Argentina Applies Law That Jails Hoarders as Bread Surges – Bloomberg.
Argentina plans to apply a law that forces holders of wheat and flour suitable for bread making to sell stock on the domestic market in a bid to contain inflation.
Interior Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno announced the measure in the official gazette today. The 1974 law allows authorities to freeze prices and obliges companies to maintain supply. Those in breach are subject to fines and imprisonment.
“If the law on supply is applied, the one who should go to jail is Moreno himself,” former Economy Minister Martin Lousteau said in an interview with Radio Mitre today. “He’s to blame for the lack of wheat in Argentina.”
Then there are the official government inflation figures…
While the national statistics agency said prices rose 10.3 percent in May from a year earlier, private economists estimated prices rose 23.4 percent in the same period.
Not to worry, nothing like that could happen here.
