"When Jill puts her house on the market for $450,000—triple what she paid 10 years ago, but the going price in her neighborhood today—the politicos understand that the 200 percent markup is the result of supply and demand in the real estate market. Senators don't call press conferences to denounce Jill as a profiteer. Attorneys general don't threaten to prosecute her. Governors don't compare her to looters. But when Joe's service station ups the price of gasoline by $1 a gallon, the political world freaks out. Never mind that a [Hurricane Katrina] devastated oil production throughout the Gulf Coast, depleting the nation's already strained refining capacity by 2 million barrels a day and driving up the price Joe's wholesaler is now charging him. For some reason, politicians forget everything they learned in Economics 101, and rush to savage Joe for 'gouging' his customers."

---Jeff Jacoby