Again Argentina (and Venezuela, and all our countries...)

I will keep this post short.
The idea is just to link a very recent mainstream news article with some generic info on the most recent Argentinean developments:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/world/americas/argentina-eases-currency-controls-but-citizens-are-not-reassured.html?_r=0

I will just comment two specific points:

1.
Notice the blackouts.
They are a very strong sign of extreme economic unbalances, and of serious societal disaggregation.
They happen in every decaying county (in South America Venezuela and now Argentina - the most extreme socialist experiments in that zone - are excellent examples), and can be considered one of the worst consequences of failing societies/economies, since they tend to aggravate things even further, and prevent normal life and normal economic activities.
Just to illustrate, for some, having no electricity may be (or seem, at first...) just a limited inconvenience, although it gets worse when it lasts, or when it is recurring (frozen stuff gets ruined, it is impossible to use computers or TV, it is impossible to charge cell phones, etc.).
But if you use a wheelchair and really need an elevator to get out of (or back to) your 4th floor apartment, lack of electricity is more than a simple annoyance...
Also some crucial activities get seriously degraded. Just think of hospitals, supermarkets, schools, factories, etc..
2.
Note relatively exotic things failing, like (in the case described in the article) the possibility of simply using a plane to get out of those countries.
Lack of ordinary products in the stores is a lot more common: things like toilet paper, milk, medicines, whatever (the specific things missing tend to vary according to the details of each country internal production).
This kind of (more or less) random failings are the inevitable result of interventionist governments creating more and more unbalances, more and more arbitrary economic destructive rules, in the process of trying to solve the problems they already created.
It is the very ordinary situation of having some politicians totally disconnected from the realities ruining the economy, and then having those same politicians trying to solve the problems they themselves created - usually by applying even more extreme versions of the policies that created the original problems...

Expect these problems closer to home, later on, when countries that now seem rich, stable and in good working order (like Argentina seemed to be some years ago) follow similar paths (Argentina's path can be argued to be just slightly more socialist than most of Europe, the USA, etc.)...

Take care!