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Comment by meterplech | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like a great idea to let government regulate food. A very successful country did just that, the USSR. Where people stocked up on such nonessentials as butter when the factories finally could produce it.

Point being, arbitration and market forces will always ensure there are more resources available because the government is a monopoly with no challengers. In any markets with competition prices are lower, and more output is available. Besides, does anyone really think that governments can better judge and hedge the risk of various crop failures etc than the market?

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> It sounds like a great idea to let government regulate food. A very successful country did just that, the USSR. Where people stocked up on such nonessentials as butter when the factories finally could produce it.

No one is proposing "regulation" on the level of the USSR.

> Does anyone really think that governments can better judge and hedge the risk of various crop failures etc than the market?

Does anyone really think the government can better judge and hedge the risk of mortgages than the market?

No, and the evidence backs this up. Guess who wanted the most to increase home ownership and pressed for subprime loans through stunts like the community re-investment act? Congress.

Guess whose legally protected rating agencies gave AA+ ratings to massive CDOs? Congress.

Guess who managed to figure out that subprime was going to blow and tried to guard against it? Goldman and assorted hedge funds.

Funny the double standards that we hold markets and government to.

Using Goldman as a representative of the market is insane--if it were the market wouldn't look anything like it does now.

Of course not. But thats still better than the government where nobody figured it out.

> No one is proposing "regulation" on the level of the USSR.

Why not? We're told that govts must be in charge of essentials because markets fail.

> Does anyone really think the government can better judge and hedge the risk of mortgages than the market?

The recent mortgage crisis pretty much proves that govts are worse at judging mortage risk than the market. After all, it was the subprimes, pushed by govt, that caused the problem.

And, it was govt that provided incentives to invest in Fannie and Freddie.

And, it was govt's backing that gave Fannie and Freddie the ability to borrow money that their assets couldn't pay back.

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