Argentina, todo bajo control

James Neilson, en inglés:

President Néstor Kirchner likes to think of himself as the hands-on CEO of Argentina Inc., a man whose many duties include not only setting the prices for items like a pint of milk or a side of beef, ensuring that private firms do not make too much money, and saying what can be exported and what most definitely should not, but also deciding just how much everyone ought to be paid. Unfortunately for him, the country's economy is a bit more complicated than any single company, no matter how big, so his efforts to make more of it do his bidding are bound to fail. Reluctant though he may be to recognize it, prices are prone to take more interest in the law of supply and demand than in any government decree, so it should not have surprised him to learn that consumers feel that where they do their shopping the cost of living is rising far faster than government statisticians care to admit, while businesses that are not allowed to make hay when the sun shines are liable to seek greener pastures elsewhere.
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"Neoliberalism" is loathed by most politicians not just here but also in many other countries largely because once it is up and running few of them get a chance to pretend they are managing the economy, fine-tuning it down to the last detail and making sure that everyone gets what according to them they deserve. Their sentiments about this may be attributed to vanity, but they are shared by many non-politicians who refuse to swallow the notion that nobody identifiable is really in charge of the economy, only that composite tyrant known as the market.