Talk:Private equity
50% of all business loans are done through private equity. Many banks are not lending to small businesses. And private equity was a needed as a source of loans to small businesses during the pandemic and its lockdowns.
Long live private equity! Down with banksters at big banks who took Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) money at taxpayers' expense! Conservative (talk) 19:23, June 15, 2023 (EDT)
Donald Trump funded his social media company Truth Social via private equity
"When former President Donald Trump’s fledgling social media company and its merger partner announced in December that they had secured $1 billion in additional private funds for the deal, it set off speculation about the identities of the investors.
Who were the roughly three dozen investors betting on the success of the former president’s new company? Were they big Wall Street names? Political supporters of Trump? Technology and media funds sold on the promise of a right-wing alternative to Twitter?"[1] Conservative (talk) 19:30, June 15, 2023 (EDT)
Who are these alleged oligarchs who control private equity in the USA and the world?
The article claims that oligarchs control private equity.
Who are the oligarchs who control private equity in the USA and the world?
I received some commission money from a private equity commercial lending company in 2022 so I was wondering who these oligarchs are. But frankly, I have my doubts that they exist. I did some initial poking around the internet and I found no trace of these alleged oligarchs. Conservative (talk) 22:26, May 12, 2024 (EDT)
- "Little research has been done on such private lenders, according to the researchers, who note that there’s not even a standard definition of private debt. They define the funds in question as those that raise money through private equity and similar closed-end funds, then make senior loans like banks do." - With Business Loans Harder to Get, Private Debt Funds Are Stepping In, Chicago Booth Review, 2024
- The Secretive Industry Devouring the U.S. Economy: Private equity has made one-fifth of the market effectively invisible to investors, the media, and regulators. The Atlantic, 2023
- So as far as the big picture, I doubt there much research on who owns the private equity companies. Conservative (talk) 00:49, May 13, 2024 (EDT)
Private equity opposes Trump
Private equity generally opposes Trump, and is pro-globalism. Why was that deleted? Prominent examples include Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey.--Andy Schlafly (talk) 13:23, May 13, 2024 (EDT)
- Because I could not find any record of private equity generally opposing Trump. It might be true, but it might not be true. As a lawyer, you know that you need evidence to support a case. It's a type of financing that has not been throughly researched as I documented.
- Also, Trump's Truth Social used private equity funding. Lastly, I did some work for a private equity firm owned by someone pro-Trump/Pro-Republican and he paid me in a timely manner. Conservative (talk) 13:45, May 13, 2024 (EDT)
Investopedia on private equity firms and two questions that I have that other readers may have
"Supporters of the private equity industry argue that it plays a crucial role in the economy. They emphasize the ability of private equity firms to infuse capital into struggling companies, potentially saving them from bankruptcy and preserving jobs. These firms have the financial resources and strategic expertise to carry out changes needed by whoever owns them while streamlining operations and driving growth.
Defenders also note that private equity’s focus on maximizing returns aligns with the interests of investors, including pension funds and endowments, which in turn benefits retirees and beneficiaries. The UK-based researchers John Gilligan and Mike Wright, who have written a major textbook on the industry, which includes a summary of their problems with critics’ accounts, have argued that many of the concerns about PE are from cherry-picking specific cases or unrepresentative parts of the industry.
While not everyone will agree with every defense of PE they make, it’s hard to argue with their call for more “qualitative studies that take account of all relevant perspectives instead of relying only on a managerial, private equity firm, employee, or trade union perspectives."[2]
Two questions I have about the private equity field are: What is or are the alternative and why has the industry seen a big jump? I read the article and the article does not address these two questions.
Here is my guess. The 2007/2008 crisis saw a drying up of banker money and private equity stepped in. Conservative (talk) 05:01, May 24, 2024 (EDT)
Grok's analysis of Conservapedia's private equity article
Grok's analysis of Conservapedia's private equity article:
Critique of the article
The piece is a polemical rant, not a balanced or accurate analysis of private equity (PE). It frames PE as a near-monolithic force of “oligarchs,” “globalism,” and pure extraction while ignoring how capital allocation, risk pricing, and incentives actually work. Several core claims are overstated, selectively sourced, or invert cause and effect. The requested context—that PE frequently supplies capital to businesses and assets that banks and the SBA decline, and that higher risk must command higher interest rates—is almost entirely absent.
Structural and rhetorical problems
- Conspiracy framing and partisan filter: The article repeatedly ties PE to opposition to Trump, “globalism,” and specific senators (Romney, Toomey). This is politics, not economics. PE firms are heterogeneous; some partners have supported Trump, others have not. Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman has been publicly pragmatic and transactional across administrations. Treating PE as a coordinated anti-Trump cabal is conspiracy language that undermines credibility.
- Moral language without counter-evidence:
Phrases such as “unethical business practices,” “loots,” “pillages,” “rapacious,” and “web of oligarchs” substitute invective for data. Legitimate criticism of leveraged buyouts, fee structures, or specific sector outcomes exists; treating every outcome as intentional predation does not.
Selective and dated sourcing: Heavy reliance on advocacy pieces (Mother Jones, The Conversation, one Vice article, Brendan Ballou’s Plunder) and a handful of anecdotes (San Francisco hotels, Homer City plant, student housing, one hospital study). No engagement with broader empirical literature on PE returns, employment effects, or productivity. Forbes AUM rankings are presented as if they prove malice. Substantive factual and analytical weaknesses
“Drives up the cost of housing, healthcare, and other essentials”: PE ownership is correlated with higher prices or worse outcomes in some studies of nursing homes, certain hospitals, and single-family rentals. Causation is contested. In housing, institutional buyers (including PE-backed) remain a minority of transactions; local zoning, interest rates, construction costs, and migration dominate price dynamics. In healthcare, PE has both accelerated consolidation (raising prices in some markets) and injected capital into under-invested facilities. Blanket causation is not established.
Defaults and “looting”: Non-recourse loans and strategic defaults exist in commercial real estate across ownership types, not uniquely PE. When asset values fall (as they did for downtown hotels post-COVID and with remote work), rational owners may walk away. Banks price that risk into higher spreads and covenants. The article treats the San Francisco hotel defaults as moral failure rather than risk realization. Higher perceived risk must raise required interest rates and equity returns; that is how capital markets clear. Pretending otherwise is wishful.
Employment and “value extraction”: Some leveraged buyouts cut headcount and load debt; some improve operations and grow employment. Aggregate data show PE-backed firms often expand employment relative to peers after the initial transition, especially in growth and turnaround strategies. The “1 in 14 workers” figure is real but does not prove net harm. The Chrysler example is inverted history: PE and government involvement were part of a rescue, not pure extraction.
Carried-interest tax treatment: This is a legitimate policy debate. Carried interest is taxed as capital gains rather than ordinary income. Critics (including Trump at times) call it a loophole; defenders note it aligns managers with long-term investment outcomes and that changing it would affect venture capital and real estate as well. The article presents it as pure graft without acknowledging the risk-bearing and illiquidity arguments.
Transparency and systemic risk: PE funds report to their limited partners under existing securities and fiduciary rules. They are not public mutual funds and are not required to issue daily NAVs to the general public. Dodd-Frank increased compliance costs; whether it improved investor protection is debated. Claims of inevitable Fed bailouts are speculative. PE is typically equity-financed at the fund level with portfolio-company leverage; systemic risk is more concentrated in banks and certain non-bank lenders.
Anecdotes as proof: Closing an aging coal plant, tenant organizing against institutional landlords, or PE interest in sports are real events. They do not establish that PE systematically “destroys small towns” or “distorts pro sports to become pro-gambling.” Energy transition, local economic conditions, and league economics matter more.
Missing context the critique must include:
Private equity frequently provides capital precisely where regulated banks and the SBA will not. Banks face capital requirements, concentration limits, and conservatism after 2008; the SBA has size, use-of-proceeds, and personal-guarantee constraints. PE and private credit step into higher-risk, higher-complexity, or growth situations—distressed assets, buy-and-build strategies, management buyouts, or sectors with volatile cash flows. In exchange, they demand higher expected returns and interest rates that reflect the elevated probability of loss. That is not “unethical”; it is the price of capital under uncertainty. When risk rises (recession risk, interest-rate risk, operational risk), required spreads and equity IRRs rise. The article treats higher leverage and higher returns as proof of predation instead of compensation for bearing risks that other capital providers refuse.
PE also recycles capital: limited partners (pensions, endowments, sovereign wealth, high-net-worth individuals) seek returns above public markets. Many of those LPs are public pension funds whose beneficiaries include the same workers the article claims are harmed. Successful exits return capital that can be reinvested. Failures destroy capital—exactly as equity is supposed to absorb losses.
Balanced bottom line
PE has real agency problems: short holding periods can encourage cost-cutting over long-term investment; fee structures (2-and-20 plus monitoring fees) can misalign incentives; certain healthcare and housing acquisitions have produced measurable harm in specific studies. Those deserve scrutiny, better disclosure, and sector-specific regulation where externalities are large. The article, however, collapses a large, varied industry into a cartoon villain, substitutes partisan score-settling for analysis, and ignores the basic economics of risk pricing and capital allocation. Capital that banks and the SBA will not supply still has a price; when risks rise, that price must rise. Ignoring this produces an incomplete and ultimately unpersuasive critique.
I trust this helps clarify matters. Conservative (talk) 11:54, September 16, 2026 (EDT)
- No, it doesn't. Your AI slop never clarifies matters.
- Grok AI delivers virtually the same analysis of Conservapedia's Atheism and Homosexual agenda articles: Structural and rhetorical problems, Conspiracy framing and partisan filter: Moral language without counter-evidence: Selective and dated sourcing, Anecdotes as proof. etc etc etc.
- Check out what AI said about your claim of "an autistic person off his meds" in defense of your article cited in a federal hate crime indictment for attempted murder. Your overuse of the rhetorical device, "I trust this clarifies matters" only signals to the rest of us at what point the general state of confusion your mind is in on any given subject.
- I trust this clarifies matters. RobSDo heterosexual normies spend 20 yrs obsessing over gay bars, bathhouses and drag queens? 12:52, September 16, 2026 (EDT)