[snapplebobapple]

It's what people don't get about the excesses of capitalism/free markets. They serve a function. We get massive productivity/research/business process gains of millions of people putting their money where their mouth is everyday and playing a repeated game for more money/size/ influence from providing a better solution. That only works if people are reasonably sure they will keep the gains from their risks/hard work so we can't just steal the proceeds from them before it gives outsized clout to their more than likely idiotic descendants. Instead we need it to be reasonably easy for them to lose their money in a way that doesn't deter future risk taking of everyone else, of which this is one way.

I actually think this function is the real reason it's so bad that Rehnquist kneecapped antitrust so badly in the 70's through 90's and we have a nation of oligopolies now. The oligopolies can exercise outsized market power and stay in existence for way longer than they would otherwise, which gives outsized and long lived returns to the idiotic offspring at the expense of pricing above marginal cost for society, which does harm us on every purchase via the higher price, but really harms us through keeping idiots in excess wealth that should have gone to some smart upstart, costing us decades of that upstart making wise choices.