Emily Stewart’s private equity explainer for Vox is a great explainer on how the PE con works: buy up businesses, load them with debt, sell off their assets, slash their costs, then walk away as the house burns, leaving society to put out the fire — all while enjoying special tax status on your gains.

An example of how money is being made today, not by creating businesses and jobs, but by buying up existing businesses like Toys R Us, selling off their real estate, raiding their pensions, loading them up with debt, and then walking away with hundreds of millions in profits while the business crumbles to the ground.

Whenever you see a business being bought by private equity, expect that business to be out of business shortly.

 

Source: Explaining the con that is private equity – Boing Boing