At the best of times, economic regulation does not lend itself to close examination in election campaigns. Regulation, like economics itself, is about trade-offs and judgment, whereas candidates need to put things in black and white.rnThat is even more so in this election, when Barack Obama and John McCain are being forced to respond to events that trained economists and bankers barely understand: a housing crash linked to mind-numbing financial instruments, a brush fire of insolvency among financial firms, and a proposed $700 billion bail-out on unclear terms. The two men's divergent philosophies on the role of regulation, government intervention and free trade offer important clues as to what they would like the world to look like when the dust settles. These, at heart, are different aspects of one central question: just how free should the free market be?
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