> But even then you have to be careful, because if you're spending $50,000 to prevent $50,000,000 in harm, you could still be wasting $40,000 because there is a

> But even then you have to be careful, because if you're spending $50,000 to prevent $50,000,000 in harm, you could still be wasting $40,000 because there is a way to do it for $10,000. Yes, but even if you create a regulation that is $40k more expensive to implement than the cheapest option, it still results in a $49.95M in savings (regardless of who would be picking up the bill, at least when you consider us as a society that depends on each other to function) compared to having not set up that regulation at all. The government spending e.g. 1M on experts hired to check whether, say, oil pipelines are built to spec and standards, and not break unexpectedly - is much better for everyone involved overall, than the company operating the pipeline paying hundreds of millions for the cleanup of the resulting environmental damage. Same goes for pretty much any and every other industry that we actually depend on. Yes, sure, be careful if possible - but personally, I’d rather see inefficient spending on necessary regulation than no regulation at all. Because then we’d definitely be picking up the bill for it, maybe not always directly with our wallets or government budgets, but we lose either way. I do agree with the rest of your points.