{"id":527,"date":"2025-04-23T16:32:49","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/?p=527"},"modified":"2025-04-23T16:32:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:32:49","slug":"o-controle-de-precos-e-a-teimosia-estatal-por-que-a-realidade-sempre-vence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/o-controle-de-precos-e-a-teimosia-estatal-por-que-a-realidade-sempre-vence\/","title":{"rendered":"Price Controls and State Stubbornness: Why Reality Always Wins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>History has already taught us. Theory has already proven it. Practice has already made it clear.<br>And yet governments persist in an old fantasy: <strong>control prices<\/strong> as a way to protect the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#039;s not about protection. It&#039;s about manipulation.<br>When the State imposes artificial limits on the value of products, it is, in practice, breaking the thermometer and pretending that the fever has passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What happens next?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Shortage<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Market corruption<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>parallel market<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Quality decline<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>More inflation in the medium term<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and, more recently, Sri Lanka, illustrate well what happens when politicians believe that decrees are worth more than the balance between supply and demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Brazil, the debate is back with a vengeance. There are those who advocate \u201cfreezing food prices,\u201d \u201cregulating rent prices,\u201d and \u201climiting corporate profits.\u201d<br>But this is nothing new \u2014 it&#039;s just the <strong>state stubbornness as always<\/strong>, disguised as a popular measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The market is not cruel. It is a mirror.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When the price of a product goes up, it is not being \u201cevil.\u201d It is signaling scarcity. It is asking for a response: produce more, consume less, look for alternatives.<br>When the State distorts this signal, the result is predictable: <strong>supply crisis and real shortages.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just remember what happened in 1986, with the price freeze during the Sarney government. The \u201cmagic formula\u201d didn\u2019t last long. Supermarkets emptied out. Inspectors became protagonists. Business owners hid their products.<br>The people, of course, were left without.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cControlling prices is like trying to manipulate the clock to stop time from passing.\u201d<br>\u2014 <em>Ludwig von Mises<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Populism likes shortcuts, but the economy takes its toll<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, Lula criticizes expensive food, Trump threatens to control fuel prices. In different languages, the speech is the same: <em>\u201clet&#039;s protect the people from the market.\u201d<\/em><br>But the truth is different: when the market is silent, the people pay \u2014 with shortages, queues, and a devalued currency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What to do?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of controlling prices, the government should:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Reduce taxes on production and consumption<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ensure legal security and freedom to undertake<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Stimulate competition, don&#039;t stifle profits<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cut public spending to avoid relying on inflation as an invisible tax<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Controlling prices is not public policy.<br>AND <strong>political despair disguised as solidarity.<\/strong><br>It&#039;s like painting a moldy wall: pretty on the outside, rotten on the inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The market is not perfect \u2014 but it is the only process capable of allocating resources efficiently without the need for force or censorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there is one side of history that always loses, it is that of state arrogance that tries to overcome reality by force. And if there is a price that the people pay dearly, it is that of freedom stifled by decrees and tables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\ud83d\udcce Suggested links (internal):<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/o-fetiche-da-regulacao-como-o-estado-sufoca-o-que-nao-consegue-entender\/\">The fetish of regulation<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/a-inflacao-e-o-imposto-que-ninguem-votou-mas-todo-mundo-paga\/\">Inflation is the tax that nobody voted for<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Muitos pol\u00edticos ainda tratam o Estado como o grande provedor, mas ignoram os custos escondidos da interven\u00e7\u00e3o. Este post analisa como programas estatais &#8220;sociais&#8221; frequentemente servem a interesses privados \u2014 e como isso destr\u00f3i valor e cria depend\u00eancia.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow55rbCw:productID":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[380],"tags":[386,387,390,389,226,388,383,97,381,349],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analise-politica","tag-assistencialismo","tag-estado","tag-gasto-publico","tag-impostos","tag-intervencionismo","tag-liberalismo","tag-poder-e-mercado","tag-politica-economica","tag-populismo","tag-subsidios"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poderemercado.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}