Back to the Future as Siemens Tries to Check Out
Time and space limits in the last Siemens post forced the future to be postponed. The future is now as Hearing Economics continues to clear its desk. Spoiler: nobody agrees yet on what the future holds for Siemens Audiology or its rascally stepchild Hearing USA. Siemens Makes a Run for It On May 7, 2014,…
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Costco and Phonak: Much Ado About Nothing?
Inquiring minds want to know about the imminent Phonak-Costco partnership. HHTM readership soared last week after David Kirkwood reported corporate confirmation of the deal and Hearing Economics began sorting the deal’s rumors from reality. Elsewhere, web-based professional and social media rapidly filled with Audiologists’ tears of betrayal, stories of heartbreak, fear and growing outrage. Readers will want…
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Location, Location, Location
Last week’s post gave a rambling answer to a Reader’s Question from Worried Mom asking about survival of private practice. The Answer went down the old bricks-and-mortar path, consolidated into a set of reflections that I (jokingly) referred to as my Unified Location Theory– 17 years in the making and no better now than it was…
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Aaargh!! Time for Ruthless Publishers to Walk the Plank
Who are the most ruthless capitalists in the Western world?” Bankers? Oil companies? Health insurers? None of the above; they are actually academic publishers… their monopolistic practices make Walmart look like a corner shop and Rupert Murdoch a socialist. {{1}}[[1]] George Monbiot writing in The Guardian, quoted in The Robber Barons of Academia, The Week, 3 Sept 2011.[[1]]…
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Irrational? You talkin’ to me?
The market can stay irrational far longer than you or I can remain solvent. John Maynard Keynes By golly, the hearing aid market may be a bit irrational right now. “Irrational” in Economic-Speak means that consumers are making choices which are not maximizing their self-interest, probably because said consumers lack sufficient information to make informed…
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