Is there any evidence for how they’re wasting such a huge amount of money year after year?
The expectations, regulations, and imposed demands, are not 100% identical across all utilities. So any combination of factors could lead to higher prices.
It makes no sense to forego $0.80 in your pocket because you do not want the government to get $0.20.
I’m far from expert here, but is that too simplistic?
Where does perceived future value come into this? I’m thinking of companies like Amazon, which kept profit margins low while obviously having their shit together.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/
Amazon clearly has a mix of a high profit margin business (AWS and other services) with a low profit margin business (retail).
You will notice that most the top businesses are pretty much high profit margin tech and pharmaceutical businesses. Some oil and finance after that. And there are a few lower profit margin, but still large profit since the business is so large, but obviously, high profit margins and high profit is better than low profit margin and high profit.
I don’t have some special insider scoop to know whether the numbers listed in the statements are real or fake.
I was asking a general question of the motivation for large corporations to avoid having profits on paper. I asked the question rather than claiming it as a statement because I am less confident in the details and want to raise the issue without presuming that I know exactly what I'm talking about on the topic.
That is assuming you’ve taken the effort to read the filings.
If your lookkng for easy generalizations that applies to all public companies then no it doesn’t exist. You have to put in the effort to read each individual statement.
Its worth noting that reading financials still doesn't make me an expert in the area and I'd still be making a mistake to assume that means I understand well enough the games or motivations behind the numbers on a page.