alt Hacker News23% of items are rung up at a higher amount at the register than what it says on the shelf, yet North Carolina law caps penalties at $5,000 per inspection, offering retailers little incentive to fix the problem.
In other words, regulatory capture at its finest, over the backs of the poorest in the country.
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Depending on how much independence the inspectors have they could probably turn a heck of a profit per inspector (thus being able to argue their continued existence to the legislature).
Could an inspector manage two per day? If you figure the full cost of each inspector is $150,000/year but dedicated ones could do 8 inspections at $5k each per week, there's well over $1 million/year per inspector (assuming not all inspections would be the full fine, there's travel costs per inspector, inspectors would have to spend some office/court time, etc. that would bring it down from the potential maximum of ~$1,800,000 each factoring in vacation and holidays).
Even Republicans could get behind it! "We're reducing the direct budget of the department, but authorizing it to hire additional inspectors in order to bring in additional revenue that can be utilized to bring the budget to or above its current levels." It's a cost reduction measure!
What this calls for is an Amazon-style optimization of inspections. Given X inspectors and Y locations, what is the most optimal routing to optimize for coverage and penalty collection?
Say what you will about the EU, but they figured out how to scale corporate fines correctly: max 10% of owning entities annual income.
Seems like it actually creates an incentive to go big or go home. If you're already going to be busted and hit with the maximum fine, might as well have even larger mispricings, so you come out ahead after the fine is taken into account.
> little incentive to fix the problem.
It is all these Karen memes that ruined complaining about being screwed over by corparate interests.
> yet North Carolina law caps penalties at $5,000 per inspection
So, have every agent in the state inspect them. Fine 5k. Immediately inspect again, different goods. Fine another 5k. Keep doing it opening hours.
Treat them like an inspection money piñata until they fix their ways. State gets a big pile of money to do better, and massive fines at 5k a pop for a few weeks punish the company and their bottom line.
I don't know NC law. Does it have an "invitation to treat" practice there where prices marked are a customer relations issue rather than a legally-binding offer?
To attain change, enough people have to:
1. Correctly identify the source of their misery, because it ain't [insert scapegoats].
2. Find others who agree with them.
3. Make a plan for effective countering of 1.
4. Use intestinal fortitude and endure temporary setbacks to achieve 3. to overcome 1.
5. Prevent 1. from ever happening again structurally, culturally, and through vigilant participation.
The 0th problem is the political operating system is captured by criminals and power has centralized grotesquely in ways that defeat the fundamental function of separation of powers. All elected officials corrupted by lobbyist bribes need to face accountability and have a code of ethics and integrity, because continuing down this path is the road to ruin.
Regulatory capture is when a large company encourages stronger regulations that small competitors cannot afford to satisfy. Here the issue is regulation that is too weak, not too strong.
It’s not regulatory capture unless the regulatory body itself is controlled by shady grocers. This is just garden variety insufficient regulation. Although if they inspected every day it would probably still be profitable for the state.