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You're being downvoted because your argument depends solely on the presumption that any regulation which you personally neither benefit from, are protected by,

You're being downvoted because your argument depends solely on the presumption that any regulation which you personally neither benefit from, are protected by, or otherwise confers advantage to you or removes advantage from your counterparty exists solely because of corruption. This is, to the rest of us, a childish and unproductive perspective.

smsm42 13y ago
It has nothing to do with me or my personal benefit. It does a lot with maintaining status quo and protecting existing entrenched interests against change - that, of course, benefits different people from those that are benefitting from status quo. You can call it corruption or you can call it the rule of law, but it's the fact that entrenched interests make local authorities pass laws that benefit them and exclude competition. Of course it is done under the guise of "safety", etc. You can downvote it as much as you like, yet it is the reality that regulation is commonly use to protect entrenched status quo, often at the expense of the consumers. Check out e.g. this one: http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/04/thanks-to-a-private-public-taxi-cartel-in-nyc-the-value-of-a-taxi-medallion-has-increased-5x-times-faster-than-the-sp500/ http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/04/thanks-to-a-private-public-... Is it really a cartel extracting rent from consumers by leveraging limited choice or is it just me seeking my personal benefit (do not let the fact that I have never used NY taxi in my life distract you)?