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The purpose of Allen F. Jung's article in a recent issue of this Journal is to analyze the price differences among certain categories of automobile insurers.2 While it is less than completely successful in achieving this goal, the article unintentionally provides important evidence in a different area -the area of government regulation. Professor Jung and a colleague obtained by telephone seventy price quotations for automobile insurance. The quotations were then categorized in an attempt to show differences in the prices secured from companies, agents, and automobile dealers. The thirty companies contacted were classified by size, type, location, and distribution system.

There has never been a more opportune time than now for the human factors engineer to become the spokesman and advocate of the consumer. He is the only scientist whose academic orientation and job philosophy are directed toward the user of a product or service. Pressures on industry by consumers through government regulation, class action suits, product liability litigation, and demands by consumer organizations for better engineered products have created a receptive but dubious atmosphere. There are three general areas from which the human factors engineer can serve both the public and the manufacturer: as a human factors engineer with a company, as a consumer consultant, or as a government regulatory agent. All three functional areas have to be shown, however, that our discipline can be effective. A three-pronged attack is required to accomplish this. First, we must demonstrate the benefits of our service to the maker or user in terms of money saved or earned, safety, decreased insurance costs, and increased product utilization. Second, we must upgrade the individual engineer's skills in engineering, product liability, product testing, and human performance areas. And third, we must promote changes in college curriculums to reflect this dynamic facet of the profession.

Professor Gras has asked me to talk today on government regulation in the field of Finance. When he first mentioned the matter it seemed to me a most stimulating suggestion. The more I considered it, however, the more difficult the assignment appeared. The more I thought about it the more the subject seemed to be made up of a large number of topics relatively unrelated to each other. Management of insurance companies can hardly be treated in the same paragraph with the divorce of security affiliates from commercial banks, and competitive bidding has little in common with measures designed to protect bank depositors. While many of the particular segments of this subject possess great interest in their own right and deserve careful individual treatment, they are for the most part technical and cannot be dealt with adequately in the time at my disposal. Moreover, they are in many instances special subjects. By this I mean that they have wholly different backgrounds, that their internal logics are dissimilar, and that the kinds of knowledge needed to see each in its proper perspective are quite disassociated. The problem is to knit this compartmentalized subject together so as, on the one hand, to see it as a whole, and on the other hand, to avoid somewhat empty generalities.