Originally Posted by
tomgoodman
Yes, regulation is a tool government often uses to obtain some result without the political pain of raising taxes to pay for it. In addition, unnecessary regulations may have stifled technological innovation to protect the turf of established companies.
I'm not familiar with the Spain example -- what are they up to?
Too lazy to google but I think they spent about 28 bazillion euros on some massive green jobs solar energy plant. Neither the jobs nor the solar energy have approached promised levels. And of course Spain is one of the few countries in the world as broke as we are.