Amid the widespread grief over Kobe Bryant's death, a small lesson in the evils of "regulatory capture" is manifest, and the rich and powerful should pay attention.
Most of us are familiar with the alarms that sound when a plane is on a trajectory that in pilot-speak understatement, is designated "a controlled flight into terrain." As the situation grows more urgent, a voice will be generated shouting "PULL UP! PULL UP! PULL UP!"
The warning is generated by a device called a TAWS (Terrain Awareness and Warning System). It costs about $37,000, plus $7000 in lost revenue for the downtime required to install. If you were rich enough to own your own helicopter, you would certainly want it equipped with one. Bryant, evidently, did not own his own helicopter, but instead used charters for his frequent air commutes.