Defying the laws of economics, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez started state-run groceries for poor people to buy food at cut-rate prices. He never imagined that the little darlings he claims to champion over Big Bad Corporations might take the cheap food, buy a ton of it, and then turn around and sell it at higher prices on the street, making a tidy profit.

Never occurred to him that capitalism could be practiced by poor people, too.

So over in Venezuela, market economics have taken rein from Chavez’s much-touted cheap food, whether Chavez likes it or not, as poor Chiclet-sellers, known as buhoneros there quickly grasp this buy-low sell-high dynamic a lot faster than Hugo Chavez ever will.

Net result? Food shortages in Chavez’s state-subsidized shops as inflation soars outside them, same thing that happens in all vaunted socialist regimes that insist they’re more humane. I don’t see what’s humane about shortages, do you? It’s all very easy to be humane if there is nothing of value left to be humane with, isn’t it?

Read Miguel’s whole brilliant piece, full of details, and in language a layman can understand, at The Devil’s Excrement, here.