EP 914 Private Equity is Getting Away with Financial Murder

 Many of us are unwitting victims of the private equity industry.  Some by virtue of being employed by companies they have bought whose future success or failure may have no impact on the private equity firm’s ability to profit from the leveraged buyout of those companies.  In her new book, “Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, ” journalist Megan Greenwell takes a deep dive into the lives of four such people–including a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a Wyoming doctor, a Virginia housing advocate and a Texas journalist.  Megan herself began a journalistic journey to understand this financial behemoth because her own on-line sports project, Deadspin, was taken over by private equity and run into the ground, after having had great success.  We will explain how this industry achieves the results that it does for the owners of the private equity firms, the reach it is having into all sectors of our economy and your need to be aware of how it may affect you.

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