Commentary  When the Bourbon dynasty was restored to power in France in the early 1800s, after Napoleon’s abdication, the French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand famously said of that family: “They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” In modern economic parlance, one can say the same thing about progressives, who once again are demanding price controls to “fight inflation.”
Not surprisingly, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is leading the way. She recently introduced a bill that outlaws “price gouging,” which, in her definition, involves a seller increasing prices for reasons that Warren would consider to be unjustified. It declares:
“It shall be unlawful for a person to sell or offer for sale a good or service at an unconscionably excessive price during an exceptional market shock, regardless of the person’s position in a supply chain or distribution network.”…