Editorial Board
The Trouble With Private Equity Is Privilege Not Profits: View
This article is for subscribers only.
Mitt Romney, the favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination, has brought the rights and wrongs of private equity to the front of U.S. politics. He once ran a private-equity firm, and he has been for it even by fellow conservatives.
This is a new version of an old complaint, and the quality of the discussion is not improving with age. The question to ask about private equity -- which involves taking over companies, restructuring them and selling them at a profit -- is not whether it creates jobs. It is whether taxpayers should be subsidizing its practitioners’ paychecks.