You are correct that investing in attaining a government granted monopoly has a very high return on investment.[1] This is exactly why many free-market advocat

You are correct that investing in attaining a government granted monopoly has a very high return on investment.[1] This is exactly why many free-market advocates believe that the government should not be allowed to regulate at all, or at least without very strong evidence that the intervention is necessary and proper, as well as limited in time and scope. These people believe that regulators are subject to 'public choice' problems.[2] [1] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1375082 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1375082 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice