The Free Market, price of gas, class warfare or socialism?

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Price controls are always a disaster. Nixon tried price and wage controls in the early 1970s at the urging of his chief economist Herbert Stein (father of that Bueller? Bueller? guy) and it only made inflation worse.

Commanding Heights : Nixon Tries Price Controls | on PBS

"Only one segment of the wage-and-price control system was not abolished -- price controls over oil and natural gas. Owing in part to the deep and dark suspicions about conspiracy and monopoly in the energy sector, they were maintained for another several years. But Washington's effort to run the energy market was a lasting lesson in the perversities that can ensue when government takes over the marketplace. There were at least 32 different prices of natural gas, a rather standard commodity, each of whose molecules is based on one atom of carbon and four atoms of hydrogen. The oil-price-control system established several tiers of oil prices. The prices for domestic production were also held down, in effect forcing domestic producers to subsidize imported oil and providing additional incentives to import oil into the United States. The whole enterprise was an elaborate and confusing system of price controls, entitlements, and allocations. It was estimated that just the standard reporting requirements for what became the Federal Energy Administration involved some 200,000 respondents from industry, committing an estimated five million man-hours annually. "

I use to think that our government should endeavor to overthrow Hugo Chavez. Then I read that he had implemented price controls and realized we didn't have to bother. His own people will end up stringing him up by his thumbs.

Chávez Threatens to Jail Price Control Violators - New York Times