does not bind rate-making bodies to the service of any single formula or
combination of formulas," and in 1944, in Federal Power Commission _v._
Hope Gas Co.,[217] that "it is the result reached not the method
employed which is controlling, * * * [that] it is not the theory but the
impact of the rate order which counts, [and that] if the total effect of
the rate order cannot be said to be unjust and unreasonable, judicial
inquiry under the Act is at an end," the Court, in effect, abdicated
from the position assumed in the Ben Avon Case.[218] Without
surrendering the judicial power to declare rates unconstitutional on
grounds of a substantive[219] deprivation of due process, the Court
announced that it would not overturn a result deemed by it to be just
simply because "the method employed [by a commission] to reach that
result may contain infirmities. * * * [A] Commission's order does not
become suspect by reason of the fact that it is challenged. It is the
product of expert judgment which carries a presumption of validity. And
he who would upset the rate order * * * carries the heavy burden of
making a convincing showing that it is invalid because it is unjust and
unreasonable in its consequences."[220]

In dispensing with the necessity of observing any of the formulas for
rate computation which previously had currency, the Court did not
undertake to devise, by way of substitution, any discernible guide to
aid it in ascertaining whether a so-called end result is unreasonable.
It did intimate that rate-making "involves a balancing of the investor
and consumer interests," which does not, however, "'insure that the
business shall produce net revenues,' * * * From the investor or company
point of view it is important that there be enough revenue not only for
operating expenses but also for the capital costs of the business. These
include service on the debt and dividends on the stock. * * * By that
standard the return to the equity owner should be commensurate with
returns on investments in other enterprises having corresponding risks.
That return, moreover, should be sufficient to assure confidence in the
financial integrity of the enterprise, so as to maintain its credit and
to attract capital."[221] Nevertheless, in the light of the court's
concentration on the reasonableness of the final result rather than on
the correctness of the methods employed to reach that result, it is
conceivable that methods or formulas, now di