An antitrust lawyer concludes that there is a monopoly and writes a blog post about it. Maybe they're right, maybe not, but it is worth scrutiny.
Look for things that are off in the article. Yes, a number of trucks were out of service. Would all of them have been deployed if they weren't? At least some of the budget cuts were for open positions that the stations hadn't been able to fill. Other reports of denied overtime during the early stages of the fire indicate that, even if the trucks had been available, it wouldn't have affected the response to the degree the blog post tries to tug on the readers' emotions.
Another thing that stood out - market size of the three major players was listed for after the acquisition spree, but I didn't see the same numbers for before the acquisitions. Just how much of the market was actually shifted by this behavior?
Again, it is possible that the author is on to something, but the article uses half the story to get the audience to connect the dots on their own, repeatedly.
I've lost count of how many of the biggest problems in society can be directly traced back to great optimization decisions by MBAs. I think it's almost all of them.
They bought up all of the salt mines that supply road salt, and manipulate inventories to create shortages in winter.
It is fair to say that all of it is racketiering.
With the end goal of forcing the federal goverment to bail out the municipalites that cant afford the impossible prices.
The proffits are astronomical, which is why the banks hire phd mathemeticians and physists to do the differential equasions required to disguise the transactions and payments, given to legislators and the judiciary, that they look away.
And private equity companies have rolled up all the fire truck companies, hiking the price of trucks, creating backlogs and bottlenecks for parts and service, and starving the nation's municipalities (including Los Angeles) of fire-fighting equipment:
Look for things that are off in the article. Yes, a number of trucks were out of service. Would all of them have been deployed if they weren't? At least some of the budget cuts were for open positions that the stations hadn't been able to fill. Other reports of denied overtime during the early stages of the fire indicate that, even if the trucks had been available, it wouldn't have affected the response to the degree the blog post tries to tug on the readers' emotions.
Another thing that stood out - market size of the three major players was listed for after the acquisition spree, but I didn't see the same numbers for before the acquisitions. Just how much of the market was actually shifted by this behavior?
Again, it is possible that the author is on to something, but the article uses half the story to get the audience to connect the dots on their own, repeatedly.