American Crapitalism

Is there any industry in the US that Big Finance cannot make worse? 

Did a Private Equity Fire Truck Roll-Up Worsen the L.A. Fires?

A handful of financiers have been allowed to transform a critical, once-vibrant industry into a rent-extracting racket. By consolidating the fire-apparatus industry through serial acquisitions, REV Group and Oshkosh appear to have consolidated the power to raise prices and throttle output of lifesaving equipment with impunity. Using that power, they have imposed years-long delays in delivery on their customers and exorbitant payment terms that will enable them to pass on production costs almost at will — leaving them little incentive to invest in new capacity or greater efficiency to relieve the bottleneck in the fire truck supply chain. They can reap rising stock prices and “attractive levels of return on invested capital” for their shareholders just by sitting pretty — all while fire departments across the country struggle to replace aging fire trucks, have to spend more on maintenance for older vehicles, and are forced to shirk on other budget items, like firefighter salaries, to get what equipment they can.