Let's hear it for regulation!

The right kind of regulation, that is. From DownsizeDC:

Often, the repeal of a government regulation will result in the restoration of free market regulations that are far stronger.

Free market regulation comes in several forms. One involves customers taking their business elsewhere when a company fails to provide a good product at a good price. Businesses are regulated by their customers.

Please notice that the government operates under different rules . . .

If the government charges you too much to do too little, then too bad. The government continues to extract money from you, even when it performs poorly.

* You can't fire the government!
* You can't take your business elsewhere.

In this sense government is almost completely DE-regulated.

But the free market also regulates businesses in other ways. Indeed, the free market imposes the strongest possible form of regulation . . . bankruptcy.

We must recognize that the politicians are in the process of repealing bankruptcy. Companies are being rescued from bankruptcy by the Big Bailout.

This is the correct way to think about things . . .

* The current economic downturn is a free market attempt to regulate bad business practices (many of which were fostered by government banking and housing policies)
* Bankruptcy equals the strongest possible form of regulation.
* Bailout equals the strongest possible form of DE-regulation.
* The Big Bailout equals Big DE-regulation.

See the whole article here.