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Private equity bought America's essential services

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Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#131

Post by brendoelfrendo »

elevation wrote: post #113

Not all PE problems are existential; they will be outcompeted. What keeps a newly graduated Veterinarian from opening her own clinic and undercutting the PE competition? With no massive loans on her books, she can profitably offer lower prices than PE can. She may even drive the local PE clinic out of business.

> With no massive loans on her books,

Except every newly-graduated veterinarian does have a massive loan on their books, in the form of student loans. And even if she didn't, where does the startup capital for her clinic come from? Whether in human or animal medicine, starting your own practice--especially as a new grad--is usually the course of action with the highest-risk-to-lowest-pay ratio.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#132

Post by dandellion »

randusername wrote: post #98

Article doesn't really dig into the angle I personally find most horrifying, strip-mining social capital. In my area PE is gobbling up mom-and-pop apartment complexes, plumbing companies, restaurants, and generally making customers and employees alike pretty miserable. Hard-working founders should be able to cash out, but there has to be a better system than this one. Succession, maybe. Not that we should push an unm…

This scene from Ubik has been coming back to my mind very often recently:

The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”

He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”

“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”

In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.

“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.

From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.

“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.

Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.

- Philip K. Dick, Ubik

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#133

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

amazingamazing wrote: post #92
asolove wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP explicitly answers this: go back to pre-80s antitrust policy. Companies can be bought and sold but not if it creates concentrations of economic power that allow them to dictate prices to vendors or customers.

This is vague and not actionable. Should Microsoft and Amazon have been able to buy Anthropic and OpenAI 5 years ago? People always give these vague guidelines (and even the guidelines in the 80s were) and wonder why they are easily circumvented.

It was absolutely actionable and implemented as policy for decades, what are you even talking about? Your phrasing pretends this isn’t exactly how antitrust enforcement worked before the much more recent approach began.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#134

Post by amazingamazing »

Bjartr wrote: post #127
amazingamazing wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems vague. What is an anti trust reason? Figma and Adobe id a great example. Both are doing very poorly.

What definition of success are we using that having over $7 billion in net income after expenses in 2025, and nearly $2 billion so far this year, is "doing very poorly"? 2025 numbers: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/796343/0000796343250... 2026 Q1 numbers: https://mlq.ai/stocks/ADBE/q1-2026-earnings/

Their joint market cap

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#135

Post by smallmancontrov »

jonstewart wrote: post #119
dd36 wrote: post #2

End consolidation. Go back to pre-1980s antitrust policy. Encourage competition and bust the trusts.

Statutory antitrust regulation would be fantastic. Instead of litigation, the regulators, corporations, and shareholders know when a business must split or divest. The firm files a plan, it gets approved, everyone wins except monopolists.

Progressive business taxes. At a certain income level, natural pressure starts mounting to split.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#136

Post by brendoelfrendo »

amazingamazing wrote: post #86
palmotea wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How will that work - for example Y Combinator classes. They cannot be acquired? For the record: national economic policy shouldn't revolve around Y Combinator classes and similar startups. I'm totally fine if it turns out a sensible antitrust policy completely destroys the acquisition exit pathway for tech startups. I'm not saying one will, but I'm saying that's a cost I'm willing to pay.

YComb was just an example, though. Should companies be able to be bought and sold at all? My opinion is yes. Agree or disagree?

Why do you present this as a binary to agree/disagree with?

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#137

Post by mschuster91 »

c16 wrote: post #83
fredley wrote: post #13

The people behind these funds are playing Monopoly IRL, and this in particular makes me very angry. The UK high street has been a notable victim. Gradually, over the past couple of decades, company after company has been snapped up by PE. Not just shops, but restaurants too. Suddenly you realise that the 5 or 6 high street chains that were competing are now owned by the same fund. Quality collapses, prices rise, not…

As a consumer, there are many non PE owned restaurants and pubs you can frequent. While you might not be able to change the game, you can absolutely vote with your wallet. The small guys will thank you. Same for Amazon vs going direct to the manufacturers, which is more often than not, China.

> Same for Amazon vs going direct to the manufacturers, which is more often than not, China.

That comes with a bunch of problems. Taxes, import duties and import refusals are the biggest one. With Amazon, at least as long as it's sold or fulfilled by Amazon, no matter what, you are going to get the product in a reasonable time frame (1-3 days IME).

Shipping... depends. If you're in bad luck, the seller doesn't ship Fedex or DHL, but Yanwen or another one of the usual bunch of "aggregators" that bundle weeks worth of shipment to forward it to the US or Europe and unbundle the shipments there.

Assuming your product shows up at your doorstep, legally, you are now the importer and fully responsible for anything related to that specific product - say, an electrical appliance that sets your house on fire. You can't hold anyone accountable but yourself.

And finally, if there's defects, you only have to deal with Amazon. Free shipment back, done. With anything straight out of China, you are now responsible for shipments.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#139

Post by tavavex »

mghackerlady wrote: post #55
graemep wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its called "free market capitalism". I have been in favour of it for decades: https://pietersz.co.uk/2009/11/fix-capitalism I am somewhat more inclined to some socialist policies now though.

free market capitalism will always end like this though. the end goal of capitalism is the consolidation of all things into a megacorporation or oligarchy that controls everything, creates nothing, and earns infinite money

Why is this downvoted? To me, it seems like a self-evident conclusion. Even the supporters of the current system would probably agree with it. When you have a system that encourages endless growth at absolutely all costs, while placing no limits at the amount of power a single entity can hold, what other outcome can there be but the biggest players absorbing everything into themselves and using their influence over people and governments to guarantee their dominance?

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#140

Post by amazingamazing »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #136
amazingamazing wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YComb was just an example, though. Should companies be able to be bought and sold at all? My opinion is yes. Agree or disagree?

Why do you present this as a binary to agree/disagree with?

Simply because that is the maximally reduced case and it inevitably will result in the same situation.
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