[HN Gopher] As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users...
___________________________________________________________________
As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months
for repairs
Author : coloneltcb
Score : 247 points
Date : 2024-05-03 17:25 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.statnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.statnews.com)
| tonetheman wrote:
| What you would expect from private equity sadly. Destroyers of
| value.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| But, but...muh free market capitalism always leads to the best
| products supply for the demand...or so we've been told.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Turns out late hegemonic capitalism has a similar failure
| mode to late Soviet central planning.
| vundercind wrote:
| Relaxing various rules on investment and m&a, and allowing
| unprecedented levels of market power concentration (it's a
| _lot_ worse in many major industries than what promoted our
| first big wave of "trust busting") turns out to be less
| than awesome.
| readyman wrote:
| Capitalism works perfectly if you just ignore all the
| inevitable disasterous consequences and outright failures.
| ars wrote:
| And your better alternative is........... ?
| mistermann wrote:
| Capitalism moderated by various systems emerging from a
| genuine, sophisticated democratic system would be my
| advice.
|
| We have a lot of work to get from here to there though,
| and much of it is the undoing of mass psychological
| condition.
| readyman wrote:
| Capital will simply undermine the democracy _again_. It
| 's literally that simple. Capitalism and democracy are
| fundamentally at odds.
| mistermann wrote:
| This part is important:
|
| > from a genuine, sophisticated democratic system
|
| Do you think something more powerful than capitalism is
| impossible?
| margalabargala wrote:
| Capitalism with much stronger consumer-protection
| regulations?
| kelipso wrote:
| China is doing pretty well. In before a wall of text
| about how China is doomed or whatever.
| realusername wrote:
| China is doing well is a funny take post covid. The
| argument worked much better 10 years ago when they still
| had large growth.
|
| "Doomed" I don't know but they seem quite stuck now
| between a lot of internal problems.
| ausbah wrote:
| only once they switched to free market principles under
| deng. iirc as their growth has been slowing it has been
| due to increasing state clampdown on the economy
| giovannibonetti wrote:
| I assume you aren't aware of China's housing market
| bubble [1].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_sect
| or_cris...
| truckerbill wrote:
| Social democracy
| atq2119 wrote:
| Market socialism. Or some in-between that recognizes that
| wealth and corporate power has a genuine responsibility
| to society as a whole. Myopic focus on profit as the only
| metric is the biggest problem, after all.
| mistermann wrote:
| It is the job of government to regulate and reign in
| capitalism.
|
| We are also told that democracy is the best form of
| government, and we are also told that our democracy is
| genuine, and that it must be protected. For some reason,
| people are unable to wonder if these various stories are
| true...perhaps because that skill is not innate, and is not
| taught in school?
| tomoyoirl wrote:
| No. It's only efficient when property rights are enforced,
| barriers to entry are low, and transaction costs are minimal.
|
| Wheelchairs are regulated (barriers to entry), pollution is
| the nonexistence of property rights, and your take-it-or-
| leave-it noncompete agreement is a consequence of high
| transaction costs (job search, legal negotiations).
| Terr_ wrote:
| > ... or so we've been told.
|
| To expand on this inconsistency, it comes from different
| people cheer-leading "the free market" with different and
| conflicting sets of assumptions about what the phrase means.
|
| For example, one economist makes an assumption of "perfect
| information on prices and transactions", and declares that
| it's the most _efficient_ thing ever.
|
| But another one assumes actors _are_ free to make secret
| deals and private transactions, and concludes that the free-
| market _doesn 't_ have a cartel problem, because individual
| members will secretly defect and undercut so that it falls
| apart.
|
| Those two assumptions are in direct contradiction, yet
| somehow the overlap phrase "the free market" still gets
| touted as having both of the incompatible features.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Private Equity really is a pox on society.
|
| One reason they may not be able to hire is that they paid a ton
| to buy out all the competition and now have a bunch of
| investors wanting to see high rates of return. That requires
| cutting staff and raising prices. I'm all for a free society
| that allows private parties to make agreements, but PE is by
| definition all about breaking markets by creating a monopoly
| where they have large amounts of market power and where no
| competition can realistically occur. The end result is
| consumers getting screwed all over.
| ars wrote:
| > Private Equity really is a pox on society.
|
| Every single non-public business is "Private Equity". How is
| every single small business in the entire world "a pox on
| society"?
|
| Perhaps you mean "short term thinking" is a pox on society?
| Or in, like in this case, a duopoly is the issue? If there
| were 10 such companies a reputation for slow repair would
| drive people to other suppliers and things would rapidly get
| better.
| eesmith wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_equity
|
| "In the field of finance, private equity (PE) is capital
| stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the
| general public. Private equity is offered instead to
| specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that
| take an active role in the management and structuring of
| the companies. In casual usage, "private equity" can refer
| to these investment firms rather than the companies that
| they invest in."
| hx8 wrote:
| PE is specifically referring to companies not listed on
| stock exchanges that take money from investors. I agree
| that we do not want to throw the baby out with the
| bathwater here, but there is probably merit to limiting the
| activity of PE funds with lots of investors or lots of
| money. PE often used as a scheme of raising money and
| conducting business in a way to avoid the scrutiny of a
| publicly traded company.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I'm referring to the large investor firms that go around
| buying out companies not listed on the stock exchange to
| capture entire markets, milk it for all it's worth, and
| then dump the shriveled corpse. This is very rarely good
| for the end customers or the employees who get outsourced.
| The owner gets millions though and it allows the PE firm to
| sell an asset class to investors.
|
| On the one hand, I don't think it's right to restrict the
| rights of the business owner. If they have a company with
| $20M in revenue and PE offers $60M to buy them out...fair
| game right? On the other hand, it takes perfectly
| profitable companies providing value, extracts that wealth
| from happy consumers of the product to people already
| wealthy and then leaves the consumer with a crappy,
| expensive, and barely supported product. If this happens
| just a few times...it sucks, but no big deal. Once it
| starts happening all over America, then we start running
| into systemic problems like not being fleeced every time
| you want to go to a concert. It's not like a competing firm
| can just pop up either in a lot of cases as there are huge
| barriers to entry. There is no recourse other than not ever
| seeing your favorite artist again.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Well, a private equity firm owned the wheelchair company for a
| decade. It was only when a _different_ PE firm came in that the
| service allegedly declined.
| ars wrote:
| "Grau wants more wheelchair users to come into the shop, as
| repairs happen much faster -- only two week's wait, on average.
| Wheelchair users are loath to adopt this, as coming into the
| office can be physically treacherous for them"
|
| vs. a technician fixing the chair in the house.
|
| But how about something in between? A medium-skill employee who
| takes the chair from their home to the repair facility? They
| would need to carefully document what's wrong with it, so they
| need a little skill but not as much as a full skill repair tech.
| giovannibonetti wrote:
| It seems like a good job for non-profits. Anyone with a
| suitable car should be able to volunteer and help their
| community.
| advisedwang wrote:
| I'm not a wheelchair user, but I can imagine it being a non-
| starter to have your wheelchair just taken away from you. What
| if the tech doesn't bring it back? You're just stranded! Even
| if they do bring it back, there's potentially a lot of time
| stranded.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| What's the barrier to entry?
| ars wrote:
| Regulation.
|
| This is one of the market failures caused by excessive
| regulation.
|
| To make a chair you requires so much paperwork that only a
| small number of business can do it.
|
| I especially like the regulations that make sure only those who
| need the chair get it, to reduce medical costs, but in the
| process all the paperwork dramatically drives up the costs.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Power wheelchairs are regulated (FDA) as medical devices.
| TechWorld01 wrote:
| I can buy an electric wheelchair at Walmart for $750. What is
| the issue?
| mcmcmc wrote:
| You can also buy pharmaceuticals at Walmart. What is your
| argument?
| happyopossum wrote:
| That's a powered scooter, not an electric wheelchair. They
| may look the same to a layperson, but they're not - one is
| highly regulated and has a lot of people making a lot of
| money off them, the other is a scooter.
| deadeye wrote:
| Some of these wheelchairs are 75k. They're custom made to
| your body size for maximum comfort and the features are
| customized to your disability.
|
| These aren't off the shelf mobility products. Each one is
| assembled to specification.
| alistairSH wrote:
| As the sibling comments noted, we're talking about bespoke
| wheelchairs for people with severe mobility disability (MS,
| ALS, etc). Things like Stephen Hawking's chair.
| Fricken wrote:
| Still, they shouldn't cost more than a high end Ebike.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I don't know what the median/average price is for these,
| only the range.
|
| Bit, a high end e-bike is $12-$15k. Which also seems
| ridiculous to me. And I'm a cyclist with several nice
| bikes (none of which were more than $7k).
| mikestew wrote:
| _And I'm a cyclist with several nice bikes (nine of which
| were more than $7k)._
|
| "Nine", or did you mean "none"? I'm just checking if it
| was a typo, or if I should be jealous. :-)
| sokoloff wrote:
| Anything custom will cost more than a similar complexity
| mass-produced item.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Oooh, I missed this distinction.
| nickff wrote:
| Private equity discovered that regulations, compliance
| requirements, & other similar barriers to entry are the most
| effective 'moats' which allow businesses to raise prices and have
| little impact on demand; they are now exploiting this 'hack'
| ruthlessly.
| tdb7893 wrote:
| We've seen consolidation across the whole economy (which have
| vastly different regulation schemes) so I'm skeptical of it
| being just regulation driven
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I 'm skeptical of it being just regulation driven_
|
| It seems to be blatantly obviously regulation in this case.
| There are electric wheelchairs in other countries. What's
| stopping them from being imported are the regulations.
| kazinator wrote:
| Then, how would it fix things then if it wasn't private
| equity dominating that market?
|
| There would still be regulations that would allow public
| equity wheelchair makers to jack prices.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _how would it fix things then if it wasn 't private
| equity dominating that market?_
|
| I'd start importing them for less than $500 from India
| [1]. (Versus $1,500 to $6,000 for these jalopies.)
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.in/electric-
| wheelchair/s?k=electric+wheel...
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| The regulations don't just disappear to allow for such
| imports as in your example ...?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _regulations don 't just disappear to allow for such
| imports as in your example_
|
| My point is the regulations are leading to the duopoly,
| which is the source of the problem. The last private-
| equity owner seems to have been fine. And the market was
| competitive before the CMS rules in 2005. I'm not
| suggesting scrapping the rules. But the rules are clearly
| well past safety.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Perhaps you've confused which comment I was replying to
| with one further up, from what I can see you were trying
| to answer the question, and nothing else is visible:
|
| > how would it fix things then if it wasn't private
| equity dominating that market?
|
| The visible answer is clearly contingent on some future
| regulatory landscape coming into existence, otherwise it
| makes no sense, so I was wondering how does it answer the
| original question?
| cogman10 wrote:
| Well, that's the interesting thing. You likely can import
| and use these wheelchairs, but they can't be sold as
| medical devices and, subsequently, won't be covered by
| your insurance.
|
| The dumb thing is these super cheap wheelchairs would
| likely cost the end users more money than the expensive
| ones as they will buy them out of pocket vs having their
| insurance/medicare cover most/all of the cost.
|
| The reason these companies don't sell these wheelchairs
| in the US is likely because the marketing would run afowl
| of regulations about selling medical devices. You
| probably could sell these as bicycles and hobby chairs
| though.
| charrondev wrote:
| I mean they could market similar to Not a Wheelchair I
| guess? https://notawheelchair.com/products/the-rig
| yumraj wrote:
| The price difference seems to be enough for a person to
| fly to India and bring one with them.
|
| Can the FDA stop a person from using one by coming to
| their home and confiscating it?
| dahinds wrote:
| It would not necessarily fix things if private equity
| wasn't involved, but private equity is particularly
| effective at identifying cases where a market or
| regulatory inefficiency is not being maximally exploited,
| and jumping in to extract profits from that. So sort of
| by construction, when private equity enters a particular
| market, things are likely to get worse for consumers. It
| doesn't mean that things are golden if private equity is
| not involved.
| Gormo wrote:
| Regulation across the whole economy is one of the principle
| mechanisms of consolidation.
|
| Vested interests sell regulation to the public as a "consumer
| protection" mechanism, then use regulatory capture as a tool
| to erect barriers to entry and impose complex rules that
| supersede common-law jurisdiction while giving them a range
| of tools to evade liability. The threat of competition is
| restrained, and a de facto collusive oligopoly can squeeze
| the market dry.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The regulation is what drives the ratio, here, though.
| Consolidation often brings price increases and worse service
| for customers, but in a regulated industry, you can push this
| practice quite a bit further than you might consider doing in
| any other one.
| pdonis wrote:
| This is a good illustration of the difference between
| capitalism and a free market.
|
| In a free market, "moats" like regulatory capture _would not
| exist_. In a market like this, where the customers--wheelchair
| users--are generally pretty savvy about what they need, a free
| market would have no trouble providing products that met
| customer needs at an affordable cost, because customers would
| have meaningful choices about who to buy from and who not to
| buy from, and customers would see the full cost of the products
| so they could make meaningful cost-benefit calculations.
|
| In capitalism such as we currently have, none of that is
| happening. The government aids and abets rich people who want
| to siphon off even more wealth than they already have by
| putting regulatory barriers in place that stifle competition,
| and it removes visibility into actual costs by forcing all
| medical products and services to be provided through health
| insurance, even when, as in this case, there is no insurable
| risk involved--it's an ongoing medical need that is already
| known (not a risk) and which is predictable (so insurance makes
| no sense anyway). The result, of course, is that the customers
| get shafted while rich people get richer.
| kazinator wrote:
| Capitalism refers to the system of individuals pooling money
| together (capital) to start a venture that they couldn't if
| they acted separately. The idea of a company being a person-
| like legal entity with its own assets and liabilities is
| capitalistic.
|
| In a free marked that is absent of regulatory hurdles, it is
| far from guaranteed that costs would be affordable.
|
| Freedom from regulation about how wheelchairs have to be
| constructed would go hand-in-hand with freedom from
| regulation against monopolistic practices!!!
|
| In a completely free market, devoid of regulation, wheelchair
| makers can get together and fix prices. Or buy each other.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _idea of a company being a person-like legal entity with
| its own assets and liabilities is capitalistic_
|
| It independently evolved in Rome and India to provide legal
| personhood to cities, guilds, public works and later, in
| the former, the Catholic Church.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Capitalism refers to the system of individuals pooling
| money together (capital) to start a venture that they
| couldn 't if they acted separately._
|
| That's one aspect of capitalism, yes. But in capitalism as
| it is currently practiced, most of the people who are
| accumulating capital aren't people that are trying to start
| new ventures. They are people that are already rich but
| think they aren't rich enough, who are _unable_ to start
| new ventures themselves because they have no actual skills
| at providing valuable products or services, so instead they
| find some existing venture and siphon off all its wealth.
| (This pattern is not new, btw; it 's the same way the
| "robber barons" in the late 19th century operated.)
|
| _> In a free marked that is absent of regulatory hurdles,
| it is far from guaranteed that costs would be affordable._
|
| Nothing is ever "guaranteed". But the article under
| discussion makes it obvious that _with_ regulations in
| place, not only are costs not affordable, but even the very
| _existence_ of products meeting customer needs is not
| happening. A free market couldn 't possibly do any worse.
|
| _> In a completely free market, devoid of regulation,
| wheelchair makers can get together and fix prices. Or buy
| each other._
|
| This would only happen if it were economically more
| efficient for wheelchairs to be made by a monopoly. I
| strongly doubt that is the case. It's not the case for the
| vast majority of products and services. If it's not
| economically efficient, the monopoly (or price-fixing
| cartel) will simply be out-competed in a free market,
| because it will have no way of keeping other companies from
| producing at a lower cost.
|
| Historically, virtually all monopolies have been the result
| of government interference. (The original meaning of the
| word "monopoly" was a royal grant of the exclusive
| privilege to sell a particular product or service.) Most
| large corporations today are not the size they are because
| that is the most economically efficient way to deliver
| their products or services, but because it's the best way
| to buy government favors.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| > Historically, virtually all monopolies have been the
| result of government interference
|
| I'm with you on this. In general, the state (by
| definition) functions to protect the interests of the
| politically dominant class, which, under capitalism, is
| the owning class. From the haymarket massacre to Biden's
| strike breaking shenanigans, this is absolutely beyond
| dispute. The state will always facilitate monopolies. The
| only way to get rid of monopolies is for the workers to
| organize and overthrow the dictatorship of the owning
| class. Until that happens, it's all Disney, Amazon, and
| pseudo democracy.
| ausbah wrote:
| private equity is just exploiting existing regulations that
| already make it hard for new members to enter the market &
| add competition no? doesn't seem like many _new_ regulations
| are being enacted to gain market dominance, working with what
| exists is enough?
| pdonis wrote:
| _> existing regulations_
|
| Which were put in place in response to other rich people
| lobbying the government for regulations that favored them
| and their companies. Perhaps there haven't been many recent
| ones put in place specifically in response to lobbying by
| private equity companies (though I'm not sure that's true).
| But that doesn't change the main point.
| cyberax wrote:
| In free market it's also OK to cut costs as much as possible,
| making chair that explode and kill the user one day after the
| warranty expires.
|
| That's why we have regulation: to establish the minimum
| standards.
|
| Simple medical devices like wheelchairs (Class I or Class II)
| are also not super over-regulated, you don't need to do
| clinical trials to certify them. All-in-all it'll cost you
| around $10m, which is not at all a moat.
| bravo22 wrote:
| Liability still exists in a free market. Regulations are
| government's way of giving you immunity from liability
| laws, or not enacting them, in exchange for doing things a
| very specific ways. This creates moates.
| eropple wrote:
| _> Liability still exists in a free market_
|
| Only if a wronged party has the resources (time, money,
| political capital) to pursue it.
|
| Which is but one reason why it is deeply silly to rely on
| it to make a society go.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Only if a wronged party has the resources (time,
| money, political capital) to pursue it._
|
| In a free market, if there is a market need for more
| efficient achievement of redress for wronged parties, the
| market will produce it.
|
| _> Which is but one reason why it is deeply silly to
| rely on it to make a society go._
|
| But of course relying on governments to achieve redress
| for wronged parties works just great. Not.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > In a free market, if there is a market need for more
| efficient achievement of redress for wronged parties, the
| market will produce it.
|
| In our current market, many companies have worked around
| redress of wronged parties by mandating arbitration in
| various contracts.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Free markets are not a panacea, nor do ideal free markets
| ever exist anyway. Also, free markets require regulation
| to prevent powerful actors from making them non-free.
|
| > the market will produce it.
|
| Only if it's profitable. Feeding poor people, caring for
| the indigent, etc. isn't profitable.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Only if it 's profitable._
|
| Are you confusing markets with business?
|
| To profit means that you accepted a debt instead of
| getting something in return for your efforts. _Business_
| seeks profit because the expectation is that it will pass
| the debt on to the stakeholders who will then call the
| debt and get something in return for their efforts.
|
| But it is _people_ who participate in the market. If they
| demand profit continually, therefore not getting anything
| in return, that just means they 're working for free.
| People won't feed the poor unless they can do it for
| free? Methinks that's not what you meant.
| Latty wrote:
| Liability can't magically undo damage to health.
| Regulation is vital when the potential damage is
| irreversible.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> In free market it 's also OK to cut costs as much as
| possible, making chair that explode and kill the user one
| day after the warranty expires._
|
| No, it isn't, because nobody will buy chairs from a company
| that does that. In a free market, no company can use the
| get out of jail free card of "but I was following all the
| regulations". Businesses have to actually meet customer
| needs.
|
| And in a free market, _customers_ can 't delude themselves
| that Big Brother is looking out for them (even though Big
| Brother is _not_ actually doing that); they know that
| _they_ have to enforce quality if that 's what they want.
| That means customers know that it's on _them_ to be savvy
| enough to be able to evaluate the quality of products and
| services.
|
| _> That 's why we have regulation: to establish the
| minimum standards._
|
| That's what regulators claim, but all history shows that
| claim to be wrong. The end result of regulations is to
| _reduce_ the quality and availability of products, not
| increase them. The wheelchair market described in the
| article is a classic example: it 's regulated up one side
| and down the other, yet customers can't get simple things
| like proper footrests.
|
| _> Simple medical devices like wheelchairs (Class I or
| Class II) are also not super over-regulated, you don 't
| need to do clinical trials to certify them._
|
| Doesn't this contradict your claim that regulation is the
| only way to avoid exploding chairs? If you don't do
| clinical trials, how do you know the chairs won't explode
| one day after the warranty expires?
|
| Of course the answer to this is that the regulators just,
| you know, _look at the design_ of the chairs to evaluate
| them for certification. But _customers_ could do the same
| thing for themselves, at less cost (what, you think those
| government regulators work for free?). So the regulations
| are actually adding zero value. But they 're certainly not
| adding zero cost.
|
| _> All-in-all it 'll cost you around $10m, which is not at
| all a moat._
|
| So you'll be going into the wheelchair business then? Looks
| like there's plenty of opportunity to out-compete the
| current incumbents.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It's all theoretical. Do you see it actually working out
| this way? When and where?
|
| > regulators just, you know, look at the design of the
| chairs to evaluate them for certification. But customers
| could do the same thing for themselves, at less cost
| (what, you think those government regulators work for
| free?). So the regulations are actually adding zero
| value. But they're certainly not adding zero cost.
|
| I have little idea how to evaluate the safety of an
| electric wheelchair, and don't have the time to acquire
| the expertise to learn how to do that with everything I
| buy. But we all can chip in and pay someone, who has the
| expertise, to do it once rather than than millions of
| people doing it redundantly.
| roughly wrote:
| Eternal September, except it's an Econ 1 class.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It seems like quite a rush of it today. Did someone put
| up the anarcho-libertarian bat signal?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| We might think we have regulation for minimum standards,
| but that's not necessarily why regulations are created.
| xcdzvyn wrote:
| Why would I buy something that kills me the day after the
| warranty expires?
| Uehreka wrote:
| Because you don't know that it will. If it's been out for
| less than a year perhaps no one has been harmed by it
| yet.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The problem is that the people with money have no incentive
| go innovate, they already have money. The people without
| money have reason to innovate but no means to do so. So
| everything stagnated.
| mhh__ wrote:
| That some people apparently can't see this strat with AI
| "safety" laws is genuinely bizarre.
| api wrote:
| Lots of people see it. It's very clear to me and many others
| that a lot of the AI safety push is about going straight for
| regulatory capture and effectively outlawing competition.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| How do think we should address security around AI, and the
| public's control over a major impact on their lives, welfare,
| freedom, prosperity, etc.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > How do think we should address security around AI
|
| The same way we address security around cars: we don't ban
| individuals from working on project cars, or driving them
| on public roads - instead, we have standards for OEMs _and_
| individuals, and prosecute negligence.
|
| AI safely is similar to GM lobbying for laws making it
| illegal to tweak your own car or changing your own brake
| fluid for "public safety".
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > we don't ban individuals from working on project cars,
| or driving them on public roads - instead, we have
| standards for OEMs and individuals, and prosecute
| negligence
|
| I'm not quite sure what you mean, or what in AI safety
| you see as analogous.
|
| For other technology, certainly building and using
| certain things is illegal - you can't make hand grenades,
| lots of chemicals; I'm pretty sure you can't own certain
| instruments of crime, counterfeit money, etc. Many things
| you can do; it's not all or nothing.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > I'm not quite sure what you mean
|
| IMO, for the general public, current AI models are much
| closer to cars than they are to anti-personnel weapons,
| when plotted on risk/benefit axes. FWIW, vehicle
| regulations are not an all-or-nothing affair either -
| there are things that remain verboten.
|
| Those who claim AIs are too dangerous to be in the hands
| of the public have ulterior motives, and/or are far more
| optimistic than I am on the speed and ease the chasm
| between LLM and general intelligence will be bridged - if
| it at all.
| Gormo wrote:
| The first step is to stop thinking of "the public" as a
| monolithic entity whose interests are pursued by the
| government, and instead recognize that control over things
| that have a major impact on the lives, welfare, freedom,
| and prosperity need to be things they can effectively
| control or opt-out of _as individuals_.
|
| Regulatory intervention makes it harder, not easier, for
| individuals to take charge of these matters for themselves.
| You can bet that the first casualty of a regulatory regime
| for AI would be to suppress development of FOSS solutions
| that would eventually give people the maximal control and
| benefit from AI, and force them into dependence on third-
| party solutions offered by organizations that have
| influence over the regulatory regime itself.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > The first step is to stop thinking of "the public" as a
| monolithic entity whose interests are pursued by the
| government, and instead recognize that control over
| things that have a major impact on the lives, welfare,
| freedom, and prosperity need to be things they can
| effectively control or opt-out of as individuals.
|
| If AI takes over the world, or others pump lots of GHG
| into the air and cause climate change, or someone sets
| off explosives and burns down my neighborhood, or my
| frozen chicken contains poisonous bacteria, or my
| bathroom sanitizer doesn't really sanitize - how do I opt
| out?
|
| Plenty of regulations coexists with FOSS, obviously.
|
| The arguments against all regulation are transparently
| weak, and the apparent dogmatism discredits everything
| else. Why be so dogmatically anti-regulation? Dogmatism
| isn't about finding truth but about serving someone's
| political interests. If I understand correctly what's
| happening, whose interests are you serving and why?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _If AI takes over the world,_
|
| This is a potential concern, but no currently-existing
| computer system (that I'm aware of) is any kind of risk
| for that. Certainly, nothing OpenAI has produced is.
|
| I'd say the currently-real unaligned-agent behaviour of
| our institutions is a bigger risk than currently-
| fictional computer-instantiated unaligned
| superintelligence. And we do have regulation in place to
| constrain the behaviour of many institutions:
| governments, corporations, utility operators, and so on.
|
| The unaligned agent problem was not _discovered_ by the
| AI safety people. They merely named it.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Regulatory intervention makes it harder, not easier,
| for individuals to take charge of these matters for
| themselves.
|
| That strongly depends on the details. In particular,
| regulation that compel _clear disclosure_ of information
| to individuals.
|
| Imagine how impossible it would be to "take charge for
| yourself" if none of the food in the grocery store had
| any ingredient/nutrition/allergen information, and
| bottles of pills didn't tell you the active ingredients
| and amounts.
| vrc wrote:
| It's interesting. The regulation ostensibly protects vulnerable
| classes from exploitation and lets them use reimbursement
| structures to defray cost. At the same time it causes costs to
| go up and allows people to buy their way across the moat.
|
| I wonder if regulation that stipulated that a change of
| ownership of some percentage would require recertification of
| the entity would stem this a bit. Or restrictions on buying
| HIPAA covered businesses with patient data. Might pose a
| problem to folks in the business today, but could slow down the
| massive acquire-and-merge train in these industries.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Not all regulation causes costs to go up. Some causes costs
| to go down, for example, by correcting inefficiencies created
| by raw game-theory market competition. Some reduce costs by
| creating a safer environment for investment, reducing risk.
| Regulation serves market participants too.
| johngladtj wrote:
| Regulation always increases costs, it's just that not all
| costs are easily visible
| burnte wrote:
| They're huge in healthcare for this very reason.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It's impressive that not only has private equity enshittified
| even nursing homes and wheelchairs, they have persuaded people
| to empower PE even more by reducting regulations. Do you think
| PE will suddenly change without regulation?
|
| PE is responsible for PE's actions. If these services and goods
| decline under PE, with the same regulations as before, then the
| cause is clear.
| EMCymatics wrote:
| We should be more vocal in our opposition
| tmaly wrote:
| It is not just wheelchairs and nursing homes.
|
| My eye doctor office got bought out. They pay the doctors as
| little as possible and maximize the number of appointments per
| day.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| How hard is it for them to leave and start their own
| business?
| fakedang wrote:
| The brevity of this statement belies the prescience of it. Back
| in my former life in PE, businesses with industry moats were
| actively hunted down and targeted, regardless of location. That
| obviously led to the three basic necessities of man -
| healthcare, education and housing - being the most affected
| sectors.
| esafak wrote:
| Is there anything that PE doesn't turn to shit?
| throwaway2562 wrote:
| Dare one say, fuck those motherfuckers. I realise this is not a
| nuanced take, but I struggle to see any other reasonable
| response.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Don't hate the player, hate the game.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Do both.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| People are responsible for their own behavior. They can't
| blame the game.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| The player also lobbies to keep the game going. So yeah, fuck
| those motherfuckers.
| kachapopopow wrote:
| I mean fair, but helping people like that teaches empathy which
| we're severely lacking in today's world. There is something
| special we humans experience when helping others for nothing
| and return and I think that a lot of people are blinded by
| never experiencing what it means to help others.
|
| A lot of arguments are "imagine if it was you", but I think a
| fairer argument would be "what if it was somebody you
| like/love"?
|
| I personally wouldn't mind jumping off a bridge if I became
| useless, but what about the people who want to continue living
| who are afraid? And what about the people that like/love me?
| happyopossum wrote:
| I think you completely misread GP...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Humans aren't tools and therefore can't be 'useless'. You
| matter intrinsically. The most important lesson I've learned
| in life is the need to know and love myself - in a healthy,
| compassionate way. It doesn't matter what some other people
| think, what I do for them. I matter and you matter.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Almost as troubling, from the article "Customized wheelchairs
| typically last five years, but most chairs need a major repair or
| two during that time."
|
| What the actual fuck? Power wheelchairs run the spectrum for a
| few thousand USD to ten thousand plus. And they only last ~5
| years, and even then with several major repairs in that period?
|
| That sounds like an absolutely atrocious durability/reliability
| record.
| deadeye wrote:
| Think about it. For many users, they're in these chairs 12+
| hours a day. They're not cars that get driven for an hour a two
| a day.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Sure, but I would have expected them to be modular enough to
| keep running more than 5 years. More so given they cost as
| much as a used car.
| s_m_t wrote:
| And yet my motorcycle has gone 80,000 miles without ever
| needing _any_ maintenance except for a new chain and new sets
| of tires. Well, I 've had to replace the headlight and levers
| and shift peg because I've crashed it off-road multiple times
| but that's not the motorcycles fault. I bought it for $1000
| used.
| ryanong wrote:
| The problem isn't regulation, the problem is that the regulation
| isn't simple or cheap enough for small companies to get
| regulated.
| saulrh wrote:
| Yeah. Don't complain about regulation existing. Complain about
| regulations being controlled by private equity. Complain about
| private equity existing. Complain about capitalism. Not about
| the existence of government.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "In 2005, CMS announced requirements for testing of electric-
| powered wheelchairs as part of efforts to modernize coding (5-7).
| In this century, CMS, in what might be classified by some as an
| uncharacteristic move, has provided leadership in evidence-based
| classification of wheelchairs.
|
| Globally, the International Standards Organization (ISO) manages
| the wheelchair standards. ISO and the RESNA standards committee
| work collaboratively. ISO and RESNA have often been driven by
| outside sources to expedite their work and to address needs of
| consumers and other organizations. In the 1990s, the European
| Community Medical Device Directive provided impetus to make a
| number of changes to ISO standards and to create new standards in
| response to stricter regulation. The European Committee for
| Standardization (CEN) went its own direction for a while and over
| time, CEN and ISO standards have begun to merge. American
| National Standards Institute (ANSI)/RESNA was a driving force for
| a long time and often had different standards than ISO. However,
| this has dwindled in the past decade. Concomitantly, the
| wheelchair industry has exploded over the past 10 years, and the
| standards have simply not kept pace. There is a clear and present
| need for change in standards development and support in the
| United States.
|
| Most of the participants in wheelchair standards development are
| employed by the wheelchair industry, an inherent conflict.
| Unfortunately, wheelchair users and clinicians have traditionally
| not had the financial support to participate in sufficient
| numbers. Interestingly, the same companies that participate in
| the standards committees develop internal tests not represented
| by ISO or RESNA as part of their product development programs to
| protect them against legal liability. Test laboratories do the
| same thing, creating a number of tests that differ from or
| improve on ISO or RESNA standards. None of the existing standards
| (ISO, CEN, or RESNA) is comprehensive enough to cover all areas
| of wheelchair evaluation."
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1929010/ _2006_
| roody15 wrote:
| Private Equity = we have a bunch of money and use it to control
| markets and politics.
|
| Almost a new form of feudalism.
|
| Get back to work IT surfs while we continue to extract wealth
| from your labor.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Vulture capitalism - def. (noun): A strategy applied to a company
| or multiple companies in a market category whereby profits are
| maximally extracted without regard to long-term sustainability of
| customer relationships, brand reputation, or company viability.
|
| Not saying it's not a viable possible strategy for the investor,
| but that it's perhaps a suboptimal strategy if greater net
| profits were desired long-term.
| neilv wrote:
| We frequently hear about "private equity" doing something
| sociopathic.
|
| We sometimes don't even hear the names of the companies, just
| "private equity".
|
| Do we need to systematically trace and publish which individuals
| and institutions benefit from the nasty companies?
| ben_jones wrote:
| We should publish the b-school, and b-school networking graph
| through the career of a malicious individual.
|
| People will take action faster if they knew Thaddeus
| Wrappesalot went straight from lacrosse captain to executive
| chairmen hiking veterinarian costs.
| throwaway050324 wrote:
| Sigh. I dealt with NSM a few years ago to get a new manual
| wheelchair. The tech who fitted me for it, and delivered it, was
| great, but very obviously always in a rush. The chair itself was
| not made to spec, so it was just not useable for me as-is. After
| many months of trying (and failing) to get NSM to help me mod it
| and get it as close to spec as possible, I gave up and just
| continued using my old chair.
|
| But even more frustrating than that? NSM continued sending me
| phony bills for parts that I _did not_ order. I just trashed them
| until it went to collections. (Fortunately, the collection agency
| they use is even more incompetent than they are, and I 've been
| able to put them off with standard anti-collections form
| letters.)
|
| I figured I'd go with Numotion when insurance is ready to re-up
| me for a new chair, but reading this article, it doesn't seem
| that would be any better.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Maybe The Paradox Project (by JerryRigEverything) is for you:
| https://notawheelchair.com/products/the-paradox-project
| minusLik wrote:
| What the article does not seem to mention is that an usual
| electric wheelchair costs about $65,000 (and is intended to be
| replaced every six years or so). This and the non-availability of
| replacement parts is why some wheelchair users started a project
| to open-source a wheelchair from standard parts:
|
| https://themif.org/
|
| Louis Rossmann interviewed the founder of the project here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaAj59025Kk
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is a great project. I didn't realize that FDA Class I
| regulations were this easy to comply with.
| readyman wrote:
| > _I didn 't realize that FDA Class I regulations were this
| easy to comply with._
|
| They definitely won't be once this open source effort shows
| any sign of success. You can't solve political problems with
| technical solutions. At best, you may be able to displace
| them, but even that is rare.
| minusLik wrote:
| > You can't solve political problems with technical
| solutions.
|
| Yes, that's what I've been thinking too. Tom Quiter even
| mentions in the interview that there already have been
| companies which tried to offer cheap wheelchairs, but the
| quasi-monopolists had the FDA alter the regulations in a
| way with which the newbies couldn't comply.
|
| However, since the MIF already attracted suppliers, I hope
| they can gain some leverage.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I only just noticed that the wheelchair
| https://libertymemesfoundation.org/donations/endurance-
| the-o... is actually a Class 2 device. That sounds really
| hard to get past the FDA. I think it's pretty cool still
| because folks with the knowhow could make their own, but
| the disabled are probably SOL because you can't really make
| these for sale without that.
|
| I suppose the FDA's reasoning is that they're better off
| having no mobility than having a device that doesn't work
| properly.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| I don't think powered wheelchairs should be Class II, but
| we should be a bit kinder to the FDA.
|
| The FDA is not comparing no mobility and simply an
| inoperable device, the FDA is comparing no mobility vs
| the possible outcomes of an malfunctioning device. Like
| perhaps what happens if the throttle gets stuck on
| forward.
| readyman wrote:
| The FDA serves many compromised purposes that, in sum,
| prioritize the interests of the capitalists who
| predominately control it. The same can be said for the
| entire US government.
| HillRat wrote:
| Without commenting on the specific standards and
| regulations, the parade of horribles that could go wrong
| with a powered wheelchair is pretty extensive, when
| realizing that when a wheelchair goes wrong the user
| _cannot move away from it_. Consider the risks of a
| battery fire you can 't escape, a drivetrain that could
| grab loose clothing around a pair of immobile legs, or a
| user whose wheelchair dies on an empty street at night at
| -10degF because it couldn't handle the cold for long
| enough. This doesn't mean the incumbents aren't fixing
| the regulations to ensure they've got a manufacturing
| moat -- this being healthcare, I assume that's exactly
| what they're doing -- but the FDA definitely has reasons
| to make sure these are regulated.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Do they?
|
| I don't think the FDA is in a position to asses whether
| those risks versus the benefits of mobility are an
| appropriate trade off for any individual.
|
| The FDA is deciding that some people should have no
| mobility so that others have... what, exactly?
|
| The people who bought $65,000 chairs still could -- and
| they'd be equally reliable. But because one person needs
| to use it in Alaska, _all_ people need to pay a
| premium... even if they live somewhere that cold rating
| is completely irrelevant and adding a needless
| $5000-10000 to the price.
|
| While there's a reason to regulate for truth in
| advertising and basic safety, eg, not catching fire on
| its own, the actual regulations extend far beyond that
| into adjudicating personal risk management without clear
| benefit.
|
| I'm not a fan of technocracy -- I think people themselves
| know what's best for them.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| When replicators are invented, most political problems will
| disappear. Star Trek got it right.
| krapp wrote:
| Star Trek style replicators can't be invented. The laws
| of physics won't allow it. It will always cost more
| energy and be vastly less efficient to assemble a cup of
| coffee atom by atom than it would to just grow the beans,
| have them picked, packaged and shipped, and make it
| yourself, and unlike in Star Trek, energy in the real
| world isn't free.
|
| You might say we could come close with advanced 3D
| printing and some kind of nanotech,but no such technology
| will ever be so cheap or ubiquitous as to render politics
| obsolete. History is replete with advancements and
| inventions which were supposed to usher in utopia, and
| all they have ever done is further the means by which the
| powerful enslave and control us. Technology cannot solve
| human nature.
| throwaway11460 wrote:
| Energy in Star Trek is not free either, just too cheap to
| meter. They use fusion and matter-antimatter reactors.
| Once we get there we will also have more than enough
| energy to power the potential replicator.
|
| Though I agree we probably won't be using it to replicate
| a cup of Earl Grey for a very long time.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Really cool that an electric wheelchair costs more than a
| luxury EV and is somehow less reliable.
| loceng wrote:
| Reminds me of the military industrial complex.
| VHRanger wrote:
| Wheelchair users have no bargaining power against wheelchair
| makers.
|
| Car buyers have leverage.
|
| Normally this exorbitant price would incentivize competition
| in a healthy market, but the private equity players
| presumably make that difficult. There might also be barriers
| to entry in the market.
| ptero wrote:
| I suspect in the US the lack of competition is due to
| regulation and liability, not VCs.
| makmanalp wrote:
| Isn't the auto industry notoriously jam packed with
| regulation?
| TkTech wrote:
| Weirdly, not really in the US. The regulations are all a
| little pointless because it's a "self-regulated"
| industry. Look at the cyber truck - stuck floor pedals
| and trunk closer that cuts off fingers, or trivial to
| clone car fobs.
| SllX wrote:
| It's more the divorce between the receiver, the seller
| and the buyer. Sellers are not selling to the people
| using the wheelchairs, they're selling to insurance
| companies and the government. Both types of entities have
| a proclivity for overpaying.
|
| This is also true for most drugs. If we removed private
| insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid in their
| totality from the equation, the market rate for drugs and
| medical equipment would drop into the abyss compared to
| where they're at now.
| akira2501 wrote:
| There have been a lot of acquisitions and rollups in this
| space. We have regulations against this, but they are not
| enforced, and the VCs have the money to push through this
| layer anyways.
|
| It's both.
|
| The US lacks serious competition in _most_ of it's
| industries right now.
| tdeck wrote:
| I was curious what parts they were using in their design but
| couldn't find any actual open source design content. The
| website seems to be 100% fundraising copy. The idea seems good,
| I hope this doesn't turn out to be another piece of accessible
| tech vaporware.
| seventytwo wrote:
| How hard would it be to do a project like the voron printer
| project where it's just the plans and BOM?
| ashton314 wrote:
| > usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000
|
| This puts the Bluey episode "Granny Mobile" in context, where
| the grouchy granny wants to buy the used wheelchair for a mere
| $100. $1,200 is still an incredible deal.
| somethoughts wrote:
| To be honest - it actually seems like a risky Private Equity
| play as I bet the $65000 sticker price is due to the fact that
| Medicare is footing the bill. Medicare is likely what is
| requiring a regulation grade wheel chair, not the users
| themselves.
|
| I bet a huge segment of the user base could easily self
| purchase a mobility scooter and achieve the same quality of
| life if the price point was such that they could out of pocket
| the purchase and there was decent quality/repairability/safety.
|
| There do seem to be a fair number that are approaching "geez I
| might as well just buy an over the counter version" (i.e.
| sub-$2000) instead of going through the paperwork hassle of
| getting a free Medicare "prescription" for one.
| heyoni wrote:
| In my experience, the chairs and how they're built aren't
| what adds to the price tag; the fact that an insurance
| company is paying is what is.
|
| My daughter literally just got approved for a talking device
| that would otherwise cost us $4000. It's a Samsung tablet
| with $300 software and an attached speaker and comes with
| some sort of repair agreement. I can buy and break 20 iPads
| for that price...and we did end up buying one with the
| software on its own.
|
| If you want to know who's causing waste, look to the ones who
| stand to benefit from it.
| floxy wrote:
| >an usual electric wheelchair costs about $65,000
|
| Can you go into what that statement means? I'm having a hard
| time parsing "an usual". Seems like there are some electric
| wheelchairs for ~$2,000:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/health/accessibility/best-electric-wh...
|
| ...maybe some specialized wheelchairs cost considerably more?
| lagniappe wrote:
| Some folks in europe have a hard time knowing when to use a
| or an because there are so many exceptions, (a before
| consonant, an before open vowel sound) particularly in areas
| that pronounce it as oo-sual and not you-shual.
| tyingq wrote:
| It's a complex set of sub-markets. Like, for example, if your
| kid has one...it has to be NHSTA crash test certified to put
| on a school bus.
|
| Or, for people with very limited mobility, they need very
| special cushioning to avoid bedsore type problems.
|
| Just 2 examples, there are many more. Though $65k still
| strikes me as unusual.
| carabiner wrote:
| Should be "a usual" because "usual" starts with a consonant
| sound. Otherwise could sound like "unusual."
| sskates wrote:
| Public company CEO here. One of my rules that has served me well
| is "don't ever be on the other side of a transaction from private
| equity". They have blatantly anticompetitive playbooks where they
| buy up all the competition in a market and then raise prices as a
| cartel. Mostly recently, the DOJ has opened a criminal probe into
| RealPage for price fixing in real estate. What a scourge on
| capitalism.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| I deal with wheelchairs, electric wheelchairs, oxygen systems,
| CPAPs, spirometry, and more every day.
|
| Electric wheelchairs are built to be very rugged and dirt simple.
|
| There are 2 problems:
|
| The first problem is insurance. People expect their insurance to
| cover everything. If they need a new set of 35 AH SLA batteries,
| they will throw their old chair away and ask for a new chair on
| insurance.
|
| The second problem is that wheelchair users are disabled. As an
| able-bodied nerd with a socket set and a few wrenches, I can
| repair an electric wheelchair. A disabled person usually can not
| do that. They can not even follow the (good) advice to use an
| external charger instead of the (garbage) charger built into most
| wheelchairs; they physically can not get to the relevant parts.
|
| Home oxygen companies send people out on short notice to debug,
| repair, or replace home oxygen equipment. If you want insurance
| to cover electric wheelchairs, then rent them instead of selling
| them and include service visits.
|
| The problem with shipping an electric wheelchair back for service
| is that this thing weighs almost 100 pounds without batteries and
| is a very odd shape. Before anyone complains, you want it to be
| heavy so it will not tip over when the human (who is high up)
| leans over, takes a corner, or drives sideways on a slope.
|
| If you want a less-insurance-intensive solution, pass a right-to-
| repair law that (1) requires all electric wheelchair parts to be
| marked with a manufacturer and part number, and (2) requires all
| electric wheelchair makers to sell parts for a decade or two
| after they stop selling the chairs. If they use industry-standard
| parts, and mark the parts as such, they should be relieved of the
| obligation to carry the parts for 20 years. Here's an example:
| Include a label on the chair saying that all bolts are either
| m6x60mm or m4x25mm and that all red and black electrical
| connectors are PP75 series Anderson Power Poles.
|
| Here is a case that drove me nuts: I was dealing with an electric
| wheelchair that had some odd version of Anderson PowerPoles
| connecting the batteries and motors. These connectors had been
| knock-offs, and the reseller of these (Chinese-made) connectors
| lost a patent lawsuit to Anderson (before their patent expired.)
| One connector broke and was impossible to replace. I would gladly
| pay $100 for a single connector, but they do not exist. Before
| someone says to replace both ends of the connector, this is a
| connector mounted in a custom bracket with almost zero clearance
| as the chair's seat fits right on top of the bracket, connectors,
| and wires.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I've worked on cars and other mechanical things for most of 3
| decades. I've never needed a sticker telling me what size
| standard bolts were.
|
| On the broken, ruled as patent-infringing part, what do you
| want to happen that would comply with patent law? If it was
| compatible with Anderson, you'd just buy that. Since it wasn't
| and the original company isn't allowed to keep making them...
| xnyan wrote:
| > One connector broke and was impossible to replace.
|
| This is not a solution that would help the wheelchair user, but
| if you have a set of inexpensive ($10 bought in the US, less
| from china) 3" digital calipers, you could likely measure the
| socket and get it 3D printed. I've done it for obsolete
| electrical connectors in cars and while it takes time and some
| effort, it's very doable.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Banning private equity (not sure how) is necessary to prevent
| enshitification of all health care and related services.
| neocritter wrote:
| A good comic on the difference between what most people think
| when they hear wheelchair vs what wheelchair users need to be
| independent: https://www.tumblr.com/calvin-
| arium/184341867538/its-here-th...
| jmyeet wrote:
| Private equity is great for exposing the flaws in our economic
| system. The consequences are of course awful and it would be
| better that they didn't happen. But since they are happening,
| hopefully more people will start to realize it. When exposed to
| this kind of thing you can generally have one of two reactions:
|
| The first is that you say that this kind of thing is good. It's
| all part of capitalism. The market will work it out. People will
| say this kind of thing with a straight face.
|
| The second is to say that it is bad. But why is it bad?
|
| The first stage is you believe that there are bad apples. Private
| equity is simply a few bad actors who may or may not need to be
| dealth with by way of legislation, regulation and/or prosecution.
| Lots of people believe this because they still fundamentally
| believe in our current economic system.
|
| The second stage is you realize that private equity isn't an
| outlier and isn't a few bad apples. It is exactly what our system
| is designed to produce: to financialize and rent-seek in every
| aspect of our lives as a means of extracting wealth from the poor
| to the already vastly wealthy.
|
| Private equity is taking over every aspect of your life by buying
| up homes, mobile home parks, vets, medical practices, hospitals,
| etc. There probably isn't a single aspect of our lives that
| hasn't been tainted by private equity.
|
| And the playbook is exactly the same:
|
| 1. Jack up the prices, usually by cornering a market by either
| buying up all the competition or through legislatively creating
| enclosures;
|
| 2. Cut costs. Use noncompete agreements and and the like to
| suppress wages; and
|
| 3. Load up the entity with exploding debt and sell it to the
| market before the debt explodes.
|
| This is capitalism working as intended. No more, no less.
|
| On wheelchairs in particular, it's truly disgusting what we as a
| society put wheelchair users through. One of the most egeregious
| examples is how airlines will routinely destroy wheelchairs.
|
| We are steadily marching towrads a future where almost all of us
| will be a permanent underclass devoid of any kind of security.
| Every aspect of our lives will be at the mercy of our overlords.
| Capitalism inevitably leads to neofeudalism.
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| If you want to hear more about the negative impact of private
| equity on various industries, like retirement homes etc, I'd
| recommend the book Plunder. Eye-opening stuff.
| 48864w6ui wrote:
| Is private equity this century's equivalent of the LBO?
| https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-23-me-521-st...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-05-03 23:00 UTC)