This post is in response to the question "The government was created to help the people and foster a good economy, however, some argue that governmental interference does more harm than good, is this true?"
In my opinion, governmental regulation can be both heavily destructive and of utter importance. In things like traffic control, I would consider regulation to be a necessity, but in things like product prices, I would agree that regulations can absolutely do more harm than good.
In situations like traffic control and education, I largely believe that regulations should be put in place. In the circumstances of traffic control, regulations are put in place for the safety of the people. Speed limits, stop lights, and school zones are all examples of regulations implemented to protect people's safety when motorized vehicles are involved. These regulations have a fairly limited ripple effect in the economy, which is why I would consider them to do more good than harm. The ripple effect that I would consider to be most relevant to traffic tickets specifically would be the outgoing money of the consumers that would have used said money to purchase goods and services. These effects though, in my opinion, are absolutely worth the trade off of the small ripple that's sent into the economy.
Oppositely, I very strongly agree that regulations in the economy and most specifically in the pricing of products, can absolutely do more harm than good. The ripple effect of altering the price of any singular product largely effects so much more than just that individual product. I understand that when prices are regulated, there is a reason for it, but I have a hard time believing that the fixing of that individual issue is worth all of the ripples that singular alteration will make. It's impossible to know how the change of one price will truly alter the others because it's almost all based on consumers. Resource allocation also plays a factor, but when it comes to consumers, history can only tell us so much. For this reason, I do believe that enacting regulations into the economy will absolutely produce more harm than good.