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Comment by bgorman | Hacker News Reader

A major problem is that regulatory capture leads to less competition, yet the common solution proposed is "more regulation/government". The US federal government effectively forced Boeings 2nd biggest competition to shut down their business in 2017 (Bombardier's C Series program, now sold to Airbus for pennies on the dollar). It seems to me that if a democratic government is given broad arbitrary regulatory power, it is a given that it will be used to limit competition for special interest's groups benefit. If anyone has any examples of a large federal agency that hasn't been captured, I would be interested to know more.

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> A major problem is that regulatory capture leads to less competition, yet the common solution proposed is "more regulation/government"

Neither "regulation" nor "government" are single dimensional quantities that can be compared with a simple "more" or "less".

Having regulatory agencies act in the public interest is probably going to require constant oversight and guidance. It's a hell of a lot harder to have conversations like that when more than half of the political influence in the US is able to dismiss any suggestions with reflexive "more regulation = bad" arguments.

Some regulations decrease competition. Some regulations increase competition. Some regulations provide incentives aligned with the public interest. Some regulations don't. They need to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

>A major problem is that regulatory capture leads to less competition

Safe regulations are to avoid people dying not to stimulate competition. Without safety regulations, way more people will get sick, injured or die.

And, in this case, it is not about adding more regulation. It is just about making sure that the current one is in place.

Someone though, too much regulation is reducing my profit and 350 people died. Will deregulation bring that people lives back?

Except the bombardier issue had literally nothing to do with regulation and to claim it did is misleading. That was 100% Trump with his tarriff BS. The FAA and safety regulations played 0 part in it. We could have literally an unregulated airline industry and it wouldn't have changed the bombardier situation.

Without speculating about political motivations, the Bombardier CSeries tariffs were imposed by two Federal regulatory agencies for "unfair competition/dumping". (US International Trade Commission, and the US department of Commerce)

Which again, had absolutely nothing to do with the FAA or anything safety related. Conflating the two is misleading at best. My point stands.

Your original post started off with this sentence: "Except the bombardier issue had literally nothing to do with regulation and to claim it did is misleading".

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