I hadn't read everything here, but I hope the far right here don't call me a liberal and I hope the far left don't go caling me a right winger, I prefer to be viewed as neither.
In economics, neither a "lessaze affair"(pure capitalism) nore a "command and control"(pure socialism) works. On one end, people begin to take advantage of others in atrocious and stupid ways that only do damage to the economy on the whole as money ends up centralizing in fewer and fewer people, if they get to use that money to control the government in any way, you end up with a plutocracy, even if it's not publicly recognized as such.
On the other end, people get lazy, that much is clear if everyones paychecks are determined regardless of how well they really do, and ironically money ends up over-centralizing anyways, in this case it's who's running the economy who is doing that. So pure socialism doesn't work either.
The funny thing is, this goes hand in hand with government, simply because it's almost no different than anarchy vs oligarchies. Both paths lead to the same societies incapable of prospering whatsoever as money just ends up over-centralized. The arguement of "trickle down economics" doesn't hold much water because of factors such as supply, demand and whatnot, and greed takes over to an extreme for people who have lots of money and power. They won't hire people if they see no reason to when they are making profits as it is, heck, a monopoly doesn't hire beyond a point because they do NOT want to produce when they are already at a solid economic equilibrium of supply/demand.
Now I know people are wondering why I say anarchies and oligarchies lead to the same thing, the problem is that in anarchy, no government, the lack of any law and order or rules to go by leads people to do even stupider things than in a pure oligarchy, they'll steal from others, everyone ends up having to guard their assets 24/7, nothing can get done, so people beg someone to take charge. Just the same in a pure oligarchy(which anarchies can lead to), the people controlling everything so much, the excessive micromanagement leads to squandering of everything, while at the same time no one has any real rights.
So the problem with the tea party? 90% of them are zealots, who cannot understand any of that. In going to extremes, they cannot moderate themselves well enough, instead they get hostile at even people in the middle, such as myself, who'd rather a republic and an economy closer to the center, in the middle of pure capitalism or pure socialism. Some things cannot self-regulate, honestly I don't think anything can, but the "fine touching" needed varies. Many parts of an economy can be "let be", as lessaze affair in greek means, other things need to be watched a little more tightly, like health care for instance, because if it becomes about money, then sadly you end up with alot of cases where it's more profitable to NOT cure anything, but just treat it for 20-30 years and let it remain and cause more problems, which can impact other parts of an economy due to money being lost on it.
Still other silly problems such as "lets not hire anyone because they have debt and a poor credit rating even though they have no criminal record" occur to without a law keeping such a stupid catch-22 policy from being followed.(not joking, that happens to me alot, even though i've a clean record some companies instantly assume that my college loans make me a desparate criminal, even though I am trying to get a job good enough to pay that debt off everyone just looks at that credit rating).
Regulations prevent things like that.
But some things still have to be banned outright due to actually having a negative impact on an economy or just being plain unethical and disturbing. I could mention dozens of examples that are especially heinous but I won't here simply because it's common sense. A minor example though, slavery is actually reported throughout history as having a negative impact on an economy, due to it's often hand-in-hand relation to an especially poor form of economics called plunder economics, also called Raubwirtschaft in german(or rapine), in which there is no real internal economy, but everything in it is stolen from somewhere else in some form or another(such as the backs of the slaves). Such an economy was part of the path of excesses that lead to the destruction of the roman empire.
Regulations also guard against such atrocities.
I could even mention a pure lesaze affair(let it be) economy leading CEO's and corporations to adopt anti-competition practices and feudal practices such as preventing anyone from advancing the social ladder, just as much a command and control in excess may hire someone inept at someone for a higher position just cause he has seniority even though he hardly learned the job. Again, going either way to far just defeats itself. The case of credit rating in fact is a perfect case of feudalism; in order to get good jobs you need an education but no job really provides enough money to get it, so you go to college on loans, but then not having a perfect credit rating prevents you from getting the very jobs you went to college for, so your stuck with the bill and no way to pay it off simply because all the jobs that would pay it off are unavailable due to the credit rating.
Regulations in an economy designed to prevent unethical decisions or just stupid decisions are a good thing. It's just extremists on both ends tend to, well, tear the efforts to get that middle ground where everyone can prosper down(watch law and order SVU if your somehow not sure what i'm talking about). Thats why we got a republic and thats also why we had a number of regulations put in place in the 1940s by Rosevelt that shouldn't have been removed. Republics work, as do economies in the middle, simply because it's fair for everyone in things such as opportunity to move and in terms of flexibility while also preventing unethical practices from being followed.
(a note, I know I am spelling lesaze incorrectly, but my spell checker doesn't seem to be helping me.)
Alot of what I mentioned here is basic but for the plunder economy reference;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RaubwirtschaftI know, it's on wikipedia but thats a form of economy that is a very lethal form of economy in so many ways it's actually kind of disturbing. The roman empire was destroyed by that kind of economy.
