“Imagine this. You’ve built the better mousetrap. (Because lasers and pneumatic tubes are cool, let’s imagine it uses them.) You’ve persevered through years of trial and error in your garage, enduring sleepless nights, the mockery of friends, the eye-rolling of family, and the non-lethal laser wounds to the family cat. But it was all worth it. You take your invention and, with your last few pennies, manage to bring it to market. It’s a smash hit. It starts flying off shelves. You earn back the investment in raw materials and maybe something close to compensation for your time. Now you’re ready for the big payoff. There’s just one thing left to do: make an appointment with the regional Reasonable Profits Board to find out how much of your windfall is reasonable for you to keep. … Replace ‘Mousetrap’ with ‘oil,’ and you have a good idea of how some in Congress want to bring the oil industry to heel.” [editor’s note: Interesting analogy, but I’m not sure how demanding that the American taxpayer subsidize perpetual worldwide war to secure the oil for you so that you can sell it to them constitutes “building a better mousetrap” unless the “mousetrap” you’re trying to top is the Nigerian letter swindle - TLK] (05/09/08)