Slightly relevant historical aside; when Adam Smith was thinking about his famed free markets, it wasn't government regulation that he wanted them to be free of

Slightly relevant historical aside; when Adam Smith was thinking about his famed free markets, it wasn't government regulation that he wanted them to be free of. They were to be made free BY government regulation and enforcement. What some markets seem to have become (such as this US medical market) are the self-same unfree markets that Adam Smith believed were so damaging. I for one would not be too upset to see the government hold a gun to the metaphorical heads of various bodies and organisations and tell them that they'd better start delivering a free market pretty damn quickly. Given a political class in the US that seems so obsessed with "free markets" (they're mostly not, of course - it's just sloganeering bullshit to enable weakening of protections and increased screwing over of everyone but the ruling classes), sure is a shitshow of captured, unfree markets.