As user XaqfixX noted on Bureaucrash earlier today, Dick Durbin is against profit taking, but he’s all for taking profits.

As reported on MSNBC’s Meet the Press, and giving more credence to my previous assertion that Dick Durbin is a no-talent assclown:

SEN. DURBIN: Am I the only one of your guests here that think that profit taking is a problem? I mean, I understand the basic laws of supply and demand. … All of the market factors you described may suggest that the product is going to be more expensive to sell, but they don’t forgive what I think is an outrageous profit taking by this industry…

MR. RUSSERT: Do you have any evidence of collusion or gouging?

SEN. DURBIN: Here’s the problem we run into. Look, let me go back to an earlier point. For the past several decades, as we’ve just heard here from Mr. Cramer, there’s been a consolidation of this industry. … Competition has lessened in terms of our own domestic oil industry, our own domestic energy. And I think that is a fact, too.

Oh! That’s a good one. Never mind the fact that some amount of consolidation is certainly a good thing, especially when we’re considering an industry with vast economies of scale and scope. No need to mention how 100 years of Anti-trust & Monopoly legislation has been one giant abortion.

I highly recommend Armentano’s thorough study, as in 100% “I read the book in it’s entirety and took exams on it.”