This pattern is more common than you realize. Anytime the government introduces a subsidy, from farm bills to mortgage deductions to limits on the number of do

This pattern is more common than you realize. Anytime the government introduces a subsidy, from farm bills to mortgage deductions to limits on the number of doctors, it hugely benefits those with an existing stake in that market. The value of the subsidy is quickly capitalized into the market-- farmland prices escalate with the subsidies, for example. As a result, new entrants get none of the benefit of the subsidy, but instead get to pay higher, distorted prices to enter the market to provide or buy that good or service. Government subsidies not only cheat the public at large, but even in a specific industry they reward the current stakeholders and punish the next generation of stakeholders.