My friend Tom Foley pushes term limits as crucial to our society. I'm beginning to agree with him based on this latest outpouring from the political class, to which almost all of our elected officials belong.
It's their calling on Bush to "launch an investigation into possible price gouging by oil companies" that does it for me:
"Anyone who is trying to take advantage of this situation while American families are forced into making tough choices over whether to fill up their cars or severely cut back their budgets should be investigated and prosecuted," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, wrote in a letter to President Bush. "Therefore, we believe that Federal law enforcement agencies and regulators should take every available step to ensure that all Federal laws protecting American consumers from price-fixing, collusion, gouging and other anti-competitive practices are vigorously enforced."
Anti-competitive? This is when the feds protect competition? When did they get going on that operation? And it's while labor unions have privileged status, not to mention affirmative-action measures all over the place.
William Anderson recalls "economic crimes" and "speculation" as excuses for government crackdown in the late unlamented Soviet Union.
Today, we see the top lawmakers in the United States trying to take a page out of the USSR in calling for prosecution — and, one would suppose, imprisonment — of oil company executives because gasoline prices have risen drastically at the pump.
He has more to say at the Mises Institute site here. http://www.mises.org/story/2128
No comments:
Post a Comment