Anti-trust laws, drug safety and stock market regulations all have their beginings due to corporate and systemic abuses. So the FTC, FDA, SEC and other govt regulatory groups were enacted to avoid these abuses in the future. Maybe they were all shams to begin with in order to give the population the impression that the govt was trying to solve certain problems, but the end result was that they were a reaction to big problems that occured when corporations were allowed to function completely unchecked. The problem is that these groups have morphed into control devices by the very corporations that they’re supposed to regulate. I dont think it’s “protection money” so much as it’s “control money”.
By lacking any energy policy for the last 40 years, we are now at the mercy of the “free market”. I agree that this will be self-correcting in that high prices will intitiate change and alternatives, but it will be painful for many people because we were not prepared for it. Eventhough Stevie Wonder could have seen it comming.
