Hitting mainstream news stands

[BulgeDaTwine]

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Every hospital in America needs a polite letter from their ER group saying THIS IS HAPPENING in EM. (At least we got a courtesy cameo mention in the article)

Your anesthesiologist may work for a private-equity firm via nbcnews - Your anesthesiologist may work for a private-equity firm

 

[GonnaBeADoc2222]

Only about 20 years too late

 

[WilcoWorld]

Better late than never.

 

[xaelia]

"Doctor, sir/ma'am, do you work for private equity?"

"WELL"

"I shall take my chest pain business elsewhere!"

 

[Birdstrike]

I wish I could say patients would be outraged to know non-physician profiteers employ their doctors. But I doubt they will. They’re more interested in having a “satisfying” patient stay.

Private equity types know how to create a patient satisfaction smokescreen to convince patients they’re getting the best, even when they’re getting shafted.

Example: I recently had a family member go on and on about how great the care was during the recent hospital stay of another family member. Reasons: #1 The room had a great view. #2 The lobby was palatial, full of expensive marble, glass and sculptures.

 

[hundreddaysoff]

BITFD.

Viz: as the Fed continues to raise the rate and money becomes more expensive, I hope Big PE will find their BS ways to be increasingly unsustainable. USACS and other Big PE-based CMGs will suffer or even die as the forest burns, but new growth will then bloom. In medicine and in all the other industries where Big PE now has a stranglehold via crony capitalism and artificially cheap debt.

The alternative is sustained inflation, which is politically not survivable for our ruling class and thus will not continue if they can help it.

This same basic thing happened in the late 80s and 90s, in my understanding, around the time that _Rape of EM_ was written. It led to Big PE's suppression for 10 years or more.

Meanwhile, Ally has raised my rate to 2.25% just for holding cash. Sure, it's nothing compared to what I could've gotten from the VTSAX streamroller for the past 10 years, if I hadn't been a poor med stud at the time and had had any cash at the time to throw in there. But still, if I can accumulate $2M in the bank, a decent part-time telehealth job, and a wife with a full-time job who never want to quit, then 2.25%/y is enough to feed our kids and much more.

My friends, if you want more autonomy and don't mind working a bit harder than most for it, I think our time is coming. Just keep your eyes on what is real, and think outside the Long Now box of Bogle et al that has dominated for the past 20 years or more.

 

[BulgeDaTwine]

BITFD.

Viz: as the Fed continues to raise the rate and money becomes more expensive, I hope Big PE will find their BS ways to be increasingly unsustainable. USACS and other Big PE-based CMGs will suffer or even die as the forest burns, but new growth will then bloom. In medicine and in all the other industries where Big PE now has a stranglehold via crony capitalism and artificially cheap debt.

The alternative is sustained inflation, which is politically not survivable for our ruling class and thus will not continue if they can help it.

This same basic thing happened in the late 80s and 90s, in my understanding, around the time that _Rape of EM_ was written. It led to Big PE's suppression for 10 years or more.

Meanwhile, Ally has raised my rate to 2.25% just for holding cash. Sure, it's nothing compared to what I could've gotten from the VTSAX streamroller for the past 10 years, if I hadn't been a poor med stud at the time and had had any cash at the time to throw in there. But still, if I can accumulate $2M in the bank, a decent part-time telehealth job, and a wife with a full-time job who never want to quit, then 2.25%/y is enough to feed our kids and much more.

My friends, if you want more autonomy and don't mind working a bit harder than most for it, I think our time is coming. Just keep your eyes on what is real, and think outside the Long Now box of Bogle et al that has dominated for the past 20 years or more.

You think “2M in the bank” is achievable at current salaries and tax levels, at least anytime soon before inflation (even normal) makes you laugh at $2M?

You think interest on $2M - in 20-25 years - is gonna sustain your living standard?

That’s the rub: Salaries and taxes have conspired to keep you down, so you’ll have to work indefinitely and you will take what PE says you’ll take.

You’re *exactly* why we are where we’re at and it’s gonna be a hard reckoning when you look around in 20 years.

Don’t say you weren’t warned, mate.

 

[hundreddaysoff]

You think interest on $2M - in 20-25 years - is gonna sustain your living standard?

Nah. The tricks are that:

(1) interest on $2M will be a small part of my family's multiple income streams,

(2) we have very low standards and in particular don't feel entitled to much of anything, despite the fact that I am a doctor and worked at least half my life to get the career I have, and

(3) if the Fed's plan works as they expect, combined with the decline of globalization, we will have a recession or depression for at least the next few years, not inflation. (If it doesn't work, then inflation may well keep rising to unsustainable levels, but then all bets are off about anything for anyone who depends on dollar-denominated assets. Ie, pretty much everyone reading this.)

This post and thread has more on my current and expected situation for anyone curious.

I'm gonna work in the ER about 5 more years at most. I'm a nocturnist and so despite good genes, I'm too paranoid about getting diabetes and ACS to continue. The weird sleep schedule is already cutting into my family life, and I knew this was not sustainable long-term from the get-go. Just making hay while the sun shines, for now, at $250/h.

If it's a hard reckoning for me in 20 years, it will be for all of us peasantry, unfortunately. Historically, most of humanity worked hard until death, and retirement is an innovation of the past 3 generations or so in my understanding. FIRE is an even more recent innovation, although attractive to me by my own strange definition. Ultimately since I know that I am entitled to nothing, I am not afraid to work until death and not FIRE if that's how things end up.

It's just that if I need to work hard, I'd rather work hard producing my own food and other objects vs getting woken up nights and generating complaints, etc etc, in order to feed Big PE and the associated bureaucratic machine.

I do not believe that I am the reason "we are where we're at". I believe that I, like the USACS/VEP sellouts and all others in this game, am simply responding to incentives created ultimately by our top 1% starting around 1970 in order to keep enriching themselves. If they fall in the events of the coming years, it will bring me great schadenfreude, but I have no illusions that you or I or anyone else we know can do anything to have any effect on that balance of power.

 

[Dred Pirate]

Example: I recently had a family member go on and on about how great the care was during the recent hospital stay of another family member. Reasons: #1 The room had a great view. #2 The lobby was palatial, full of expensive marble, glass and sculptures.

yup- perception means more than actual care unfortunately.

Sort of like why we have docs see a patient right after triage. It gives the illusion that they are being being more attentive, even thou nothing actually happens, they just get sent back out to the waiting room (unless of course they are actually critical or have a time sensitive issue).
Plus the door to doc times goes way down on the wonderful world of metrics.