As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
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Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
#2What you would expect from private equity sadly. Destroyers of value.
Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
#3What you would expect from private equity sadly. Destroyers of value.
But, but...muh free market capitalism always leads to the best products supply for the demand...or so we've been told.
Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
#4What you would expect from private equity sadly. Destroyers of value.
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.
Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
#5What you would expect from private equity sadly. Destroyers of value.
But, but...muh free market capitalism always leads to the best products supply for the demand...or so we've been told.
Turns out late hegemonic capitalism has a similar failure mode to late Soviet central planning.
Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
But, but...muh free market capitalism always leads to the best products supply for the demand...or so we've been told.
Turns out late hegemonic capitalism has a similar failure mode to late Soviet central planning.
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.
Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
#7What you would expect from private equity sadly. Destroyers of value.
But, but...muh free market capitalism always leads to the best products supply for the demand...or so we've been told.
Capitalism works perfectly if you just ignore all the inevitable disasterous consequences and outright failures.
Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
#8"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.
Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
#9What's the barrier to entry?
Re: As private equity dominates wheelchair market, users wait months for repairs
#10Private 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.