The author says, "The operational resistance alone would be too much." True. But we need to continue reforms that clearly will improve the system. That effort seems to be stuck as we instead pause to relitigate the advances of the second half of the twentieth century. These would go a long way: mandate price transparancy, decouple insurance from employment, let Medicare negotiate prices broadly, and ban PBMs.
Part of the reason PE succeeds is their choice of things that have a large or lengthy startup cost or other supply restrictions. Most towns will support only 1 hockey arena. Or lately, with veterinarians. New supply is complex and doesn't appear overnight. If PE is to be controlled (so they don't ruin everything), we need to lessen the barriers to create more supply, like in housing. Also, perhaps it would be good to make them actually pay some taxes, if only to mitigate a fraction of the problems they cause. PE is sort of like cigarettes. They exist, and do damage to everyone.
Awkward writing in this article. "McDonald’s executives say the higher costs of restaurant essentials, such as beef and salaries, have pushed food prices up..."
Beef and... salaries? I think I found the name of my new fast food place.
There are some interesting points, but a few cringe things.
1) (referring to the Antifraud Company) "...they call themselves “a private-sector DOGE” -- Not exactly putting your best foot forward.
2) OpenAI paid $6.5B for Jony Ive's year old startup. That's a 'B'. Sure, stock is funny money, but it's difficult to defend the overpaying here. A lot of money seems to have been lit on fire.
The strange thing is, if, in 1995, one were to write an article about building a computer in 1965, it would have involved a room full of gear for e.g. an IBM System/360. The rate of change has slowed.
It seems that a lot of businesses barely function. They're often stuffed with overpaid executives while the actual business wheezes along, barely managing to get its product out the door. More attention is usually paid to reducing competition, increasing one's moat, and restricting supply, so customers have little choice, as in the aerospace industry from this article.
This was table stakes not long ago. There seems to be an increase in apps/UIs blaming the network for what is clearly poor performance on the backend, as well.
As others mentioned, self-checkout has been widespread for 30 years. They had it at most stores in the 1990s. The answer is, simply, it's cheaper for companies to hire someone at a non-living wage than it is to install and maintain these systems. Perhaps if we had some policies with teeth -- if you're going to hire a person, they must be able to afford to plausibly live and work in the area. Else, your business isn't actually a functioning business and needs reconsideration.