During the late 1990’s and through the early 2000’s, Beijing consulted with a lot of western economists who guided the nation’s emergence as a global behemoth. However, now it is resorting to the economic alchemy that has been tried by and failed so many other governments. China’s problem of inflationary pressures and rising commodity costs are well known and researched problems. Every government is caught between farmers wanting higher prices but consumers demanding lower food costs. Beijing is attempting several flawed approaches to the problems. There is the basic jawboning effort, warning against speculation in the market while talking up farmers about the state’s need for them to plant more corn (prices a...

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