Regulatory rules - Topics

Do guidelines get updated faster than regulations and does that help anyone? Can a regulator be captured by the industry it polices without anyone breaking a rule? When does a licensing requirement stop protecting the public and start keeping competitors out? If a guideline is not legally binding why does ignoring it still cause trouble? Why do two firms with the same violation end up with very different penalties? What recourse does a business have when the regulator changes its guidance mid-year? Why do filing and notification duties exist if nobody ever reads the filings? What actually happens during a routine inspection and who decides how hard to look? Why are administrative procedures so obsessed with the order in which documents are filed? What is the difference between guidance from a regulator and advice a consultant sells? Why do industries write their own guidelines before a regulator forces them to? Why does a new business need a government permit for something that was legal last year? Is self-reporting a violation really cheaper than waiting to be caught? Why do licensing requirements outlive by decades the problem they were invented to fix? How much does compliance really cost a small firm compared with the licence fee? How much does a local ordinance depend on police willingness to mean anything? How does a statute with no enforcement section still get enforced? Why is a sector heavily regulated in one country and barely touched in another?