Regulation strangulation

Silicon Graybeard:

At least in our society, regulation often leads to litigation, and companies are sued regularly for offenses (real or imagined) against the environment or against people; possibly employees, possibly customers, possibly people in the communities they work in. When special interest groups, like environmentalist or animal rights for example, don't get the laws they want passed, they litigate to prevent companies from doing their business. For example, some of the most verdant farm land in the country, the central valley of California, is currently not being farmed because a group got the courts to stop the irrigation on the basis that it harms a minnow, despite considerable scientific disagreement that irrigation has anything at all to do with the minnow's population. (Summary here) The human impact in terms of unemployment and lack of food production, however, is undeniable.

Regulation and litigation are sand in the gears of society. Big, sharp, 40 grain silicon carbide abrasive particles that grind the gears and shafts away.

As they say, read the whole thing.