Venezuela's latest shortage--Communion wine
BBC:
You can have the economy ration by price or by command. If you allow price to ration goods, you will have people respond by producing more as the price goes up. If you control prices you will get less of the product or service.
The Catholic Church in Venezuela has said it is running out of wine to celebrate Mass because of nationwide shortages of basic supplies.This is another example of the problem with a command economy. Commands become nonsensical and the market is no longer able to respond to demand. The failure of the command economy is always attributed to outside forces like conspiracy and price speculation. A free economy rarely has such problems.
It said the scarcity of some products had forced the country's "only wine maker" to stop selling to the Church.
Critics blame the shortages on tight state control of the economy and inadequate domestic production.
But the government insists that an opposition-led conspiracy and price speculations are the problem.
"[Our supplier] Bodegas Pomar have told us that they can no longer make wine because they're facing difficulties," Church spokesman Monsignor Lucker told BBC News.
Some of the items the supplier had to import to make the wine were now scarce, said the spokesman.
Monsignor Lucker added that they had enough supplies for just two more months, and that he did not know if the Church could afford wines from abroad.
But the problem was not limited to wine, he said.
"The makers of consecrated bread have told us that they'll have to raise prices because they can't find enough flour.
"Wheat is not grown here - it all comes from abroad," he said.
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You can have the economy ration by price or by command. If you allow price to ration goods, you will have people respond by producing more as the price goes up. If you control prices you will get less of the product or service.
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