Originally Posted by Andrew H.

According to this logic, we should just get rid of the FDA, restaurant inspectors, and fire inspectors, since they are distorting the holy market. In fact, it's *their fault* that poor beleaguered businesses are tempted to bribe the inspectors to overlook the rat feces, contaminated drugs, or locked fire doors. After all, the free market will take care of all of this - if 200 people die because of a contaminated drug, well, maybe in future people won't buy from that company.

The 1994 Northridge earthquake in Calif. caused 33 deaths. The 2010 earthquake in Haiti caused 300,000 deaths. The primary difference is the strict earthquake building codes in California. These were not enacting with the idea of enriching building inspectors - it's not like the building inspectors passed the law in the first place.

And of course cell phone carriers were falling all over each other to offer number portability before it was required. Oh, wait, no they weren't.