African designed delivery drones coming to the US

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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The scaled-up ambulance version would reduce price gouging by Private Equity air ambulance services.

intercst

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I seriously doubt that. A drone would eliminate all those pesky employees who want to be paid. So it’s more money for the “JCs”.

Steve

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That’s naive. The product manager will price the trip to match the existing ambulance service regardless of cost.
Wendy

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Not at all. Current air ambulance services have large barriers to entry and high operation costs (i.e., pilots)

Cheaper drones with lower operating costs will drive margins and prices down, assuming there’s a “real” market and not crony capitalism. Effective antitrust regulation is the key. Both here, and across most of the economy.

intercst

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Antitrust legislation has nothing to do with it. It’s all about supply and demand and elasticity.

Ambulance service is inelastic. People who need an ambulance are in an emergency situation and don’t have time to comparison shop. Any marketing manager worth her salt will price the new service close to the old since the prices are public. That maximizes profit since the service is inelastic. It would be different if the demand was elastic.

Wendy

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This is true of many healthcare situations including at the Emergency Room/Department, Urgent Care, etc. Hmm…seems like a good argument for something. I can’t really remember what, but something big. :wink:

Pete

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Almost all cities have regulated ambulance services with posted rates for service. Nobody would ever call an ambulance if there was a chance they’d get a $10,000 bill for a 2 mile drive to the hospital.

For example, here’s the posted rates for Clark County NV (Las Vegas)

Air ambulances are unregulated because they lie under Federal (FAA) jurisdiction and Private Equity operators have been successful in buying off enough Congressmen and Senators to prevent the kind of price regulation you see at state and local levels.

intercst

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Off topic, but when do you think we’ll have the 1st kamikaze drone attack on American soil ?
Gotta believe that it is coming. And when drones become ubiquitous, it will be much easier to slip a kamikaze drone into flight patterns without it being ID’d before it’s too late.

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U.S. military personnel reported drones appearing in restricted airspace over Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia, shortly after sunset during a period of more than two weeks, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The drones appeared in December last year, according to the report, pulling in officials across the Pentagon, FBIand the Defense Department’s specialized office for investigating unidentified aerial phenomena.

One senior official based at Langley told The Journal that multiple drones headed across Chesapeake Bay and further south toward the city of Norfolk. They reportedly traveled across Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval port and the main base for the Navy’s vaunted SEAL Team Six. Unless the drones are an imminent threat, by law they cannot by shot down near military bases.

DB2

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November 3, 1944.

Between November 1944 and April 1945, the Imperial Japanese Army launched about 9,300 balloons from sites on coastal Honshu, of which about 300 were found or observed in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

On May 5, 1945, six civilians were killed by one of the bombs near Bly, Oregon, becoming the war’s only fatalities in the contiguous U.S.

Unfortunately, I cannot post the URL to the Wiki entry, because the Fool’s nanny says it has a naughty word in it.

Steve

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I have some young friends writing a treatment for a movie or serial video series about a near future where angry people send swarms of drone craft to attack and sink rich people oligarch yachts.

No surprise, when I mentioned this at a party of Silicon Valley young friends of my youngest nephew they reflexively started outlining a business plan to sell anti-drone “iron dome” services to rich yachties….
‘
What a world what a world.

d fb

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These were not just your neighborhood hand-launched drones. Varying sizes, but some were 20 feet long.

I don’t understand why this isn’t a big deal for mainstream media.
Surely, we can’t just allow surveillance and possible explosive attacks around military basis.

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If a Private Pilot flew through there in a Cessna 172, F-16s would be dispatched and the pilot would likely lose his license.

intercst