Tweet [1]
In response to this post [2] about some unintended ill-consequences of price controls, my Mercatus Center colleague Bob Graboyes sent me this e-mail, which I share here with his kind permission:
My parents ran a children’s clothing store in the 1940s, back when the Office of Price Administration was sending clipboard-carriers around to make sure that merchants weren’t raising prices. My folks would take the best merchandise and stow it under the counter for their friends. Later on, they employed high school kids to clean up the store. When the minimum wage shot up, Dad had to stop using the kids and mop the place up himself. Unhappy people all around.