[IsaacW]

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Maybe eventually the black market will become the de facto market for all these goods and the whole scheme will collapse?

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Even if the black market is chugging along merrily, the large cost of risk of being imprisoned or killed for participating still prevents it from operating as a surrogate for a real free market.

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I agree, and I didn't intend for my original statement to be an optimistic one. Price controls are very, very bad if they set a maximum price that is too low.

Incidentally, I really like the idea in Economics in One Lesson that all of these things come about because people consider only the primary consequences of an action and don't look deep enough into the problem.