I used to work in a big firm where there were people who made entire careers coming up with one bogus way after another to allege false advertising. There is no denying that the rule is abused.

But Gosh, its hard to come up with a better example where there is actual falsity.

But it also shows the danger involved in these bailouts. The government becomes a partner in GM. Then it purports to sit in judgment of Toyota. It harms their impartiality on that subject. And we will see the same problem here. if the FTC doesn’t go after them, then everyone will think, “the fix was in.”

I think you can have a super-regulated economy or you can have the government act as a participant in the economy, but I don’t think any healthy system should have both.