IANAPS (I Am Not a Political Scientist), but I consider regulatory capture (outside of anarchy) to be the single most important unsolved problem in policy.<p>I think, in general, regulation works best as a threat (clean up your act, or we will).  But for a threat to be credible, you need to follow-through on it from time-to-time.<p>The recent issue with the FCC and Comcast et. al. is an example of this.  20 years from now, we are going to regret that the FCC has increased authority over ISPs, but the actions of the cable oligopolies left little choice.