Well this is baloney.
Ask me about the rivers that caught on fire because of poor regulation. Or the Boeing airplanes that fell out of the sky because they were allowed to self-regulate. Let’s ask the 20,000 people who died in Bhopal, India because a pesticide plant hadn’t been inspected recently.
Maybe we want to ask the thalidomide children how they feel about “regulation”? And if we can get them in the same room, let’s ask Charles Ponzi’s clients how that “no SEC” turned out for them.
Ooh, wait, I know, I know. Let’s talk to the regulators who weren’t regulating before the 2008 banking crisis and see how they think it turned out. Even famous libertarian Alan Greenspan was shocked, shocked I tell you, that banks would do stupid things if they weren’t watched over.
The absence of good regulation led directly to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Luckily there was no regulation at all at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, so I bet the workers there are enjoying their freedoms. And that lack of regulations for having enough lifeboats to serve all passengers on the Titanic turned out well, too, eh?
Nom the simple fact is that regulations do not simply fall out of the sky. They are always, and in every case, reactions to lack of regulations which cause disasters of one sort or another: financial, economic, health, and death being the most prominent examples.
Of course the captains of industry hate hate hate regulations, because “WAAAHHH! They want to tell me how to run my business.” My response is “If you had run your business responsibly then nobody would be bothering you by instituting rules. But you didn’t, so we will.”
Baloney squared, if there is such a thing.