Long lines and rationing — was there ever any communist regime without them? They happen because of price controls, something that was rife in the old Soviet Union, and still exists in Cuba. The dynamic is now appearing in Venezuela. In one of its finest crops, its glorious coffee. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has raised the prices for coffee beans to benefit growers on his new collective farms, but has told producers of coffee, those people who roast the beans, that being private businesses and out of his control, that they'll not be permitted to pass the higher prices for the beans onto consumers. It's his way of getting back at them for being 'capitalists.' His aim is to drive them out of business, and then collectivize them for being 'idle.' It's a very cunning scheme for a takeover of the entire private sector. Coffee producers, who cannot make a profit on this new Chavista setup, have stopped producing. In this regard they are echoing the abstention of Venezuela's...(Read Full Post)