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Comment by PurpleBoxDragon | Hacker News Reader

>Regulations exist to protect the whole from the greed of a few.

Regulations exist so that entrenched players can use the lethal force of government to block new challengers. Never quite as blunt as I put it, but that is the threat backing all the actual outcomes.

And the overall solution is to allow them to fail next time. Don't fix it, let it crash and burn. Stop socializing the losses since the profits were privatized.

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>And the overall solution is to allow them to fail next time

Then pass a regulation barring the US from ever giving another "bailout". In the aftermath of '08 those corporations played the US like a fiddle to get their billions of dollars in free loans because "our whole financial system could collapse if you dont". Why wouldn't they play this game again, perhaps even more brazenly than last time?

> Regulations exist so that entrenched players can use the lethal force of government to block new challengers.

That's not how it appears to everyone. That's often how they are crafted, but this is not a problem with the concept.

There's actually a middle ground - EPA requirements, food and safety. True, most of the good ones end up repealed...

At least bail out the victims instead of the perpetrators.

Just that. My own view is that regulations are antithetical to competition. Sometimes regulations are necessary but it's not true that they come without a cost.

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