We should get the market-distorting subsidy plank out of our eye before we start picking at the nit in Venezuela’s eye.

Cute but there are some problems with this.

1. I oppose subsidies that aren't at least based on either a positive or negative externality (the latter requiring taxes).
2. Price controls and subsidies, while both distortionary have different impacts in terms of both magnitude and who gets hurt.

Rick,

A cartel is not the same thing as price controls. When price controls were enacted during WWII there were shortages. During the oil crisis there were shortages.

ken,

This was a real live demonstration to many of us that the conservative canard that government imposed ‘embargoes’ don’t work was stupid. As the targets of punishment meeted out by the OPEC countries we had plenty of time waiting in gas lines to ponder just how divorced from reality conservative/libertarian ideologies actually are.

I said nothing about the OPEC embargo. The problem wasn't the embargo, but the price controls that were designed to try and curb the rise in prices and inflation in general. Allowing prices to fluctuate would have lead to no lines, no shortages, although prices would have been higher and people would have had more incentive to buy smaller fuel efficient (and environmentally friendly) cars.

Oh, and this isn't a conservative/libertarian thing either. More of a Microeconomics 1 thing.

Fortunately we will see an experiment, unfortunately for Venezuelans they will live in the experiment.

I'm placing my bets with Steve V.'s on this one.

Wow, Nixon was a conservative. I learn something new every day here on OTB.

yep, his wage and price control policy was aimed directly are organized labor.

Because of his war policy a lot of the blue collar lunch bucket crowd supported Nixon and increasingly considered themselves 'conservative'

By taking away the unions ability to negotiate higher wages Nixon created divisiveness between union leadership and its membership. Conservative endorsed this strategy because it caused more harm to unions than it caused to corporate profits.

...if you are talking about gasoline you must be too young to remember the lines and rationing. I believe the rule was if your license plate had an even number for the last digit then you could get gas on days of the month that were even, otherwise you got gas on odd days of the month.

This was a real live demonstration to many of us that the conservative canard that government imposed 'embargoes' don't work was stupid. As the targets of punishment meeted out by the OPEC countries we had plenty of time waiting in gas lines to ponder just how divorced from reality conservative/libertarian ideologies actually are.

Also whether or not Nixon was a conservative is beside the point, we had wage and price controls and no huge shortages of anything. It is a huge counter factual to Mr. Verdon's narrative, and there are of course many others but who am I to get in the way of his quaint display of pure ideology? :)

Please try this website. Oh and if your Google-fu is weak, then try adding site:atrios.blgospot.com or other sites to your search.

To add to Charles' list, there is also the lovefest between Cindy Sheehan and Chavez. Don't do the above search with

"Hugo Chavez" site:dailykos.com

You'll get lots of hits with plenty of them being quite gushing in their praise of Chavez. My personal favorite being the one where the diarist wants Chavez to be the dictator of both Venezuala and Cuba.

And for God's sake Tano, don't do a google search of Democratic Underground!

Well the last time we had price controls in America was when conservatives imposed them. Still, I don’t remember a single item being in short supply because of it.

Yes, during the electricity crisis of 2000/2001 in the West. Of course, those price controls were flexible (i.e. based on the least cost producer necessary to clear the market) and they were an attempt to restore some sembalance of reality to a seriously broken market (put in place by a Democratic governor, approved by the FERC under a Democratic President, and also voted on by the CA legislature an approved unanimously...so plenty of blame to go around there).

As for the supply problems, the price controls fixed them in the case of electricity.

Now if you look in Santa Monica you find some problems with housing, and if you are talking about gasoline you must be too young to remember the lines and rationing. I believe the rule was if your license plate had an even number for the last digit then you could get gas on days of the month that were even, otherwise you got gas on odd days of the month.

Still, I don’t remember a single item being in short supply because of it.

Your memory is faulty, ken. For example, the price controls on leather created a leather shortage and importing leather was prohibitively expensive for domestic shoe manufacturers. That was the beginning of a slide for the domestic shoe industry from which it's never recovered.

Price controls will probably work in Mars... I'm pretty sure of it..

http://www.electorials.com

Before you object that they don't support these price controls explicitly, let's just note that this isn't a new initiative on Hugo Chavez's part, but part of an ever expanding program to put everything and everyone in Venezuela under his thumb, as his mentor did with Cuba. Gaze in wonder at the glories of a redistributionary justice detached from reality.