Life in the workers paradise of Venezuela - a T.P. crisis
From
Yahoo/Reuters:
Venezuela orders temporary takeover of toilet paper factory
A Venezuelan state agency on Friday ordered the temporary takeover of a factory that produces toilet paper in what it called an effort to ensure consistent supplies after embarrassing shortages earlier this year.
Critics of President Nicolas Maduro say the nagging shortages of products ranging from bathroom tissue to milk are a sign his socialist government's rigid price and currency controls are failing. They have also used the situation to poke fun at his administration on social media networks.
A national agency called Sundecop, which enforces price controls, said in a statement it would occupy one of the factories belonging to paper producer Manpa for 15 days, adding that National Guard troops would "safeguard" the facility.
"The action in the producer of toilet paper, sanitary napkins and disposable diapers responds to the state's obligation to ensure a steady supply of basic goods for the people," Sundecop said, adding it had observed "the violation of the right" to access such products.
Calls to the Manpa factory went unanswered.
Once you institute price and currency fixing, any effort to run a reasonable supply chain will fail. Always. Nationalizing a producer will only hurt production because a large government cannot run anything more efficiently than a small organization.
They announced that they will be there for 15 days -- watch this extend indefinitely and for toilet paper to become even more scarce and expensive.
Posted by DaveH at September 22, 2013 11:36 AM