This is why individuals are more competent decision-makers about their own affairs than governments. For this reason, a society that removes decision-making from individuals and places it in the hands of central planners invites disorder and endangerment, the economist Thomas Sowell has observed.
"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong," wrote Sowell.
Media were quick to describe the nursing home tragedy as a "market failure," pointing out that 70 percent of nursing homes in the US are for-profit. This is hardly a market failure, however. Long-term care facilities saw the danger and warned public officials what would happen.
What were they told?
"That is the rule, and that is the regulation," Cuomo told them, "and they have to comply with it."