The mercy of a free market

Conservatives just hate government regulations that keep companies from raking in all the money they can. They say a free market is the best way to go. Whatever people demand, the marketplace will produce.

If that's so, consider this a warning not to be bitten by a coral snake in Florida anytime soon. It turns out the only company that produced antivenin for a coal snake bite closed its doors in 2002 because it wasn't profitable to make the serum. Hospitals have been storing the stuff, but they're running low and the serum is growing old.

In the not too distant future, someone will be bitten by a coral snake and there will be no antivenin available. Demand will skyrocket, but supply won't be available at any price. And because only a few people are bitten by coral snakes each year, it's unlikely the free market will produce antivenin. Despite 100 percent demand, the free market will sentence some people to death because there is no profit in saving them.

Which is one of the many reasons we need government and regulation. A free market will not meet the need for things such as coral snake antivenin unless it is required to do so. Florida, where most coral snake bites occur, could have required such action. It could have taken steps to protect supply when the company closed its doors in 2002, but then-governor Jeb Bush did not act. Supplies are nearly gone and still no action has been taken.

Making antivenin may not have been profitable, but it would have been wise.

Since it's Earth Day, it would do to provide an example of the kind of government intervention in business that makes sense. It's Germany's 100,000 Roofs program.

Approved in 1998, the program mandated that banks provide low-interest, 10-year loans for homeowners who wanted to install solar panels to generate electricity. It also required utility firms to buy that electricity at seven times the going rate, a price that equaled the loan payments homeowners had to make to buy the panels.

The money paid by the utilities equaled the cost of building an anticipated new nuclear plant that was needed to meet demand. With 100,000 roofs generating power, the plant was not needed.

This program used money from the pockets of consumers and companies to fund a new source of electric power and it saved the risks of building a nuclear plant. It also developed a new solar energy industry in Germany which has provided other benefits. The program was ended after five years because all targets were met.

Government regulation is not a bad thing. Done well, and with the goal of putting the people's interests first, it can be a good thing.

And without it, we could all run the risk of being snake bit.

    -- Jim Grinstead