THE RICH BLAME THE REST OF US
They Kill the Economy And Blame Us
CONTENTS: FIND IN PAGE
EVIL PRIVATE EQUITY
Millennials Aren't Killing Businesses. Private Equity Is.
{TRANSCRIPT}
If you were to do a Google search for the phrase “Millennials are killing,” you'd see a populated list of businesses and industries that include everything from fast casual restaurants like Applebee's, TGI Fridays, and Hooters to department stores like Macy's, Kmart, and Sears. This list also includes breakfast cereals, big box gyms, motorcycles, and apparently mayonnaise. Your Grandma's favorite rag, Reader's Digest, even published an article accusing our generation of killing the canned tuna industry, with a quote from a Starkist executive claiming that Millennials are too lazy to open a can of tuna and probably don't even own a can opener. What? Look at me, I'm fancy.
If you were to take all these headlines at face value, you might be inclined to believe that all of us born between 1981 and 1996 have conspired to become the Jeffrey Dahmers of capitalism — which would be kind of sick, actually. But no, unfortunately, that's not the reality of the situation. While it may be true that there are many very large, very famous companies who are seemingly struggling to hang on all of a sudden after decades — or even centuries — of prosperous profitability, there's something they all have in common, and it's private equity. I made a video last year where I talked about private equity, what it is, how it works, and the ramifications of it on society as a whole. But if you missed that video, here’s the TLDR.
Private equity is an investment strategy used by the wealthy to buy businesses. Sometimes that means going and buying privately-owned businesses, and sometimes that means buying all the shares of a publicly-owned business, delisting it from the stock exchange, and making it private. Generally, this means that a bunch of rich people will give their money to a private equity firm, which pools it all together and uses it as a down payment to buy a business, then takes out a loan for the rest. Think about it much the same way as how you put a down payment down when you're buying a house and then take out a mortgage for the rest.
But private equity firms don’t care about keeping these businesses thriving in the long term. Their only intention is to flip them. So, like every sleazeball house flipper, they come in and put lipstick on the pig in hopes of artificially inflating the valuation so that they can quickly resell the business at a profit. This typically means cutting costs in whatever way possible. That includes things like reducing employee hours, cutting benefits, selling lower-quality products while simultaneously increasing prices, and generally just making the business worse in every way possible to make more money.
This increases profits in the short term but understandably sinks the business in the long term. But because private equity firms are just looking to “pump and dump” the business, they don't actually care. They'll resell it to another investment firm long before that ever happens. And that firm will do the same over and over again, like a big deranged game of hot potato until somebody gets left holding the bag. Even the company that ultimately gets left holding the bag doesn’t really care. Here’s the twist: when private equity firms take out loans to buy businesses, those loans are not under the names of the firms. They’re under the names of the businesses themselves.
So that means, for example, if a private equity firm like KKR went and bought out Toys R Us, and then Toys R Us went bankrupt, that bankruptcy belongs to Toys R Us — not KKR. They don’t actually care. Not only is KKR not responsible for the bankruptcy, but before it even got to that point, they made sure to pay themselves big management fees and bonuses, laughing all the way to the bank. As for the 33,000 Toys R Us employees that got laid off in the process? Who cares? And if you think that sounds corrupt as hell, you're right — it is. And it’s perfectly legal. America!
... The problem with private equity that I tried to highlight in the last video is that they own pretty much everything — from large multinational corporations to the small franchise of coffee shops in your city, to your local vet clinic, dentist’s office, or your grandmother's nursing home. Private equity has their grubby little hands in every crevice they can find. And not only are they choking the life out of every business they touch, but they're buying up all their competitors, leaving all of us consumers with nowhere else to turn when we become unhappy with the products or services we've been buying. When your $5 latte becomes $6.50 and there's suddenly an upcharge for oat milk that there never used to be, and the locally roasted coffee has been swapped out for some mass-produced crap that tastes like stale cigarettes, and the baristas are all overworked, underpaid, and miserable to deal with, you can bet that it's probably because your favorite café has been bought out by private equity. You'll never know it because the external branding stays the same, while everything internal changes. When you get fed up after a while and decide to switch to a different coffee shop down the road, well — sucks to suck — because that one's probably owned by private equity too. And if it's not yet, it will be soon enough. Freedom of choice is but an illusion.
So that was a bit of a long tangent, but let's circle back to where we started. Radio Shack, TGI Fridays, Red Lobster, Payless Shoes, Party City, Sears, Kmart, Toys R Us, even the company that makes Instant Pots and Pyrex — all have two things in common. Number one, they filed for bankruptcy. Number two, they're all owned by private equity. And that's not a coincidence.
The Starkist Tuna company, with that guy who thinks we're too stupid to open a can? Yeah, they're owned by a private equity firm called Lion, since 2002. {Perplexity.AI says Starkist isn't the company that was owned by Lion Capital. Instead, it was Bumble Bee Foods, which it owned from 2010-2017. Since 2017 Bumble Bee has been owned by FCF Fishery Co., Ltd., which is likely not a private equity company. "Lion Capital and StarKist have been involved together in legal settlements related to tuna price-fixing cases, but Lion Capital does not own StarKist."} Private equity firms have spent over $116 billion acquiring 95 retail companies, many of which have since gone under. Of the top ten deals — which include PetSmart, Dollar General, Staples, Toys R Us, Neiman Marcus (which was sold twice), Michaels, Petco, Mattress Firm, and Claire's — three of them have gone bankrupt, and two more are currently in talks with creditors hoping to avoid the same fate.
I can't wait until PetSmart files Chapter 11 and economists suggest that Millennials — the same group who buy houses explicitly so their dogs can have backyards — are killing the pet industry. So that's a 50% failure rate within the ten largest acquisitions alone. Keep in mind, we're just talking retail. We haven't even touched on what they've done to doctor's offices, dental practices, vet clinics, nursing and retirement homes, apartment buildings, trailer parks, and God knows what else.
For the last decade or two, private equity firms have been systematically buying up every company they can. When they do, failure and bankruptcy often aren't far behind—because making businesses worse is deliberate. It's all part of their strategy. And do you know what happens when businesses become both worse and more expensive? People stop shopping there.
This might be a surprise, but if I'm going to pay $6 for a coffee, it better be a damn good coffee. Because if it's not, I don't want it. You could go to Olive Garden and spend $40 on a plate of oversalted microwaved mush—or you could lick dog puke off the floor for free. You could spend an hour getting coughed on by six-year-olds in a ransacked Toys R Us, frantically searching for an item that was probably never in stock to begin with—or you could order it online in seconds, for a better price, and not catch rabies in the process.
But of course, private equity firms are not going to own up to the fact that they're ruining everything. Why would they? As leveraged buyouts gained popularity, 80s and 90s babies started to move into adulthood around the same time. Naturally, we became an easy scapegoat for the blame. For every headline accusing Millennials and Gen Z of killing a product, store, or industry, a quick Google search will almost always reveal that it's actually private equity that has its claws in their veins. Millennials and Gen Z are living through the most staggering levels of wealth disparity in history. Even when adjusting for inflation, the cost of living is significantly more expensive than it ever has been for previous generations. The gap between wages and housing has never been larger.
Naturally, when we do spend our money, we want to get actual value from it. So excuse us for being unreasonable, right? The median income in the United States is about $40,000 a year, or $20 an hour. If you expect someone to spend one to two hours of their labor on a single meal, it better be worth eating. And if you want good food — TGI Fridays, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Applebee's — these are not the places to go. There might have been a time when these restaurants were decent, but those days are long gone.
Does that mean Millennials are killing the fast casual restaurant industry? Or does that mean private equity is driving them into the ground—and we’re just not having it? If demanding good quality products and services in exchange for our hard-earned money makes us economic pariahs, so be it. Millennials aren't killing restaurants, gyms, canned food, bar soap, breakfast cereal, or napkins. We didn't kill Radio Shack, Toys R Us, Sears, Payless Shoes, or Hooters. Private equity did. We're just trying to be smart consumers and get the most bang for our buck. And if we weren't, we'd be chastised for that too. As I always like to say: you lose some, you lose some.
SIMILAR VIDEOS
How Private Equity Plundered The American Economy | Ft. Adam Conover - 1.4M views 3 years ago
How Private Equity Consumed America - 2M views - 11 months ago
So does private equity own everything? - 2.1M views - 1 year ago
WTF Does Private Equity Actually Do? - 799K views - 1 year ago
MYTHFIGHTER’S TAKE
I wanted to see what MythFighter says about private equity. I found this post from last December, titled "Medicare, private healthcare insurance, or something better?" at https://mythfighter.com/2024/12/11/medicare-private-healthcare-insurance-or-something-better/
It lumps private equity in with other schemes the rich use for trying to hog everything on Earth for themselves. Here’s an excerpt.
… The GOP supports wealthy businesses over poorer people. Insurance companies are massive contributors to candidates of both parties, though they favor Republicans. “Richer” and “poorer” are comparatives determined by the income/wealth/power Gap. (See: “Here we go again. The rich can hardly wait to widen the Gap.” https://mythfighter.com/2024/01/13/here-we-go-again-the-rich-can-hardly-wait-to-widen-the-gap/ ) The wider the Gap, the richer are the rich and the poorer are the poor. Therefore, the rich continually try to widen the Gap, and one way to do that is to deny free health care to the masses. Obamacare (ACA) is a favorite target of the rich because it primarily aids the poor. You seldom will hear a wealthy person complain about the “unaffordability” of tax loopholes enjoyed by the rich, though those loopholes are expensive and represent government overreach. You never will hear a Republican say, “We’ll cut back on ACA, and to show we’re balanced, we also will eliminate:
Private foundations that offer immediate income tax deductions of up to 30% of adjusted gross income (AGI) for contributions. (These foundations only need to distribute about 5% of their assets annually for charitable purposes, allowing the rest to grow tax-free.)
Annual gift tax exclusions and lifetime gift tax exemptions to transfer wealth to heirs without incurring significant taxes.
Instead of selling assets and incurring capital gains taxes, the wealthy can borrow against their assets, which is not taxable while the interest is.
The carried interest loophole allows hedge fund and private equity managers to classify their earnings as capital gains rather than ordinary income, resulting in lower tax rates
Real estate investors can defer capital gains taxes indefinitely by reinvesting the proceeds from the sale of property into similar properties, aka “1031 exchanges.” (When was the last time you ever heard Donald Trump complain that 1031 exchanges were “too expensive” for the government?
Wealthy individuals can use offshore trusts and accounts to shield assets from taxes and protect wealth from legal claims
These, and many other loopholes, allow the rich to save money while they complain about benefits to middle- and lower-income people. You never will hear that 1031 exchanges are “unsustainable” and “unaffordable” or that they cause inflation. Musk and Ramaswamy will not identify private foundations as inefficient or suggest revamping the carried interest exclusion, but they are shocked — shocked I tell you — about provisions like the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows schools in low-income areas to offer free meals to all students. They claim raising qualification ages is necessary to “save Medicare and Social Security.” However, they do not mention “saving” tax loopholes by cutting them. In 2011, Republicans passed a bill titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” (H.R. 2). This marked the beginning of numerous efforts to repeal or defund the ACA, with over 40 attempts made in the following years. The efforts continued through various legislative sessions, including a notable attempt in 2017 with the introduction of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), which aimed to repeal and replace the ACA. Note that ACA hasn’t killed any jobs, nor have the Republicans come up with a “better” program to replace ACA. In summary, it’s all a giant lie. Cutting the federal deficit is neither prudent nor practical. It is the opposite. It is a thinly veiled attempt to widen the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest. The federal government could and absolutely should provide free, comprehensive healthcare insurance to every man, woman, and child in America without raising taxes. But it will happen only if the public becomes more educated about Monetary Sovereignty, votes accordingly, and complains loudly. Do you care enough to complain to your Congressional representatives?
In another post, titled "Do you agree with DOGE about cutting federal spending?", the author showed that ChatGPT agreed with him that federal spending is vital for a good economy. https://mythfighter.com/2025/03/29/do-you-agree-with-doge-about-cutting-federal-spending/
PRIVATE EQUITY FOR THE POOR
AI: How the Poor Can Benefit from Private Equity: Key Facts
Private equity (PE) typically refers to investment funds that buy and grow companies, often aiming for high returns. While PE is often associated with wealthier investors and large corporations, there are several ways in which the poor and low-income communities can benefit from private equity activity—especially when investments are structured with community impact in mind.
1. Affordable Housing and Community Development
Direct Investment in Affordable Housing: Private equity firms are increasingly investing in affordable housing projects. These investments can help keep rents lower and increase the supply of quality housing for low- and moderate-income families. For example, some funds have invested millions into affordable housing developments without relying on government subsidies, targeting households earning 80% or less of the area’s median income. These projects can provide stable, quality homes for the poor while still offering market-rate returns to investors2.
Community Initiatives: PE firms sometimes partner with organizations like Habitat for Humanity, raising funds and providing hands-on support for affordable housing and essential home repairs. Such initiatives directly benefit low-income families by improving living conditions and neighborhood stability5.
2. Economic Growth and Job Creation
New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program: This federal program incentivizes private investment in low-income communities by offering tax credits to investors. The NMTC has generated significant private investment, leading to the construction and rehabilitation of commercial real estate, and the creation or retention of hundreds of thousands of jobs in distressed areas. These investments can revitalize local economies, create employment opportunities, and improve access to services for the poor4,6.
Local Business Support: Private capital, when directed toward small and local businesses in impoverished areas, can help create jobs, support entrepreneurship, and stimulate economic activity. This approach recognizes that poverty is often local, and targeted investments can address the specific needs of a community1,6.
3. Infrastructure and Essential Services
Investment in Community Infrastructure: PE can fund the development of essential infrastructure—such as healthcare facilities, schools, and transportation—in underserved areas. These investments improve quality of life and access to services for low-income residents4,6.
4. Challenges and Safeguards
Potential Downsides: Not all PE involvement is positive. In sectors like healthcare, PE’s focus on rapid returns can lead to cost-cutting that may reduce service quality, especially for vulnerable populations. Oversight and regulation are needed to ensure that investments prioritize community well-being over short-term profits3.
Policy and Oversight: Effective policies—such as requiring transparency, setting minimum service standards, and incentivizing long-term, patient capital—can help ensure that private equity investments benefit the poor rather than exploit them3,6.
Summary Table: Private Equity Benefits for the Poor
Area of Impact, How PE Can Help the Poor, Key Facts/Examples
Affordable Housing Funds new and renovated affordable homes $140M+ invested in 5,400+ units, often w/o subsidies2,5
Job Creation Invests in businesses, creates/retains jobs 888,200+ jobs via NMTC; supports local businesses4,6
Community Services Builds/renovates schools, clinics, infrastructure; NMTC and PE funds support essential services4,6
Local Economic Growth Stimulates local economies, supports entrepreneurs; Focus on small/local investments addresses poverty1,6
Oversight Needed Ensures quality, prevents exploitation; Regulation and transparency are critical3,6
Conclusion
The poor can benefit from private equity when investments are directed toward affordable housing, job creation, and community infrastructure, especially through programs like the New Markets Tax Credit. However, these benefits depend on responsible investment practices, strong oversight, and a focus on long-term community impact rather than short-term profit2,4,6.
CO-OPS & PRIVATE EQUITY
Sociocratic cooperatives can leverage private equity (PE) to benefit communities by aligning investment structures with cooperative values—democratic governance, equitable ownership, and social impact. Here’s how:
1. Democratic Control Over Capital
Worker Ownership Models: Sociocratic co-ops can use PE to fund worker buyouts (e.g., via ESOPs or cooperative conversions), ensuring capital serves labor, not vice versa. For example, Type B conversions (forming a new co-op to acquire assets) allow workers to democratize ownership while accessing PE funds4.
Consent-Based Decision Making: Sociocracy’s "good enough for now, safe enough to try" principle ensures PE investments align with community needs without sacrificing democratic control6.
2. Community-Focused Investments
Affordable Housing/Infrastructure: Co-ops can partner with PE to finance affordable housing or local infrastructure, using sociocratic circles to prioritize projects (e.g., NMTC-funded developments)5,9.
Open-Source & Transparent Tools: Co-ops like La Feixa use open-source tech to ensure transparency in PE-funded projects, fostering trust and collective oversight7.
3. Equity Without Exploitation
Solidarity Finance: PE capital can be structured as patient, long-term investments (e.g., redeemable shares) with returns capped to prioritize community benefit over extraction4,9.
Cooperative Networks: Sociocratic co-ops can federate (per ICA Principle 6) to pool PE resources across co-ops, reducing reliance on extractive investors5,9.
4. Education & Capacity Building
Training for Democratic Governance: Sociocracy’s emphasis on education (e.g., SoFA’s Co-op Circle) ensures members can negotiate PE terms democratically2,6.
Key Challenge: Avoiding PE’s debt-heavy models (e.g., leveraged buyouts) by insisting on cooperative legal structures (e.g., member-controlled equity)4,9.
CHURCH FOR THE RICH
I want to start a Church for the Rich that helps the Rich stop being addicted to Greed and stop being Racist/Classist, feeling superior and entitled.