> But did that persist, or was it just "switching cost"? Opinion differs, but I think thanks to EU we were forced to accept a reasonable legal prevention to mo

> But did that persist, or was it just "switching cost"? Opinion differs, but I think thanks to EU we were forced to accept a reasonable legal prevention to most egregious acts of economic crime. If that didn't happen, we would look.. probably kinda like Russia. In a sense it persisted because the people who got rich during the "gold rush" (usually through botched "privatization" of former state enterprises, but also through various scams) of course didn't lost their wealth. Anyway, the point is, free market left to its own devices is not very pretty; I have seen that as a teenager. Arguably, Americans should remember that lesson from late 19th century.