Any form of government regulation has pros and cons. Two positive outcomes of regulation are a cleaner, healthier environment, and safer products. A negative effect is, of course, the costs. Using the airline industry as an example, deregulation resulted in lower airfares for consumers. However, one could argue that there is a correlation between deregulation and the recent tragic airline crashes, by attributing the cause of the crashes to slothfulness in maintenance of capital equipment resulting from deregulation.
Some regulation is warranted.
David Braybrooke views competition policy as the government's tool for optimizing effectiveness, at the point where profits and social responsibility intersect. Unfortunately, it seems that the United States government is continually missing the target. The myriad regulations enacted by Congress form a scatter diagram on our nation's grid. To achieve the desired optimization there must be something to connect the dots. It seems that morality, defined as trust and respect, is the missing connector.