Although the terrorist attacks hit air travel especially hard, deregulation of that industry has demonstrably increased the quantity and flexibility, if not the profitability, of air travel over the past twenty years. Trucking and rail deregulation have added flexibility to the movement of goods across our nation.
I need hardly remind this audience that one especially potent force for enhancing overall economic flexibility and resilience arguably has been the combination of deregulation and innovation in the financial sector. New financial products have enabled risk to be dispersed more effectively to those willing, and presumably able, to bear it.