Don't blame the government. There is only one cause for market irrationality and inflation: human greed. The government has the job of trying to shape society.

Don't blame the government. There is only one cause for market irrationality and inflation: human greed. The government has the job of trying to shape society. Deciding that home ownership is a good thing and giving people tax breaks isn't the same as telling people to buy houses that cost more than they can afford. Encouraging people to go to college doesn't mean that harvard should charge 100X what they charged fifty years ago. It's the role of government to provide incentives and penalties. It's the unfortunate role of the market to pervert and distort those things to maximize profit at the expense of society. It's easy to think of regulators as some Other that has come in and destroyed our economic eden. The fact of the matter is that things were significantly worse for everyone before we had government regulation. Inflation [1] and economic bubbles [2] existed before the modern financial system. Price gouging, monopolies, child labor exploitation...all reduced by government regulation. We may not agree on the role of government, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to use them as a boogeyman that is responsible for all of society's economic ills. The idea that mankind was in a perfect state of nature before modern government borders on being religious. The system isn't perfect, but I hope we all can agree that there is plenty of blame to go around. [1] http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/fallromeeconomic/a/econoffall.htm http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/fallromeeconomic/a/econof... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania