The original idea of price controls on gas and the idea of a federal bureaucracy spending twelve billion dollars to administer old oil, new oil, entitlements and all the other nonsense are classic examples of the truth that once you start from a silly premise, you arrive at a nutty conclusion.

We started with a premise that you could control the price of a commodity, and you can't.

It's an interesting concept that the assets owned by a corporation cannot be sold on the marketplace for what they will bring. There is a ninth amendment to the Constitution that's worth looking up.[4]  You might question whether control of oil prices is congruent with it.

When the OPEC cartel raised oil prices, we laid up our drilling rigs. We spent our treasure interviewing oil executives to find out what was new oil or old oil, and suing a lot of people, and not finding any energy. So, I couldn't agree more with the idea of getting on with price decontrol.

But you also have to work on the supply side. What kind of "windfall profit" tax will be devised, I don't know. But I can't see it stimulating production. What they're trying to do now is to go back to a sensible policy of decontrol, but they have to figure out a political way to get there.

If they want a sound premise to build on, it's this: there isn't any recorded instance in history in which price and wage controls have worked over time, no matter what the penalty or by whom administered.

[4] The ninth amendment states: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."