Trying to be cagey for the sake of my own identity. Apologies. Some of this comment is vague. All of it is true.
I have close knowledge of a tightly regulated industry that passes the cost of its infrastructure onto consumers.
About 15 years ago, for about a 10 year period, the guiding principles of the regulatory bodies were that the companies would tend to their own infrastructure, and they did not take proactive steps to ensure that standards were upheld.
The inevitable happened. Record profits. Investment in infrastructure went down. Safety and reliability faltered.
About 5 years ago, things shifted. The political landscape changed, and the regulators stopped sleeping. Now the companies, with their investors and owners demanding these profits (and reliant on investor faith to stay solvent), must legally invest in their infrastructure while also maintaining profits so their investors do not abandon them and destroy their business.
The regulators, bound by law to achieve certain outcomes, are at a crossroads. What they regulate is a necessity. The public who pay for this are sagging under the expense of it.
It’s a shitty catch-22, where there’s no good way forward (short of nationalizing the industry and putting competent, politically isolated people in charge), but there was an easy, easy way to prevent this from occurring in the first place.
Some decisions cannot be undone.
Trying to be cagey for the sake of my own identity. Apologies. Some of this comment is vague. All of it is true.
I have close knowledge of a tightly regulated industry that passes the cost of its infrastructure onto consumers.
About 15 years ago, for about a 10 year period, the guiding principles of the regulatory bodies were that the companies would tend to their own infrastructure, and they did not take proactive steps to ensure that standards were upheld.
The inevitable happened. Record profits. Investment in infrastructure went down. Safety and reliability faltered.
About 5 years ago, things shifted. The political landscape changed, and the regulators stopped sleeping. Now the companies, with their investors and owners demanding these profits (and reliant on investor faith to stay solvent), must legally invest in their infrastructure while also maintaining profits so their investors do not abandon them and destroy their business.
The regulators, bound by law to achieve certain outcomes, are at a crossroads. What they regulate is a necessity. The public who pay for this are sagging under the expense of it.
It’s a shitty catch-22, where there’s no good way forward (short of nationalizing the industry and putting competent, politically isolated people in charge), but there was an easy, easy way to prevent this from occurring in the first place.
Some decisions cannot be undone.