re: #28 Sol Berdinowitz

There is also an article of conservative ideology that the Free Market is some sort of divine natural state that we achieve through a lack of government intervention and regulation.

To quote Adam Smith: “Markets are there to serve people, people are not there to serve the markets”.

The Free Market is not an ideological ideal state, it is a man-made mechanism for balancing supply and demand, and for directing capital to where it will do the greatest benefit to all. When markets cease to serve these ends, they need to be regulated.

And national/international markets need to be regulated by the federal government.

Part of their faith in it is the idea that its infallible, that supply and demand lead to a self-regulating system that puts the customer above all else. That it is government regulation, not greedy businessmen, who drive up prices and lead to dysfunction in the system. That CEO who robbed the company blind before bailing out with a golden parachute? They tell themselves that, without government “interference,” he would have worked for the betterment of the company because he’d make more money that way.