shigawire 2 days ago

I think they are considering the last part of the article to be "price controls". If the government prevents people from buying certain goods by selectivity freezing certain purchases I'm not sure I'd call that a price controls -- more like a prohibition.

But I could see how this could be done similarly more like a price control. If the control was this granular, then maybe car purchases could be limited to $30,000 instead of blocked fully. This is effectively a price control.

Also - the author notes in the comments the post is a prognostication, not endorsement.

That said, much like the original Finnish plan, I have no idea how you'd implement this without massive loopholes. I'd imagine even if there were merits to the policy it would fail on account of the difficulty in implementation.

I wonder if it is more reasonable if there was equally a carrot to go with the stick - something analogous to the bond portion of the Finish approach.

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pjc50 2 days ago

In this context, all European countries including Finland were subject to rationing during the war; the question is about how to phase out both rationing and price controls without having a huge discontinuity at that moment.

eru 2 days ago

Or you can just accept the discontinuity, because sometimes the cures are worse than the disease.