SteveHansen, you put it far more eloquently than I did.

 

Wow, did this thread get sidetracked.
Once you go down the slippery slope of a planned society (that is, government regulations) watch out for the law of unintended consequences.
In almost every instance, well meaning rules and regulations have wreaked havoc on the market and caused more harm than good.

• Look at rent regulations, stabilization or controls and the effect it had on creating slums and causing housing shortages in desirable area, thus having the perverse effect of causing housing prices to soar (look at NYC, for a perfect example).
• Another well meaning government rule was the Community Reinvestment Act of the late 1970's that was given a boost in the late 1990's when banks were encouraged (and then forced under the threat of penalty from the Attorney General) to increase lending to lower income people. The subprime mess was a creation of well meaning congress in their noble attempt to increase home ownership by a class of people who they knew couldn't afford it.
• Another mess up was CAFE. Everyone thought regulating a minimum mileage standard was a wise move, but what were the side effects? It forced the car companies to set up a line of cars that they had to sell at a loss (to bring up their company wide average fuel economy) wreaking economic havoc on them. In addition, these econo-box cars resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries (...A Harvard Center for Risk Analysis study found that CAFE standards led to "2,200 to 3,900 additional fatalities to motorists per year"...). It's easy for congress to count the mileage a car company's fleet achieves. It's harded to count the toll it took on human life as a result of their 'well meaning' intentions. What was the cost to society as a result of the loss of productivity from the people injured or killed in subcompact cars?
• Hawaii wanted to cap the price of gas, so the oil companies sold their fuel elsewhere and caused shortages.

Sorry, comrades, the free market knows how to price a commodity and when you try to disturb the law of supply and demand...you create shortages and problems.
There's no such thing as a little bit of government intervention. It's sold that way to make it palatable to the population.
Let the free hand of the market determine what products are sold and for what the appropriate price is. The free market allows business that make mistakes to fail and disappear, too.
Anything else (no matter how it's packaged or sold) will only lead to disaster.

Not really, oligopolies are natural outshoots of a free market. As are their more heinous cousin, the monopoly. While most will shoot down monopolies, I think we all are resigned to the fact that the oligopoly is a necessary evil that we can tolerate.