Who says a stint in business is any guarantee of acquaintance with basic economics? Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) spent time as a high-tech executive before winning her Senate seat, and yet is still unfamiliar with the process by which users in a crisis-stricken section of the country, their ordinary source of supply disrupted, can explicitly or implicitly bid away a resource from more comfortable users elsewhere:

One bill being written by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., would make price gouging a federal offense and heavily fine violators....

[Cantwell said:] "There is absolutely no reason for gas to go up in Washington as the result of a hurricane."

See Sept. 14, etc.