Free market solutions should perhaps be more of a general direction than an absolute goal.
> without IMMEDIATELY bankrupting people.
Il love the (involuntary ?) irony here !
Indeed, legislation actually bankrupt people. And industries.
The automobile industry is now in bad shape thanks to legislation forcing them to adopt EVs. Even with subventions and taxes/norms for "bad behaving" vehicules, people aren't buying 60K electric vehicules...
Many profesionals now can't afford to go to Paris due to the punitive politics for cars. (think plumber)
People with old cars can't go there anyway. Yes, the poor gets poorer with this.
This would go a bit better with an efficient system of public transportation.
But since what belongs to everybody belongs to nobody and is taken care of by nobody...
And before that they incentived everybody and their dog to buy diesel cars, only to overtax it a few years later...
Example exists in every industry.
This is a never ending story of politicians taxing and legislating what move and incentising what don't. In their own interests, not yours. Repeat and rinse.
Nobody seem to understand that the ones that take decisions (politicians) are often remote from the actual situations, with a set of incentives often misaligned with their targets.
Yet understanding this only takes a game of monopoly with friends or family, or just real life experience that everybody have on how people behave even for very small personal gains.