4 ms·

What are the systems that need to change such that individual PE firms don't have incentive to do this? See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage

• Blackthorn 10mo ago
  We could ban the firms.
  • mhurron 10mo ago
    Honestly how? What law could be written that would ban PE firms and lookalike businesses that would hold up to scrutiny. No one with a brain likes what PE does, but really, what do they do that's illegal as opposed to people finally realizing that capitalism is essentially evil?
    • jennyholzer2 10mo ago
      > capitalism is essentially evil even though nearly every post on this website makes this point, the commenters here really do not like it when you state this explicitly.
      • immibis 10mo ago
        This is the website of a bunch of rich capitalists who got rich by doing capitalism. Of course you can't call the owners of the website evil on that website.
        • underlipton 10mo ago
          Of course you can. They just get really mad about it.
          • immibis 10mo ago
            You actually can't. They hide your post and ban your account.
            • underlipton 10mo ago
              Practically-speaking, there are limitations to even the most despotic of modtocracies.
      • itsanaccount 10mo ago
        they do not. what gets me is trying to make the argument that market economies are not necessarily capitalist economies. it seems plain over time that capitalism works to destroy markets. As an American I'm pretty pro market, but that means at this point I'm an enemy of capitalism. Which seems wild to what I was taught growing up.
      • Nasrudith 10mo ago
        It doesn't help that the people who say that prove an understanding of capitalism is about as thin as a single layer of varnish and their collective ideas for workable alterations would fit on a single index card after it was already ripped up by hand.
        • llbbdd 10mo ago
          Painfully true and somehow it's everywhere on this forum. To these people, capitalism and markets and money are all the same thing, and the only finite resources in the universe are those whose distribution is gatekept by the evil, evil capitalist overlords.
          • pseudalopex 10mo ago
            > To these people, capitalism and markets and money are all the same thing Many more capitalists than anti capitalists claimed this in my experience.
            • llbbdd 10mo ago
              Everybody's experience is different. I've found experientially that anybody who can actually define and describe these things with any degree of seriousness is, at least, aware of the resource constraints that make up the real world and have opinions that at least run in approximate sync with reality, which definitionally excludes them espousing real Redditor crap. I'm willing to engage with anti-capitalists who have at least put in the work to understand capitalism, but it seems like there's not much overlap between "understands" and "disagrees" for that segment.
              • pseudalopex 10mo ago
                > anybody who can actually define and describe these things with any degree of seriousness You meant true Scotsmen?
                • 10mo ago
      • marky1991 10mo ago
        This argument seems to be a) intentionally provocative and intending only really to ruffle feathers, not actually put a coherent argument forward And b) about on par with saying "water is evil" because if you drink too much of it you'll die.
    • master_crab 10mo ago
      This isn’t really true. A lot of the laws that exist now are written to encourage private equity. For example, you could start with fixing the privileged tax status from carry.
    • acdha 10mo ago
      PE depends on favorable tax loopholes and a lot of acquisitions depend on them being able to do things like buying a company with a ton of loans which they then saddle the acquired company with or stripping assets before going bankrupt. All of that depends on arbitrary legal structures and protections which could be rebalanced to favor more productive business models.
      • underlipton 10mo ago
        Right. Either you directly regulate activity, or you adjust incentives. If you suggest one, detractors say you can't do that, you have to do the other thing, and then work as hard as possible to block your efforts to do the very thing they suggested you do. That's because they don't want things to change at all. But that's obviously not an option, so I tend to suggest trying both and seeing what sticks.