the devil came down to georgia...

Pandora said:
I'm no economist, but ideally doesn't a free market eventually regulate itself. If a company is doing something bad wrong and consumers find out about it then the company looses sales and is forced to changed their business practice or parish. Just look at Martha Stewart. She did something bad, she lost business because of the negative attention. I promise she will be more careful with how she handles herself from now on!

If you force everyone onto some fair market structure then there is no completion which drives companies to improve. Why do anything better or more efficiently if a company can make the same about of money by continuing with the status-quo. It would kinda be like a monopoly right? You'd get mediocre product and no other alternatives, which is terrible for consumers! You end up with a depressed economy like most socialist countires.

Edit: Do we have any economists around here that knows about this kinda crap? ;)

all that free market stuff regulating itself is a common misconception. without getting in to much mumbo jumbo a free market assumes that it can eventually reach an equilibrium between supply and demand. this is a false assumption it does not take into account collusion or other “groups’” affecting supply and demand. a total free market system will never reach an eq and you will have a market failure.