https://doctorow.medium.com/the-antitrust-twilight-zone-f710822ca77f
"Funeral homes were once dominated by local, family owned businesses. Today,
odds are, your neighborhood funeral home is owned by Service Corporation
International, which has bought hundreds of funeral homes (keeping the
proprietor’s name over the door), jacking up prices and reaping vast profits.
Funeral homes are now one of America’s most predatory, vicious industries, and
SCI uses the profits it gouges out of bereaved, reeling families to fuel more
acquisitions — 121 more in 2021. SCI gets some economies of scale out of this
consolidation, but that’s passed onto shareholders, not consumers. SCI charges
42% more than independent funeral homes.
https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/09/high-cost-of-dying/#memento-mori
SCI boasts about its pricing power to its investors, how it exploits people’s
unwillingness to venture far from home to buy funeral services. If you buy all
the funeral homes in a neighborhood, you have near-total control over the
market. Despite these obvious problems, none of SCI’s acquisitions face any
merger scrutiny, thanks to loopholes in antitrust law.
These loopholes have allowed the entire US productive economy to undergo mass
consolidation, flying under regulatory radar. This affects industries as
diverse as “hospital beds, magic mushrooms, youth addiction treatment centers,
mobile home parks, nursing homes, physicians’ practices, local newspapers, or
e-commerce sellers,” but it’s at its worst when it comes to services associated
with trauma, where you don’t shop around."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
