Argentina’s government has fixed the price of 1,432 products

THE DEFINITION of insanity, Albert Einstein is alleged to have said, is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Argentina’s Peronist government seems to find this simple rule as baffling as others find the general theory of relativity. On October 19th Roberto Feletti, the new secretary for internal trade, issued a decree fixing until January the prices of 1,432 products, ranging from cheese spread to shaving cream. Its 881-page appendix sets out to the last fraction of a peso the maximum price for each product in each of the country’s 24 provinces. The reason? Prices rose by an unexpectedly high 3.5% in September, or 53% over 12 months. And the October figure is due to be published just three days before a crucial mid-term legislative election.