[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

We could get into a battle of competing examples of where regulation provides
some needed prevention of some bad result and where it is easy to show that
it has become, at most, a mechanism to avoid responsibility and at least the
engine for graft that I described. The failures of regulation that you describe
just demonstrate a small part of the problem.

Of course there are examples of regulations not working, and of corruption. I won't deny that. Your argument, though, was that regulation never worked.

When was the last time anyone took a close look at, much less held
accountable the regulators? All these regulatory laws passed with a claim
that they will accomplish some benefit, how many have meet those claims?
How many have done any good that in anyway justifies their cost? What are
the actual numbers, the factual data, for their performance? Why is no one
looking?

Since you are claiming that regulatory laws have no benefit, you have the burden of presenting this evidence, I would think.

It is nice to assume that we can pass a law and that the government will
see to it that our interests are protected, but there is little factual data
to suggest that it will actually work out that way.

There's *plenty* of factual data to support this. Look at the earthquake example. Look at the effects of making lead paint illegal. Look at seatbelt laws. Look at requiring fire escapes.

I'm also skeptical that the poor people of Haiti had the resources to build to
the California building codes, and that if the regulations had been in place,
they could have been followed.

I have no doubt that Haiti couldn't follow imitate California's building codes. But that's not the point. The point is that these codes *are a good idea* and *save lives.*

I suspect that if one of them thought it would bring in more customers, than a
"free" phone, they would have been eager to do so. I guess they thought it
was not that big a thing to those in the market for a cell phone.

What they thought was that it would make it easier for consumers to switch to another carrier if they weren't happy with the existing carrier. What they didn't want was to be exposed to more competition. What they wanted was to lock in customers.

All of these things are bad, and it was only regulation that created the (more) competitive environment we have now.