I don't know why everyone is obsessed with the issue of more vs less regulation. The issue is having GOOD regulation that maximizes economic efficiency and social welfare.
This indeed.
And i also agree with schadefroh that a government should not own companies. But as i have noticed with every day experience is that the government can start to act as a bully because it is the government that contracts companies. And that is another serious underestimated concern that can only be dealt with by use of proper regulation. Not only regulation for contracted companies, but also regulation about the duty the government must perform in order to maximize the efficiency of the contracted companies without having those companies in a strangle hold. A true gentlemen agreement but put on paper as a contract.
I can not go into full details for obvious reasons but for example, when there is a clause in a contract that allows a government to suspend payment to the company for delivered services for any reason the government official sees fit. Companies can get in serious financial problems. For example loans must be requested at banks to solve financial issues (Such as paying suppliers of parts) until the government official is satisfied and enables payment again for services already delivered although minor flaws( not life threatening but experimental phase projects to iron out flaws) have been found in those services. And i can safely say that those flaws where able to happen because that same government department to company contract has no clarity about how to cope with certain situations.
Important decisions must always be made in a democratic manner by means of democratic debate and negotiation between government officials and contracted companies. If a single person can make decisions that can put companies out of business then this is detriment for the economy in general. And it seems all to often that government officials rather enjoy their power and control over others also known as corruptive behavior.
The solution is to spread the power over multiple officials.
If there is no proper way of executing a service from ground up, then first their must be negotiated how to implement features and how to set up a test course. By no means, the public in general must end up paying the bill by means of bad services or by means of taxes spend wrongly. Efficiency has always been the keyword. And especially a moloch such as a government looses efficiency over time
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This can also be seen when companies get to big to function and becoming to slow and unable to respond to developments in technologies and there out forthcoming possible new markets.
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This all has been recognized before by many people in the business. But these business people have the tendency to fully disintegrate the government departments what again results in loss of efficiency by means of the public paying the bill by bad quality services or by taxes spend wrongly.
For example because a single government service is now spread over several contracted companies, there is more administration, there is more miscommunication and there is less profit because the same amount of money payed by the responsible government department has now to be divided over multiple companies each with their own ceo who desire bonuses and shareholders who desire short term profit results. Also this will result in less vital maintenance to vital public services which again cause delays, for example people end up coming late at work, more traffic jams because people prefer to stay in traffic jams because they feel they cannot trust the public transport. It is a vicious circle. And it is not just happening in the US it is happening in any western country. Also the one where i am.