First published 2023
Pulitzer Prize winner Gretchen Morgenson and analyst Joshua Rosner examine how a small group of Wall Street financiers has reshaped American capitalism through private equity. The authors trace three decades of corporate takeovers to show how these firms acquire companies, burden them with massive debt, then extract assets and profits while leaving workers, patients, and communities worse off. Morgenson and Rosner investigate major private equity players, documenting how their practices lead to job losses, benefit cuts, company bankruptcies, higher healthcare costs, and nursing home deaths. The book reveals how prosecutors and regulators fail to intervene while public workers see pension returns diminished by excessive fees. This investigation connects private equity operations to growing economic inequality and demonstrates how these financial practices harm ordinary Americans across multiple sectors.
Genres: business, politics, economics, social-issues, non-fiction, finance
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-reporting, social-commentary
400 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster
Content warnings: death, medical-trauma