I det siste nummeret av The Economist, trolig verdens beste avis, er det en kort artikkel om reguleringer på side 13. Artikkelen ser nærmere på regulering og bivirkninger av denne (som sjelden er "synlige" og aldri vurderes). Her er noen utdrag fra artikkelen, aktuelt for alle liberalister (les særlig anbefalingen helt nederst om at individet selv bør bestemme hvilken risiko han er selv villig til å betale for):

"DISASTER demands a response, but it is often the wrong one. That is what the experience of Sir Bernard Crossland, a safety expert who led the inquiry into a disastrous underground railway fire in London in 1987 which killed 31 people, suggests. This week Sir Bernard questioned the £300m ($450m) spent on fire-proof doors, metal escalators and suchlike on London's underground after the disaster. The money, he said, might better have been spent on putting smoke detectors in people's houses. It would have paid for one in every house in the country. House fires kill around 500 people a year, mostly in homes without smoke detectors.

After a disaster, governments' instinct is to halt or restrict the activity concerned. That may be right, but it isn't necessarily. After a rail crash in Britain in 2000, which killed four people, the rail authorities imposed speed restrictions and track inspections. That drove passengers from the railways to the roads. Given that road travel is much more dangerous, this probably caused more fatalities than did the original crash. It also nearly bankrupted the railways.

The same applies to most industrial accidents, environmental catastrophes and health scares. The clean-up after the Exxon Valdez oil spill was hugely expensive and is thought to have damaged the environment more than the original leak. Nature deals with crude oil better than people do. In coping with epidemics like HIV/AIDS, or SARS, simple cheap public health measures (condoms, lifestyle, quarantine) usually work much better than expensive technological fixes like vaccines. The culls of cows and restrictions on movement after Britain's foot-and-mouth epidemic are now generally recognised to have multiplied the cost of the outbreak, rather than containing it."

Og hva er løsningen i stedet for kostbare reguleringer (som belastes konsumenten)? Det er selvfølgelig å la individet selv avgjøre hvilken risiko det vil ta og betale for:

"If possible, the best solution is to let individuals decide themselves how much risk they will bear, and how much safety they want to pay for. Given the choice, many airline passengers might prefer a slightly cheaper flight on an airline that does not carry useless lifevests under every seat, just as they may choose to buy a Lada rather than a Volvo.

Politicians need to avoid bowing to the cries from newspapers that they must be seen to “make things safe”. Encouraging sensible and informed attitudes to risk will make people richer and happier in the long term, but would require courage and honesty up front. Don't hold your breath."