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Private equity bought America's essential services

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Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#171

Post by esseph »

amazingamazing wrote: post #150
DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It really was not. Go look at the success rate of enforcement.

You're alluding to some second order effects which are real but also able to be dealt with, and have been.

Montgomery Ward thought it was "too big to fail" and too powerful to regulate.

So, what happened?

If the US government wants to, and it has in the past, it just takes your business at gunpoint.

4 soldiers walked into the ultra-conservative owners office and made him leave. Two of them picked up his arms and legs, took him outside, and deposited him on the sidewalk.

> a major U.S. CEO being physically evicted from his own company by armed troops became one of the most famous news photos of the home-front war

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#172

Post by MSFT_Edging »

amazingamazing wrote: post #104
hilariously wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually how anti-trust works - if you decide a company gets too big you Ma Bell it and break it up, its very actionable, just hard.

People keep bringing up Bell as if the situation now is not just as bad.

The situation now is just as bad, if not worse, which is why people keep bringing up the case of something being done about the monopolies.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#173

Post by forshaper »

tavavex wrote: post #139
mghackerlady wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

We haven't had a free market in the United States in awhile. It's public-private partnered market fixing. Which is good for the consumer, many times, though not all the time.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#174

Post by bryanlarsen »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #117
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…

> Hard-working founders should be able to cash out Why? Operating a successful business should be remunerative on its own, or else it's not successful. Owners who don't want to do it anymore can let it become worker owned. If they don't want it, it can dissolve. What else do you need? The very concept that the end of a successful business is a big payday for its creator is itself the poison here. There is no end just…

When my parents started farming they had about a half dozen large loans for the base farm, land, equipment, buildings and an operating loan to purchase seeds and other inputs in the spring.

When they retired they didn't have any money in the bank besides the proceeds from their final harvest, but all their loans were paid off. That's where the profits went -- paying off the loans.

The farm was their retirement savings. They sold it off for high six figures, and that's what funded their frugal but comfortable retirement.

The neighbor's son bought the farm; I hope he's pretty much paid off the loan he took out to buy it.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#175

Post by burkaman »

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.

How is a new graduate supposed to start a business without a loan?

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#176

Post by usui »

scary-size wrote: post #152

Huh, that somehow reminds me of Crassus from Rome [1] > The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus off…

Nice establishment you got here—be a shame if something happened to it.

I wonder if the incidence of fires increased during this time.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#177

Post by thinkingtoilet »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #117
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…

> Hard-working founders should be able to cash out Why? Operating a successful business should be remunerative on its own, or else it's not successful. Owners who don't want to do it anymore can let it become worker owned. If they don't want it, it can dissolve. What else do you need? The very concept that the end of a successful business is a big payday for its creator is itself the poison here. There is no end just…

I agree. It's a major problem that people who are usually, not always, already very well off decide to do a final "fuck you I got mine" and sell their business to a company they damn well know is going to strip it for all it's worth.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#178

Post by thelastgallon »

PEs own a LOT more than whats on the article. All kinds of home repair (HVAC, Plumbing, electric), child care, dental offices and many others. They buy the local companies, keep the same name (so folks think it is the owner/local company with awesome yelp reviews), enshittify, jack up prices and extract as much as possible with smooth talking sales people.

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#179

Post by fny »

spyckie2 wrote: post #118

The irony is that PEs exist largely because of pension funds. So to sum it up (not so nicely) we are transferring value from our current standard of living to pay for retirement checks for our old folks. Pensions fund a significant part of PE and they do so because they need around a 7% return in order to look solvent. If they do not have the higher PE returns, they basically go out if cash in 10 years and everyone w…

A 30-year treasury offers 5% and A-grade corporate bonds offer 6.5%. You don't need to exploit essential services for the other 50bps.

[0]: https://fixedincome.fidelity.com/ftgw/fi/FIYieldTable?popupM...

Re: Private equity bought America's essential services

#180

Post by sdwr »

dandellion wrote: post #132
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 th…

That's amazing! The "machines as woodland fairies" conceit imagines them as natural creatures, but nature has no laws

"In developing countries, everything is possible and nothing works. In developed countries, everything works and nothing is possible."

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