Price controls in 2003 froze staple food prices and essentially outlawed private imports. Add in currency controls and you get a system where subsidised dollars fuelled a cottage industry of currency speculators while ordinary Venezuelans queued for toilet paper. Calls for price controls, government takeovers, and spend-like-there’s-no-tomorrow deficits sound hauntingly familiar. Which would be reassuring, if the ‘something’ wasn’t a central plan with a price tag that makes Venezuela’s spending look like loose change. So, next time a politician promises to ‘fix everything’ with a mix of government control, central planning, and populist swagger, take a look at Venezuela’s GDP chart.