Vladimir Putin vodka, Yes, I know, almost heresy for me to be saying that price controls are a good idea given my general adherence to robustly free market principles. I’m also disagreeing with Craig Pirrong which is generally not a good idea, not about economics and not about Russia. However, once everyone stops falling about laughing at this quite ridiculous statement, that Vladimir Putin has actually got something correct about economics, allow me to explain the point.
Uncle Volodya made the point in a speech that if the price of vodka rises “too high” then people will be tempted to go off and drink bootleg liquor. As someone who has lived in Russia for a number of years (during the tough times of the 90s in fact) I can tell you that this samogon is indeed injurious to health. This is where the idea of pepper vodka comes from, you add finely ground black pepper to the stuff in order, no, not to provide a flavour, but to filter out the fusil oils that could and sometimes do poison you. And that’s without having to hope that whoever distilled it got the temperature correct and that you’ve got ethanol rather than methanol in that bottle or glass.
