am firefighter here in new england. we just took delivery a year ago of a 100’ aerial apparatus that was well over $1,500,00. It’s a Smeal mid mount tower. Took over a year to build. The prior admin “waited” on getting town’s approval and in that wait time, the price went up well over 300k.
oh and after delivery it was blowing hydraulic lines here and there, due to build quality.
it is absolutely insane.
Ok thanks after reading that now I need to go rage-smash a couple of boulders to pieces with a giant sledgehammer.
tldr: three private equity holdings corps bought up almost all the firefighting equipment manufacturers and closed a lot of manufacturing to raise prices on equipment 2-5 times what it was before, at the expense of slow turnaround time for repairs, so much more expensive equipment is sitting for longer waiting for replacement / repair parts than being usable to fight fires, and this is bad.
Typical capitalist. Capture a necessity and charge as much as possible while providing as little as required. These people are just stealing from the community.
Build a socialized competitor. Set up a non-profit with the city council (or multiple cities ideally) as some sort of transient chair then give it low interest loans to make the equipment. Then sell it all just above costs.
Oh no, the MAGA Republicans that opposed your plans just got massive campaign donations and their propaganda is everywhere.
Oh no, the people that supported your plan got voted out of office and now the funding has been cut, local laws have been changed to sabotage it, the schools have been defunded, the police have a bunch of fancy new drones now, and ICE is kidnapping random Latinos off the street.
Sell merch to re-enforce public support.
Unaffordable until the private equity firms burn down and nobody is left to put out the fire …
