[gtbcb]

Don't get me wrong, unfettered capitalism has plenty of problems - eg tragedy of the commons, regulatory capture, effective monopolies, etc. That said, pricing things to maximize profits (given societal and economic constraints) still seems like the best route, especially in this case. How else could / should they price it?

I think one of the jobs of gov't is good regulation, which is hard. And once the rules have been set, maximizing profits within that box of regulation seems good, yea? Capitalism is reasonably good at allocating resources in many cases.