Sunday, Jan. 17, would have been the 109th birthday of Nobel Prize winning economist George Stigler.  Stigler was a long time professor at the University of Chicago and part of the "Chicago School" of economic thought.  Stigler is best known for his insight into the economic effects of government regulations.  He argued that whenever government regulation, rather than market competition, dictates economic outcomes, interest groups will inevitably seek to manipulate or take advantage of the situation for their own benefit.  There is very little doubt about this sixty years later!  He was awarded the nobel Prize for Economics in 1982 for his contributions to the study of the effects of regulation.  Stigler passed away a few weeks before his 81st birthday in 1991.