{"id":2533,"date":"2023-05-17T20:09:06","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T00:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/?p=2533"},"modified":"2023-05-17T20:13:06","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T00:13:06","slug":"brendan-ballou-on-the-problems-with-private-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/?p=2533","title":{"rendered":"Brendan Ballou on the Problems with Private Equity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I recall hearing &#8220;greed&#8230; is good&#8221; spouted by Micheal Douglas&#8217;s sleazy character, Gordon Gekko (a lizard, get it?), in the &#8217;80s movie <em>Wall Street<\/em>, but it seems that it&#8217;s gotten much worse since then. See <em>The Wolf of Wall Street<\/em>, possibly another movie to inspire youth to be disregard decency in pursuit of ever more excess. Sounds like a recently deposed presidential failure, no?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eighties Wall Street raiders never went away, and they&#8217;re gaining ground, according to federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou, in the form of private equity firms. Ballou views such firms as a threat to the economic stability of the country. His recent expose, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harvard.com\/book\/9781541702103_plunder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Plunder: Private Equity&#8217;s Plan to Pillage America<\/a><\/em>, was published in May, and his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/04\/28\/opinion\/private-equity.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\"><em>New York Times<\/em> op-ed the same month<\/a> shines more light on the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Listen in to hear more about the problems with private equity, problems that Ballou sees as aided by the US government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more about the dangers of private equity, listen to Terry Gross&#8217;s Fresh Air take on &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2023\/04\/26\/1172164997\/how-private-equity-firms-are-widening-the-income-gap-in-the-u-s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">How private equity firms are widening the income gap in the U.S.<\/a>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile is-vertically-aligned-bottom\" style=\"grid-template-columns:74% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/HelpYourself.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2534 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/HelpYourself.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/HelpYourself-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p>Briefcase by <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/472301-472301\/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=1198050\">Shahid Abdullah<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/\/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=1198050\">Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Flames by <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/clker-free-vector-images-3736\/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=295131\">Clker-Free-Vector-Images<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/\/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=295131\">Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/BrendanBallou_mixdown.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recall hearing &#8220;greed&#8230; is good&#8221; spouted by Micheal Douglas&#8217;s sleazy character, Gordon Gekko (a lizard, get it?), in the &#8217;80s movie Wall Street, but it seems that it&#8217;s gotten much worse since then. See The Wolf of Wall Street, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/?p=2533\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-craft-productions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2539,"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions\/2539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crafttheshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}