Who the hell do you think you are? Who gave you a golden scepter and crowned you king?

Sorry. That is how I reacted last week when I saw a piece from a pundit. From his dias he issued a missive: We need to keep gas prices above $4. If the price falls below that we need to tax gas more heavily. To get us back to $4 or more.

When he and his pals calculate the tax money they nearly swoon at the sight of Nirvana. They assure us the politicians would put the tax money to the most wondrous uses. Right. Lots of precedent for that.

I rail against him because he is an elitist. He figures he and others know what is best for thee. They know how much you should pay to drive to work. The market does not know beans. THEY know better than any market place. Knowing this, they are prepared to slap a tax on your behavior. Or slip your tax money into the pocket of somebody else. (Like farmers and ethanol producers.) Because they know, they just KNOW, this will be better for you.

I rail against guys like this because they cannot foresee what problems their meddling will create. They only look as far as the nearest paradise. For example, they never looked beyond the paradise of ethanol to see their meddling would cause food prices to soar.