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>They have some terrible policies, like massive gasoline subsidies. Cheap gasoline is the least of their problems. That is one thing they do have enough of to

>They have some terrible policies, like massive gasoline subsidies. Cheap gasoline is the least of their problems. That is one thing they do have enough of to go around. >I'm sure they've done a few good things too, but I think the bad has mostly outweighed the good. Yeah like cutting the poverty rate in half. Something that apparently stops being laudable once the middle classes have to queue for toilet paper.

tptacek 11y ago
Everybody has to queue for toilet paper! The economy has ground to a halt! Unless you use the (entirely unregulated, utterly laissez-faire) black market, nobody can buy anything. Not toilet paper, not food.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  I'm on your side of this one, but I think crdoconnor has a bit of a point. I saw somewhere (the original article or a comment, I forget which) that people are limited to buying one chicken a week. That's not good... unless you couldn't buy any before, in which case it's a massive step up. Would getting that much protein in your diet (that you never could get before) be worth being unable to get toilet paper (that you also probably couldn't afford before)? But I'm on your side of this one, because it turned out that chauvismo didn't deliver enough gain to enough people. It promised utopia, but delivered much less, even to the poor, at the price of destroying the economy. But don't minimize the value of what it delivered to the poorest of the poor.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    That's a colorable argument, but my response would be that the likely ultimate outcome of capital and price controls along with a disbelief in the concept of hyperinflation is zero chickens for the poor, because in the absence of a stable economy all commerce will go to the black market, and the black market could give two fucks about the poor.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      Agreed, though that assumes facts that are not yet in evidence. My argument was based on current circumstances; yours is based on the current trajectory.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        I take your point.

tptacek 11y ago

Everybody has to queue for toilet paper! The economy has ground to a halt! Unless you use the (entirely unregulated, utterly laissez-faire) black market, nobody can buy anything. Not toilet paper, not food.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
I'm on your side of this one, but I think crdoconnor has a bit of a point. I saw somewhere (the original article or a comment, I forget which) that people are limited to buying one chicken a week. That's not good... unless you couldn't buy any before, in which case it's a massive step up. Would getting that much protein in your diet (that you never could get before) be worth being unable to get toilet paper (that you also probably couldn't afford before)? But I'm on your side of this one, because it turned out that chauvismo didn't deliver enough gain to enough people. It promised utopia, but delivered much less, even to the poor, at the price of destroying the economy. But don't minimize the value of what it delivered to the poorest of the poor.
- tptacek 11y ago
  That's a colorable argument, but my response would be that the likely ultimate outcome of capital and price controls along with a disbelief in the concept of hyperinflation is zero chickens for the poor, because in the absence of a stable economy all commerce will go to the black market, and the black market could give two fucks about the poor.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Agreed, though that assumes facts that are not yet in evidence. My argument was based on current circumstances; yours is based on the current trajectory.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      I take your point.