Compliance

I've been hearing sentiment of late that the actual reason for the existence of regulatory compliance is because it's a jobs program for people who went and got fancy college degrees and need office jobs that require those fancy college degrees. Which I initially dismissed as Musa al-Gharbi being Musa al-Gharbi--like, I was going to post about it at some point, but I was waiting for Those People to come out to see if he said anything relevant in there--except this sentiment was also mentioned by How Money Works Uncut in their video about why people are unemployable now, and if this is beginning to get around then I have Thoughts.

Now, I do work in a field that requires a fair amount of regulatory compliance. I like to think this gives me useful perspective; I suspect these people would say that makes me biased and unreliable. I am, however, not actually coming here to argue that all compliance is Good and Necessary.

But some of it really, really is.

I would like to put forth four categories of regulations with associated compliance requirements: written in blood, necessary but not immediately going to kill anyone, obstructive, and well-meaning but inefficiently implemented.

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