[bjterry]

The entire article provides reasons why the companies are incentivized to inflate the prices, because those prices are used in contracts which affect them. Asbridge is either not aware of this aspect of the incentives in his industry, which would imply incompetence (whether this is a minor incompetence or a gross incompetence, I don't have the knowledge to say), or he's not speaking carefully. He might actually think that the companies don't have a GOOD reason to provide false figures, but not that they don't have ANY reason. If he's not speaking carefully, then he may be specifically minimizing concerns about the figures to the benefit of the industry he's regulating.

Since he's a political actor, and we know that regulatory capture exists, this could call into question whether it's appropriate for him to continue being a regulator. That's the argument.

[ethbro]

To give him the benefit of the doubt (not saying it's warranted), Georgia government interactions do seem to have a tendency towards "yelled at and fixed in a back room, face saving comments at the press conference."

See the history of our JQB (before voters questionably decided to give control to the legislature this election).

[smileysteve]

> before voters questionably decided to give control to the legislature this election

I think you mean:

Before the legislatures questionably took control after putting favorable wording on a ballot that the average uninformed voter read as a no brainer.

[ethbro]

I feel like <20% of ballot measures are clearly worded, so that wasn't any surprise to me.

More fun was that State Rep. Johnnie Caldwell of Griffin, GA (formerly Judge Caldwell before being approached by the JQB and resigning due to allegations of sexually harassing a female attorney) was one of the co-sponsors of the amendment.