KEVIN WILLIAMSON: Don’t Blame Staples: In the matter of perverse economic incentives, the perverts are in Washington.

Demand curves slope downward. Which is to say, if you raise the price of something, people will be inclined to consume less of it. Those with a choice in the matter – say, a large office-supply chain with a mess of low-skilled part-time employees who are basically as interchangeable as toner cartridges in the greater scheme of office-supply things – will in fact consume less. If the thing that is getting more expensive is manpower, it will cut employees’ hours, circulate a lot of those dopey “do more with less” memos, and look for labor substitutes, like the banks did with those ATMs that haunt President Obama’s imagination.

Sometimes, you have to go full robot.

Politicians build their careers on voters’ ignorance about supply and demand curves.