Sunfish that is brilliant. Never before have I seen the decline of western industry and society placed in such clear words. Many thanks for posting and I have saved the file for later.
Over the last 2 decades, the trends of de-regulation and self-conformance have effected most engineering activities. These trends have the potential to reduce costs, increase innovation and benefit the nation. But they also may lead to a decline in design quality, a failure to apply relevant codes and an increase in safety risks for the community.
This aligns directly (if memory serves) with the causes of the massive power outage in the NE USA on August 14th 2003 (in which I was caught). Because everything was now 'self-regulatory' no one needed to ensure that the power supply COULD meet the demand. Currently, the UK is predicted to have a major shortfall of generating power this winter for similar reasons of (so called) benign neglect.