Q: regulating utilities 2)enforcing contracts 3)enforcing antitrust laws 4)all of these
A: The states regulate utilities through "franchise" laws. These laws require monopolies such as electric, phone, gas and other providers of utilities, including garbage pickup to apply for a special franchise. Once they have the franchise, they have to guaranty to deliver services at a set, negotiated price. These are called regulated monopolies. Otherwise, the government does not assist consumers per se. It will sue to "protect" consumers but in reality, the fines and levy's that they receive go to the states that bring suit. The Federal Trade Commission overlaps some of the regulation in the name of protecting consumers, but in reality they do the same thing basically with respect to enforcing consumer protection laws. But the consumers never actually see any benefit from it. Largely, with the exception of regulated monopolies, the government actually impedes the consumer. A very good example is trying to set up a factory locally. If you want to open up a factory to produce, let's say, a car that goes 62 mpg on diesel fuel, you need to get all of your engineering lined up. That means tens, hundreds of millions of dollars to make the car comply with regulations on paper. All sorts of regulations like Federal EPA regulations and each states' regulations on environmentals. Then there's safety issues that require NTSB regs to be complied with. Then there's the issue of ASTM standards. Everything has to be standardised according to testing and manufacturing standards and parts etc. Then lets say everything is honky dory on paper. You still need to build the factory, right? Well that means even more engineering to make the machines to make the parts and assemble the cars. That's even more money. And, the machinery has to be planned and set up in a way to comply with OSHA regulations, as well as the state's regulations on safety. Then the building has to be permitted, and environmental impact statements have to be put out, zoning requirements have to be complied with, the building code has to be complied with, etc. And assuming you have your machines and factory built, you have to comply with all of the federal regs regarding minimum wages and salaries, withholding, social security contributions, minimum reporting requirements for all sorts of things, storage of hazmats, etc. And assuming you got your assembly line humming along, don't forget all those excise taxes on rubber and synthetics that go into the car, etc, and the taxes and insurance you have to pay out. If you add it all up, the car has only about 7 or 8 thousand bucks in parts in it, and maybe 30 manhours of labor total. Say $16,000. You have to sell the car for $40,000 wholesale just to cover your soft costs, hard costs, overhead, etc. and make a reed-thin-slim profit. In other words, its cheaper to make the damned thing in Mexico. Which means consumers will still pay more than $40,000 for the car, the car company will make a profit, but Americans will have lost their jobs. And when that happens, they can't consume products. Which is why the government isn't assisting the consumers, its destroying them.