The Wall Street Journal recently ran a piece arguing that price controls might be worth trying now that inflation is clearly not going to be merely “transitory.” Supposedly, price controls worked during WWII because there was a “national will” that they work.
In response, GMU economics professor Don Boudreaux demolishes the argument. His conclusion: “The indispensable role that prices play in allocating economic resources combines with the indisputable role that politics play in allocating government restrictions to counsel us never again to allow government to control prices.”
Read the whole thing.
Using price controls to cure inflation is no better than putting the thermometer in ice to cure a fever, but it’s just the sort of showy gesture we should expect from politicians like Biden who want the people to believe that they’re “doing something.”