This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, November 21st, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

As Venezuelan inflation spirals out of control, President Nicholas Maduro's response,

further price controls is likely to make matters far worse.

Matt Zwolinsky is associate professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego,

he co-directs USD's Institute for Law and Philosophy.

We spoke about Maduro's new powers,

and their likely effects yesterday.

So about seven months ago in April,

Nicholas Maduro took the office of the presidency from Hugo Chavez as his appointed

successor and since that time the country has been in an economic

tailspin the unit of currency the Bolivar has lost about 63% of its value

against the US dollar and as a result of this the country has been suffering massive

inflation. The official numbers are, but the number about 50%, but the real numbers are probably much, much higher than that.

Cato, Steve, Hanky, put the estimated about 300% so we're approaching near hyper-inflation rates.

Maduro has been blaming the high prices on speculation and hoarding by barbaric capitalist parasites.

But meanwhile, the consumers have been faced with a shortage of basic goods like food and

toilet paper which disappears off the shelves minutes after it shows up and things

only seem to be getting worse. On Tuesday of this week, Madura was given power to rule by decree by the Venezuelan National

Assembly, which essentially means that he can implement a broad range of policies without

seeking any prior approval from the National Assembly.

So there are now even fewer political checks in place on what appears to be his

...