When Italy privatized bridges and highways
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/world/europe/genoa-bridge-italy-autostrade-benetton.html
Genoa Bridge Collapse Throws Harsh Light on Benettons Highway Billions
By David Segal and Gaia Pianigiani
March 5, 2019
The east side of what is left of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy. Its collapse is the subject of a criminal inquiry, with 21 people under investigation. Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times
GENOA, Italy Long before the Morandi Bridge collapsed in Genoa, Italy, last year, killing 43 people, an economics professor named Marco Ponti took aim at the private company that managed the structure, raising two fundamental concerns.
One was money. Mr. Ponti argued that Autostrade per lItalia, or Highways for Italy, which managed the bridge and more than half of Italys 4,000 miles of toll roads, made abnormal profits.
The other was the lopsided power balance between Autostrade and the Italian government. Mr. Ponti, who served on an expert panel advising the government, said ministries did too little to regulate the company.
Taxpayers were being shorn like flocks of sheep, Mr. Ponti said in a newspaper interview in 2003.