From the article:

>"Because it’s just a transfer from one person to another, rent doesn’t necessarily make an economy less efficient -- it’s just often unfair. "

I would argue that "rent" does make the market more inefficient. The more rent these companies can extract from consumers the larger their lobbying budget and the more campaign donations they can make at all level of government.

Political lobbying is the biggest and most effective tool used by crony capitalists.