Conservatives are no friends of the free market

A friend sent me a link to a comment by NBR's Nevil Gibson, who demonstrates once again that conservatives are no friends of the free market:

It may be a forlorn hope, but the Commerce Commission could break new ground as
a consumer champion if it vetoed a Woolworths or Foodstuffs takeover for The
Warehouse before it gets any further. It should do the same with another deal
being considered – a Goodman Fielder takeover of independent Huntly-based
baker River Mill, which sells cheap bread largely through non-supermarket
outlets...

I too have a forlorn hope: that conservatives will one day learn that when governments are powerful enough to give you everything you want, they're also big enough to take it all away again. Next time you hear a conservative bewailing the government's bullying of businessmen, that those conservatives have been right there in the front line supporting the power of government to bully.

Or as my friend puts it (thanks AB): "There's no one like conservatives to tell you free markets need a gun to the heads of producers."

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