In strictly financial terms, he argued, it is rational to be indifferent to the consequences of one’s business or behavior to others so long as the direct consequences are profitable for oneself; the problem is that those indirect consequences can severely hurt others, as they did with financial deregulation. “Government has a duty,” Posner concluded, “to do more than prevent fraud, theft, and other infringements on property and contract rights, which is the only duty that libertarians believe government has. Without stronger financial regulation than that, the rational behavior of law-abiding
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