On The Impossibility of Deregulation
My friend Biella made a really good point about the financial crisis and the government bailouts this week:
Consider the position of politicians and free-market theorists who decry government regulation of financial markets. Compare that with our situation today: effectively, we now have government nationalization of much of the financial services industry. As Biella observed, the strongest possible form of regulation is to simply own the regulated entity, or to lend it money under terms so strict that they are the equivalent of owning it.
We have regulation either way; the only question is whether we admit it. If...