Họ là kết quả của chỉ nhìn vào những tác động trực tiếp của một mức thuế suất duy nhất trên một nhóm các nhà sản xuất, và quên đi những ảnh hưởng lâu dài cả hai người tiêu dùng như là một toàn bộ và trên tất cả các nhà sản xuất khác. (Tôi nghe một số độc giả hỏi: | 128 ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON be to bring about a shortage o that commodity. But this is precisely the opposite of what the government regulators originally wanted to do. For it is the very commodities selected for maximum price-fixing that the regulators most want to keep in abundant supply. But when they limit the wages and the profits of those who make these commodities without also limiting the wages and profits of those who make luxuries or semi-luxuries they discourage the production of the price-controlled necessities while they relatively stimulate the production of less essential goods. Some of these consequences in time become apparent to the regulators who then adopt various other devices and controls in an attempt to avert them. Among these devices are rationing cost-control subsidies and universal price-fixing. Let US look at each of these in turn. When it becomes obvious that a shortage of some commodity is developing as a result of a price fixed below the market rich consumers are accused of taking more than their fair share or if it is a raw material that enters into manufacture individual firms are accused of hoarding it. The government then adopts a set of rules concerning who shall have priority in buying that commodity or to whom and in what quantities it shall be allocated or how it shall be rationed. If a rationing system is adopted it means that each consumer can have only a certain maximum supply no matter how much he is willing to pay for more. If a rationing system is adopted in brief it means that the government adopts a double price system or a dual GOVERNMENT PRICE-PIXING 129 currency system in which each consumer must have a certain number of coupons or points in addition to a given amount of ordinary money. In other words the government tries to do through rationing part of the job that a free market would have done through prices. I say only part of the job because rationing merely limits the demand without also stimulating the supply
