This news story — High gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules — is straight out of Atlas Shrugged:

MCMINNVILLE, Tenn. – High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it.

T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits.

“This fuel’s so high, you can’t afford it,” he said. “We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That’s the truth.”

And Danny Raymond says he just likes using the mules around the farm. “We’ve been using them quite a bit,” he said.

Brother Robert Raymond added, “It’s the way of the future.”

What could better concretize the damaging economic effects of government regulations strangling energy production than this return to mule power? If such exists, I can’t think of it!

For a brief sketch of just some of those government regulations restricting the supply of oil, see Alex Epstein’s recently-published op-ed on Investigate Big Congress, Not Big Oil.

(Hat tip: Robbservations.)