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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (28329)	5/7/2008 6:29:24 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Regulated trades also create risks. To the extent the regulations reduce liquidity or distort the trades they may create even more risk. But regulated or not "putting the entire economy at risk" overstates the case. If you mean literally putting the whole economy at risk (and I doubt you do), the statement is just nonsense. It would take a civilization ending disaster to eliminate the economy. It doesn't put the economy at risk unless you mean "at insignificant levels of risk" (either an infinitesimally small percentage of risk, or a major percentage that something harmful could occur, but the percentage of the harm is small). Of course parts of the economy are indeed put at risk, but parts of the economy are always at risk. Shutting down or heavily regulating all sorts of trades can (if the regulations are particularly foolish) reduce the risk, but only at a cost. And if the regulations are foolish, the risk can also be increased even while imposing the cost. "that doesn't mean there are no regulations at all that effect the trade." Can you name even one? There are all sorts of laws about fraud for example that apply. And if your being technical about the distinction between regulations and laws, there are regulations related to these laws. More generally the trades are, withing a certain sphere of activity, largely unregulated, but the limits of that sphere, and who can play in it, is regulated.