The construction industry is one of the hardest hit by the huge arm of Israeli regulation.
The contractors are directly aware of the factors in the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of the Interior and the local authorities.
Sounds like a lot?
Well this is just the beginning.
Each such factor has quite a few arms, and in many cases the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Negev and Galilee Development, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Tourism and in fact most of them are also involved.
Regulation sounds like the biggest problem for contractors, but it is not - it is our biggest problem, the citizens, everyone else has learned to enjoy it.
The regulation protects large contractors from competition.
Without it there would have been many more contractors and there would have been much more competition.
It also protects the elected, who can always blame their predecessors for the bad situation, and in the existing tangle there is no chance that this chain will be interrupted in their shift, or in any shift.
And of course the regulators themselves - the officials in the local government, in the local authorities, in the air, at sea and on land work and make a living from the tangle that has been created, in which only they are orientated.
At the Contractors and Builders Conference of the Tel Aviv and Central Area, as at all contractors and builders' conferences in general, elected officials and regulators are invited to have a discussion with them about the challenges in the industry. Those who remain in the field.
Contractors and builders will continue to hear unbaked ideas and promises to shorten procedures.
Here, a fact, we have set up another committee, they say proudly.
And meanwhile another tender is being published, and since the contractors have to build, everyone is pinning on it.
Do I seem to be imagining, or did one of the elected officials blame the contractors for raising the prices themselves in the tender?
So what exactly does he want them to do?
That they will divide the tenders and match prices between them?
Meanwhile, the population of Israel continues to grow according to plan, but the apartments are not growing at a similar rate.
In this state of affairs only a credit crunch could cool the market.
A war, or an earthquake for goodness sake, will only energize him.