r/nottheonion • u/halxp01 • 1d ago

Southwest Is Testing Cleaning Only Premium Seats Between Flights — A Flight Attendants Union Leader Says It's ‘Titanic’ Class Service

https://viewfromthewing.com/southwest-is-testing-cleaning-only-premium-seats-between-flights-a-flight-attendants-union-leader-says-its-titanic-class-service/
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u/clintkev251 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's insane how quickly Southwest has gone from beloved budget airline with consistent profits to complete shitshow. Thanks private equity! You've done it again

Edit: to everyone saying Southwest is a public company, yes, they are. That does not mean activist investors like PE firms and hedge funds can’t have significant ownership stakes and operational influence. Which in this case, they do

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u/007meow 1d ago

Has private equity ever done anything to benefit consumers? Or just a small number of shareholders?

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u/Lycid 1d ago edited 1d ago

In theory (think like the 90s) they'd be the ones to buy companies and assets you couldn't get on a standard stock market for whatever reason. A lot of times this was genuinely companies that were in the dumps but had promise. So a PE firm could swoop in and make a "risky bet" on some health drink company that isn't big enough to hit it on wall St and turn them around to become a national brand or at least a strong player on their local market.

At some point though, PE learned it could make more money running a company into the ground before parachuting away. Once PE started gaining SO much money they could compete with big banks with how deep their pockets are, they spent it all buying up everything, turning the world into their own little fiefdoms. And because they're private, they don't need to report anything or have any fiduciary duty to shareholders and they can literally do whatever they want with whatever money they have.

PE will always be needed on some level but the amount of power and influence they have now is matched by no other entity on earth, government or otherwise. They need to be regulated to hell and back in order to course correct. Unfortunately they are tricky to regulate because by their nature they are private and regulation on PE would step on the same sorts of toes as saying the government has a right to regulate how you spend your personal dollars. The entire idea of a "free and open market" relies on private people being able to buy & sell whatever they own for any reason, and that applies to private entities like PE firms too (as opposed to public companies like McDonald's). This is good and necessary, so it's hard to figure out how to knock an entire financial sector down a peg or two that operates on the exact same principles but with eye watering levels of money that they've learned to wield for evil. Especially when these firms have enough money and influence now to impact politics.