Today’s topic is going to make you feel insane. Like you’re literally losing your mind. But I promise we’re not making it all up.
If, as you’re reading along, you find yourself going back over a sentence four or five times just thinking, “that can’t possibly be right,” or even “that has to be a typo, she clearly meant to say something else”… then congrats! You’ve read everything correctly!
Your ability to actually absorb the information I’m about to impart is contingent upon your Mindhunter-like ability to step into the head of a coldblooded psychopath. So c’mon, Clarice, let’s go!
Because of course, today we’re finally getting around to telling you about private equity.
In researching for this article, I read three very helpful books:
- Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America by Brendan Ballou
- These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs and Wrecks America by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner
- Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream by Megan Greenwell
Using words like “plunder” and “pillage” when it comes to private equity is pretty apt. For like the viking hordes of old, contemporary private equity plunderers swoop in to take what they want to enrich themselves and leaving what’s left to crumble and burn.
I highly recommend these books if you want a more in-depth explanation of the ills of private equity, leveraged buyouts, and unregulated capitalist practices. This here is an overview. An amuse-bouche of kleptocratic insanity. By contrast, the authors of these books do a much better job than me of not sounding like unhinged weirdos while they present the results of years of rigorous journalistic inquiry.
Just wanted to establish my sources so you know I’m not making this shit up.
I really wish I were.