On Thu, 19 Aug 2010, Jeremy MountainJohnson wrote:

> Well, in a free market, the 5% minority would probably start their own 
> bus or transit service. And, a few majority folk might even want in on 
> that because there is a small market of the minority wanting a better 
> service and a small market of the majority who want a bus service that 
> doesn't make the minority do stupid things. The free market isn't 
> perfect, but most people will take the slow moving iron fist over 
> excessive government intervention.

I'm not convinced by your argument that the government should allow 
companies to discriminate against people on the basis of race, religion, 
etc.  It sounds pretty bad -- an ugly world that we have mostly been able 
to put to an end.  Let's not go back to that.


> A more recent example, Minneapolis used to have only a handful of taxis 
> companies per city code- until one person challenged and succeeded in 
> overturning this regulatory restriction that was intended to protect 
> consumers but in modern times was just abused by a monopolistic group of 
> companies for their own financial gain.

You can find loads of examples of bad government regulations, no doubt, 
but my point is only that they are not *necessarily* bad, which was the 
original claim.  To find out if a regulation is bad, I'm saying, you have 
to at least know what the regulation is.


> It goes both ways, free market and government regulation can be 
> excessive or lacking at times depending on the issue at hand. Honestly I 
> hate both sides almost equally with a slight inclination toward the free 
> market.

I don't see it as two sides.  We have both together.  For example, we have 
a free market in owner-sold used cars -- the government does nothing to 
control prices -- but the government does have some kinds of regulations 
in different times/places like the so-called "lemon laws" to protect 
consumers.

I want markets to set prices for almost everything with the proviso that I 
want government to prevent collusion, price fixing and coercive 
monopolies.  I want to encourage real competition.  The real die-hard free 
marketeers don't want government even to prevent price fixing.  I think 
they are wrong, very wrong, and also kinda naive, usually exceedingly 
self-assured and lacking in knowledge of economics, history and other 
related matters.  They think all they need to know is "market good, 
government bad," and they can apply that mantra to any situation, size it 
up, and tell you the answer.

Mike