What? Protected how? People see things they don't like and demand that the government "does something about it." It's a natural reaction, but it's exactly that kind of reaction that leads to legislation like the Patriot Act.

As far as anyone currently knows, free markets have cycles and there isn't anything you can do about that. Central planning historically goes a lot worse. Perhaps just assume that the winners in the market cycle will on average be more productive deployers of capital than the losers, and that all the losers participated willingly in something they knew was a meme?