[germandiago]

I think it is more the consequence of intervention than not sharing wealth.

I do not have evidence but there are lots of regulations, talking about Spain now, but also in Europe, that leave small players de-facto out by apparently good intentions and make big players almost monopolize markets. Banking system, energy are two examples in Spain but there are lots of small business that get smashed by the fact that by not being profitable enough, causing them economic damage makes them extinguish. Lots of small business have been shutting down in the last few years yet they keep increasing tax rates. Special mention to freelancers, the most mercilessly smashed group here, taking into account that you often cannot control what is coming in the next few months wealth-wise, since that is relatively irregular and self-sustained.

The system is built in harmful ways for most of us.

[hospadar]

> It is mostly not smashing people with regulations that do not let them even compete in fair conditions.

But making regulations is much easier if you’re very wealthy, so you advocate for regulations that keep you wealthy with a very expensive loud voice and that creates a pretty strong feedback cycle.

One way out (seems to me) is chopping the top off the wealth curve and redistributing - it might matter less that poorer folks are getting money and more that extremely wealthy folks have less insanely disproportionate power to make a world that suits only them.

[germandiago]

In my mind chopping off is just stealing. It also kills incentives to invest and improve, which has negative effects in prices, employment...

Deregulation is what allows people to enter markets. Regulation is what puts barriers.

There are plenty of times where regulations are just plain absurd and what they contribute to is to kick out smaller players from the market without any real improvement. It also forces consumers to buy more expensive because the market is more monopolized. Safety is the typical excuse. Sometimes it could make some sense but sometimes is just plain cheating.

I would let people choose carefully and have ALL the information clear (must be really dilligent about this in laws) about what they are buying or not, contracting or not and let the market decide what those levels of quality for each service are and the value they have.