> The thing is, there is no reliable way to prevent these errors, which means in general it is better to not interfere. That is not a forgone conclusion. It is

> The thing is, there is no reliable way to prevent these errors, which means in general it is better to not interfere. That is not a forgone conclusion. It is only better not to intervene if the expected cost of intervention is higher than the expected cost of not intervening. > One especially egregious example... These are relatively minor regulations that you argue gone bad. What do you think would be the realized costs of these misapplications? Would they be in the same order of magnitude with for example the costs of not breaking up monopolies? I highly doubt it. I get it, in countries like the US the government apparatus has a difficulty representing the welfare of the entirety of the nation, which tends to affect the interventions negatively, but that is not an argument against government intervention but an argument against the government itself, which is culpable of under-regulation just as much as over-regulation. (90's deregulatory Clinton laws on banks and telecommunications come to mind, which led to huge market consolidations and therefore market inefficiencies which we still suffer from.) As we agree, markets sometimes need serious babysitting, so we ought to pick better babysitters. > Citation needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorman:_The_Legend_of_Ron_Burgundy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorman:_The_Legend_of_Ron_B...