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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Ribbit 3 Oct 2023 \ on: Thoughts on the Thai Government's announcement of a consumption stimulus scheme meta
Indonesia is also trying to limit eCommerce.
These are all forms of price controls.
Price controls conceal real world signals and always end up hurting.
My opinion is a limited control program "might" help. Such as during the shock of Covid-19 bs. Something like emergency money/supplies help. But beyond a week to a month, all initiatives should be stopped. But that's because i favor minarchism with a lean towards voluntarism.
A really good book from the Austrian perspective on this is the series "Defending the Undefendable: Price Gouging" https://austriancenter.com/defending-the-undefendable/
It's a real mind fuck, most of us are thinking about these things incorrectly.
Thanks for the book info. Got that scheduled for my next read. I agree it's maybe possible a temporary consumption stimulus might help in the very short term but I see that in this current Thailand case it's a payment stimulus to all Thai citizens plus, what seems like, a very radical cut in prices for a whole lot of goods and services. Obviously the government has paid for the distribution of money to citizens but I'm not sure whether the agreement with manufacturers/retailers to slash prices has been made by the government subsidising the cuts or if manufacturers/retailers "volunteered" to help. I imagine politics and business/government connections might have to be considered! I'll be watching with interest what happens in their economy over the next few months.
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