[john_b]

In general market regulations start out with good intentions, but the protection they afford specific groups eventually tends to seen as a sacred right by those groups. Especially after the first generation--those who could still remember a time without that regulation--have passed on.

The type of regulations that can work well are those that benefit a large number of diverse groups (i.e. financial regulations preventing banks from doing stupid things with their customers' money) whose interests are so poorly correlated that they cannot effectively organize for a monopoly on some special privelege.