Zimbabwe Announces Price Cut Law

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/07/ap3891753.html

Zimbabwe's government announced a new law Saturday making it an offense to defy steep price cuts ordered in an effort to control runaway inflation and a growing economic crisis.

A rush to buy cheaper goods have depleted stores of corn meal, bread, meat and other staples since the government ordered a 50 percent cut in the price of basic goods last week. The falling prices have caused stampedes and near-riots in shops. Some businesses have shut down.

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The veterans and youth militias, known as Green Bombers for their green denim uniforms, were the main participants in the chaotic and bloody seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms that began in 2000.

Critics blame the land seizures for plunging Zimbabwe into its worst recession since gaining independence. Official inflation is running at 4,500 percent, the highest in the world, though independent financial institutions estimate the real rate is closer to 9,000 percent.

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Nixonomics proved that in the 1970's. As soon as the prices are cut, they'll just skyrocket up again.

Zimbabwe's economy is completely shot, and it will take major reforms to rebuild it.

He's Greek, and he was a primary care doc--one of those jack-of-all-trades guys who's so important in small towns. He'd grown up there and met his wife there and raised his kids there, but because he was white, they ran him out of the country. They left with only carry-on suitcases quickly packed and the clothes on their backs. Their home and small property were seized, and so were his bank accounts. Because he didn't do a residency here in the States, he couldn't practice here, so some friends in our church found him a job at Pfizer in town. I hope he didn't lose it in the latest round of lay-offs. *sigh*

It's a mess there, and good people are getting hurt.

To go from colonial oppression to post-colonial oppression.

I thought Zimbabwe's government would have learned the lessons of Weimar Germany in what happens when you print money on a massive scale alongside the use of price controls.