Government meddling has created perverse incentives so that consumers now behave against their own long-term interests. Every time there was a "covid stimulus" payment, for example, there was a sale on big screen TVs at Wal-Mart. Also the "War on Poverty" destroyed normal urban family structure and created a world in which unmarried women have multiple babies with a succession of jobless men and get government checks in return. The rich do insane things for "tax credits." None of this crazy behavior would happen in a free market with a constitutionally-restrained government.