. The world can sustain the people in refugee camps over the border until his pretend government collapses.

30 posted on 08/03/2007 4:53:18 PM PDT by JasonC
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To: Graybeard58
I hate this "can't do anything" nonsense. It is an utter lie. We could blow the man to kingdom come tomorrow without tensing a muscle. That he don't has nothing to do with "can't" and everything to do with "don't give a damn".
31 posted on 08/03/2007 4:55:08 PM PDT by JasonC
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To: mgstarr

Whip Inflation Now!

The price of the buttons went up during Ford’s administration.


32 posted on 08/03/2007 5:15:06 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (When someone burns a cross on your lawn the best firehose is an AK-47.)
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To: Bon mots

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!


33 posted on 08/03/2007 5:24:55 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Thursday, August 2, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: ccmay; AdmSmith; Berosus; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; KlueLass; ..
I'm sure the suffering is dreadful, but we should not lift a finger to prevent the coming catastrophe. The worse for Zimbabwe, the better for the rest of the world. Nothing is more important to the well-being of the human race than snuffing out the last vestiges of Marxism, collectivism, and populism once and for all.
Well said!!!
34 posted on 08/03/2007 5:25:23 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Thursday, August 2, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: dfwgator

:’D


35 posted on 08/03/2007 5:27:08 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Thursday, August 2, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Nonstatist

It’s funny how the “have nots” always just happen to live in single party state dictatorships.

Can’t be a coincidence.

Must be capitalist oppression.


36 posted on 08/03/2007 5:27:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Thursday, August 2, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Graybeard58

South Africa would be the logical choice to do something, but SA is not far behind Z in being screwed up. Sure am glad they got the racist regimes they wanted.


37 posted on 08/03/2007 5:29:48 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Thursday, August 2, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Billthedrill
And so it proceeds like clockwork. The current ruling class is literally running out of things to steal and hence will turn on itself squabbling over the ever-diminishing loot... isn't difficult to guess who will starve first.
Bingo.
38 posted on 08/03/2007 5:31:22 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Thursday, August 2, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Nonstatist
"Can people dying of starvation riot effectively? Maybe we will find out soon in the agricultural wonderland of Zimbabwe.."

Weapons are controlled by the state.


39 posted on 08/03/2007 5:36:11 PM PDT by monkeycard (There is no such thing as too much ammo.)
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To: george76

The money is worthless, so it’s a division by zero error, or somethin’. :’) I’ve actually known someone from Zimbabwe. He fled a few years before I met him, and he was pretty circumspect and reasonable in what he said about Mugabe, but was sure that it was only a matter of time. That was five years ago, when the situation was much better than now. :’) Wonder what he’s thinking now?

Final disposition of the last of the food will come precipitously; normally we can go three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food, but much of the population probably hasn’t been eating that well for a while.

My prediction is that Europe will step in.

Oh, and the US will be blamed for paying too much attention to Somalia and not enough to Zimbabwe.

In the meantime, the Moslems’ slaughter, maiming, and enslavement of non-Moslems will continue in Sudan.

And Libya will pursue its vilification campaign against Bulgaria (but not “Palestine” apparently) over those nurses held illegally for eight years.


40 posted on 08/03/2007 5:36:18 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Profile updated Thursday, August 2, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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