To Regulate or Not To Regulate.

The New York Times wrote an article today about Obama's trip to Europe. Apparently, many European governments are putting pressure on Obama to seek further regulation of our economy.

This seems like a no-brainer. Despite what many conservatives and libertarians feel, I think the last few months have shown that the markets are not, gasp, self-regulators.

Without regulation and safety nets, extreme boom and bust cycles like we've had over the past few decades will only worsen. The bubbles will keep getting bigger and bigger and the troughs will keep getting lower and lower.

And when the bottom of the economy falls out, I wonder who has to take the hardest hits?

Economic freedom is much more complex that social freedom. What I choose to do in my home has no effect on my neighbors. What traders do on Wall Street, however, affect us all. We've also recently learned that what the banks do during booms matter as well.