It is an observation that well established, non controversial, principles of economics such as the effects of price controls are still challenged by socialists.

It is an observation that well established, non controversial, principles of economics such as the effects of price controls are still challenged by socialists. Are socialists ignorant of economics or something else? Example #1: Rent control. Why do socialists continue to demand rent control? Promoting better, cheaper and abundant housing for everyone is an excellent cause. It is critical to understand exactly how to achieve that outcome. Econ 101 classes all over the world teach the basics of supply, demand and pricing. These are well understood concepts that anyone involved in public policy should master. Paul Krugman is as liberal as they come and a Nobel prize winner in economics. This is what he had to say about rent control in NYT: "The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'' Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents on uncontrolled apartments, because desperate renters have nowhere to go -- and the absence of new apartment construction, despite those high rents, because landlords fear that controls will be extended? Predictable. Bitter relations between tenants and landlords, with an arms race between ever-more ingenious strategies to force tenants out -- what yesterday's article oddly described as ''free-market horror stories'' -- and constantly proliferating regulations designed to block those strategies? Predictable."