Someone else ALWAYS controls your money for the simple reason that 'money' has no intrinsic value, it is a proxy for a debt owed to you by your society. Your ability to ever redeem it for anything of real value leaves you beholden to a structure far more elaborate and beyond your control than just a few government regulations.

You also don't live a free life when the rigors of market logic dictate your personal safety. Most reasonable people understand that the are both benefits and costs to regulation and the tricky bit is striking the right balance.

Let's not descend into "I've just read The Fountainhead and I think it solves all societal problems" rhetorical territory, eh?

Considering how haphazardly people demand regulation, I'm not sure reasonable people do understand the costs of regulation. Every time regulatory capture happens people are somehow really surprised and the excuse is always "we just wanted to help".

There are undoubtedly regulations that are vital, but there are many that cause silly situations that can have bad consequences. Also, it's not like regulation is guaranteed to even solve the problem in the first place.

> There are undoubtedly regulations that are vital, but there are many that cause silly situations that can have bad consequences.

Mandating basic standards to ensure that products sold to children are non toxic seem vital enough. Whether this is the best way of managing that, is a different matter.

it does in europe and china

Government owns all money already. They create it, they destroy it, they own it. You can hold it for a while, but it's still government money.

I'm not making some philosophical point; I'm genuinely contending that money belongs to the government. There's nuance and discussion, but as broad statements go, I contend that "Money belongs to the government" is more accurate than "People own their money".

You get what you pay for.

The more accurate phrase is "you never get more than you pay for". It's perfectly possible to burn a bunch of money and get squat for it.