The Investor's Answer to QE
"Aside from the debt binge's many failures to date, Japan's financial markets are now struggling with a lack of liquidity. Major traders like Royal Bank of Scotland are beginning to leave Japan. And Japan's bizarrely low 10-year yields, which are currently at 0.32%, also suggest something's amiss in the country's markets. It defies the basic tenets of economics for the nation with the largest total debt, largest ratio of geriatrics and low rates of immigration to have lower bond yields than countries like Singapore, Sweden or Switzerland."
"What, then, have price controls achieved in the recurrent struggle to restrain inflation and overcome shortages? The historical record is a grimly uniform sequence of repeated failure. Indeed, there is not a single episode where price controls have worked to stop inflation or cure shortages. Instead of curbing inflation, price controls add other complications to the inflation disease, such as black markets and shortages that reflect the waste and misallocation of resources caused by the price controls themselves. Instead of eliminating shortages, price controls cause or worsen shortages. By giving producers and consumers the wrong signals because 'low' prices to producers limit supply and 'low' prices to consumers stimulate demand, price controls widen the gap between supply and demand."Despite the clear lessons of history, many governments and public officials still hold the erroneous belief that price controls can and do control inflation. They thereby pursue monetary and fiscal policies that cause inflation, convinced that the inevitable cannot happen. When the inevitable does happen, public policy fails and hopes are dashed. Blunders mount, and faith in governments and government officials whose policies caused the mess declines. Political and economic freedoms are impaired and general civility suffers."