531. Should You Trust Private Equity to Take Care of Your Dog?

531.您应该相信私募股权来照顾您的狗吗?

Freakonomics Radio

社会与文化

2023-01-19

42 分钟
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Big investors are buying up local veterinary practices (and pretty much everything else). What does this mean for scruffy little Max* — and for the U.S. economy? (Part 1 of 2.) *The most popular dog name in the U.S. in 2022.

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  • Rose Peters is a veterinarian whose specialty is animal neurology.

  • I saw alligators and tigers and anteaters and birds of all kinds.

  • What did you need to do with an alligator?

  • Have you ever performed brain surgery on an alligator?

  • I have not on an alligator.

  • I bet their brains are very small and hard to get to.

  • But the alligator that I had was, gosh, I think a twelve foot huge alligator that had some general weakness.

  • And so they were trying to decide if it had a nerve or a muscle disease.

  • I think we decided his nerves and muscles were okay.

  • He was just lazy, you think, or.

  • Just feeling unwell for some other reason.

  • I think more likely large reptiles, especially when they physically don't feel well, can look and feel very weak and blah and lethargic.

  • But he wasn't so weak and lethargic that they didn't still have them strapped from head to toe to a big table.

  • And everybody stayed about 10ft away, just in case.

  • Odds are that you don't have a pet alligator, but a pet dog or a cat or guinea pig.

  • Probably.

  • Even before the pandemic, pet ownership had been rising fast in the US and now sits at a record high.

  • 70% of households have at least one pet.

  • Also at a record high is the share of household income we spend on pets.

  • In 2021, that added up to $123 billion.