If anyone does not know, this woman is like THE most experienced Financial Journalist in the US. She's worked at the best news organizations, currently works for NBC as a senior investigative reporter.
Sadly she ignored the most important factor of all. Superpacks, aka legalized bribery. These firms create and run dark money super packs and are responsible for our current political situation. They own most media and through the superpacks donate billions, mot millions, but bullions to all forms of political campaigns from school boards to federal judge selection to all other elections. They literally appoint our politicians which are beholden to them, essentially owned. Even worse, they actually write the laws and hand them to the politicians to pass them. They call this "lobbying". Most lobbyists work for these superpacks and actually write the laws, while at the same time they act as "pundits" on media where they either manipulate the audience to believe they are doing real capitalism and call anyone criticizing them socialists, or distract the people with: "look there trans, no look there woke, no look there Trump". Trump, trans, and woke are the greatest things for these "pundits" because they can distract both sides at the same time. And cable chanels like CNBC, Fox Business, exist to promote and defend them wile at the same time dividing us through distractions. Why they ignored discussing this is beyond me, because this is the most important part.
Very good journalism. I went to a hospital emergency room for an injury. I asked if they take my insurance and if they are in-network, they said yes so I thought no issues. Then a few months later I got a bill from the hospital for thousands of dollars. I wondered why. They said I was treated by a doctor that was out of network, not in network like they said the time I was treated. They make contesting these fees a total hassle. Private equity firms only care about one thing, money, and will find the most ingenious ways to bilk and scam consumers for as much money as possible.
i've had similar experiences. hospitals (especially ERs) charge OBSCENE amounts of money that would cost you 90% LESS at a specialist's office (i've done the math). i went to an ER (with insurance, luckily) during covid, saw a nurse who took my vitals, tested me for covid, saw the doctor for five minutes....$3,500 was the bill. again, luckily i had insurance and that paid for most of it, but....WTF??!! there aren't even words in the english language to articulate the outrage; it's beyond words! the hospitals are siphoning off money from their clients by funneling it through the insurance companies (who themselves take their share of profits). of course, hospitals keep prices (artificially) high to SCARE people into not going without insurance. it's the biggest racket since tax free religion. it's these FOR profit hospitals that are the root of the problem!!
@@roc7880 Going to have to come up with a document that collects all signatures of providers affirming they are in network. Imagine, having a contract negotiation before agreeing to receive hospital services. Time for some Elizabeth Warren level legislation governing private equity parasites.
Corporate Raiders simply went underground as private equity with politicians on their payroll. That's why they're not regulated. A government cannot regulate on a segment of the market meaning the stock exchange and corporations and not private equity and and hedge funds which creates an uneven playing field; one of honesty and the other of dishonesty. You now have Fascism as your government.
This should be the most discussed topic in America and the West as a whole. A few corporations are taking from everyone else, and our economies can't survive it.
Even the mention of the words “emergency room” and “highly profitable” in the same sentence is anathema to anyone who lives in a civilised country that has extensive public health care.
In the USA we dread having any sort of medical needs when we aren't filthy rich. Most of us are just getting by no matter how hard we work. Only a very few Americans can afford effective healthcare when we need it and many of those very rich people who can afford it spend hundreds of thousands on cosmetic surgeries when they don't need them. There is an obscene element to this life or death issue which cannot be reconciled with any notion of "freedom".
@@jabbermocky4520 I am a staunch right winger. However as an Australian, I feel universal healthcare is a universal right for citizens of each nation. The USA is the richest country in the world how is it possible that your citizens die on street with no health care ?
@@rg1924 Many have speculated about this existential problem for most Americans. It all comes down to GREED in the end. Doctors would still perform medical procedures IF the insurance companies didn't stand between them and patients in need of care. Insurance companies are giant corporations with massive political power in the USA. They can't die from something that's easy to cure. Only humans can. Americans who describe themselves as "politically on the right" are more interested in seizing control of the ability of others to simply keep living than they are about anything else. Money dictates who lives and who dies. Conservatives ( as the rightwing is called here ) like controlling all the money ( as in the current debt ceiling issue ) because it gives them the power to kill without getting their own hands dirty. Insurance companies do that messy job for them. We saw how badly Covid was handled by the right in the USA. We see, everyday, how little the right cares about random mass shootings and the easy availability of weapons of war. Ironically, gun owners don't need to carry liability insurance. The rightwing screams like mad if anybody suggests that gun owners should have to financially compensate victims of their guns by carrying liability insurance. It's a matter of greed, again. Some of us even call the American rightwing a "death cult" at this point. It is probably different in Australia. I hope so for your sake. Stay lucky down there.
I often wonder when Wall Street got the idea that they are entitled to own everything. If Congress represented the voters, they would look for ways to clip the wings of these private equity firms. They also would enact a single-payer health care system with significant oversight. When corporate tax rates are high, as the were before Reagan, corporations have less incentive to loot the world because they can't keep most of the plunder for themselves. Similarly, corporations are more likely to invest in employees, etc., because the corporation receives a significant after-tax benefit.
America is evolving from capitalism to feudalism where a few "lords" own both our jobs and our residences, so that all the money you earn from working you give back to them through rent or mortgage, leases, even shopping if you buy on credit. We are becoming serfs perpetually in debt, and thus forced to work to pay off the never ending debt.
17% healthcare is only going to get larger and larger as the nation’s aged increase. This is such a depressing thought.. Government has to take over and not let these healthcare Be privatized by an equity firms
I remember when we used to get reports like this on The Today Show ( Barbara Walters) and the CBS Evening News ( Walter Cronkite) I was blessed to be raised in a time when the world made sense, and life was worth living.
The world never made sense! But the accident of being born into a more prosperous part of it - made some people believe the "noble lies" told by their parents.
Its all good and well to open up peoples eyes, but politicians supposedly representing the people are beholden to the rich. Get money out of politics otherwise nothing will change 😢😢🤔🤫🫣
It is and has been ongoing with no let up really since 2009-ish. The improvements are not really improving anything as much as trying to "cosmetically" make it look like something was meaningfully changed for better when it was just like painting over a bridge that is deteriorating more and more.
Dark times indeed when it's socially acceptable to prioritize monetary profit over human lives. In 50 years, historians will not believe we sat here and let this happen.
@@paulheydarian1281 I hear you. But to be serious, yes. Human civilization has done some incredible things, many of them wonderful. There is always hope for improvement as long as our species exists.
It is interesting that private equity is getting into healthcare. Roughly 20% of healthcare costs are administrative, mainly billing and insurance. If private equity is also involved that's yet one more layer of costs that get added to the total healthcare bill. Private equity aside, it seems that many healthcare organizations in the U.S. are either for-profit or run as if they were. It sometimes seems that the big push to make as much money for as little cost as possible can sometimes leave patient care compromised in the equation.
I work for a “non profit” hospital and the admin staff continue to have phenomenal raises while us peons who do the real work of the hospital are given a pittance. They were not exposed to Covid like we were and gave themselves 11-70% raises during the pandemic!
Wall St. is also the reason the border is wide open. A larger labor pool means businesses do not have to compete for labor via better wages and benefits.
I think her final comment should be the number one question to ask yourself and your politician. When the economy deregulated in the mid-eighties till now did it improve the lives of all Americans. If not then it’s an admission that it is only capable of limited benefits. Change is needed.
Isaacson is VERY tough and skeptical of Morgenson's claims. Would he be as aggressive if he were interviewing someone like Larry Fink of Blackrock private equity firm? I think not.
It's called journalism. The goal of the journalist is to ask tough questions of the interviewee, even if the journalist does not agree with the position implied in the question.
I remember when management worried about getting/keeping good employees who worried about getting/keeping happy customers and when the system worked, everyone, including the investors benefitted. Once management shifted focus to investors and ROI, everything started to collapse. I blame our economic, social and political ills on the focus on efficiency in the name of financial returns. Current accounting practices do not capture all the relevant costs. The real damage brought on by these business is not being factored into the picture…similar to how corporations are not held financially responsible for the costs of environmental pollution, climate change, globalization, etc. If they don’t count it in dollars, it’s not a problem.
Being “more efficient” is really buying risk. These firms try to privatize profits but socialize costs to include risks. Many of the companies they hold my go bust, but often they push them to go bust as they squeeze the value out shifting the value to other corporations under the firm’s umbrella then declare bankruptcy on the company thus socializing the obligations of that company.
Ms. Morgenson, I understand this result thoroughly and want you to know what a great thing you are doing by exposing "private equity" for the robbers they are ....what I like to call "raw" capitalism. Thank you for this full-on view aptly called "plunderers"!
I JUST GOT OUT OF THE HOSPITAL; first the ER, and then a week later, outpatient therapy to repair my shattered wrist; no bills yet but OH BOY! They say forewarned is forearmed, but I already stepped in it; I asked every dr. & anesthetist about ins. coverage & know what they all said? "I don't know; I work for the hospital; I guess I take ins..." When you're at your most vulnerable, & can't even think clearly for all the pain? That's when these vultures start to alight on your almost-carcass.
Private equity has “streamlined” the nursing staff to bare minimums and caused the deaths of how many? Where is the regulation? Such BS should not be allowed.
Just a cotrrection on offshoreing and not paying taxes. The US has many of its own tax free jurusdiction , like Deleware and others. So Some of the largest may be in places like Ireland, but there is a plethora right there at home. Politicians never mention them o0bviously because they are likely big political donors.
Walter sure sounds like a PE cheerleader. I’m glad this issue is getting coverage, but when the interviewer seems so reluctant to entertain the thesis of the author it makes me wonder how much worse the problem is.
Companies used to be paternalistic, providing the "company store" and schools for workers. Then Gordon Gecko and Ronald Reagan came along and said "Greed is good" and the government doesn't need to be regulating company behavior. I agree it would be best to have kinder, gentler companies but the paternalistic paradigm of the past isn't any longer the answer. Maybe the social responsibility we're seeing with companies going green and pulling their ads for social injustices will move us to companies with a conscience.
There are few people sitting on a lot of cash and don't know what to do. So private equity firms vie for their money promising exorbitant returns. So social cost is not an issue to this firms.
She's not very good at explaining things. When she gives the example of the Carlyle Group buying that nursing home and then selling the real estate under the homes: 1) to whom does the money paid for those homes go? 2) Why did the nursing home then go bankrupt, was it because they had to rent the land they formerly owned? 3) If Carlyle was "made whole" by selling the land and was unaffected by the entire affair, what was the point of the exercise if Carlyle "emerged whole"--doesn't that mean they didn't lose anything but not gain by it, either?
This stuff requires more time than this interview slot allows in order to give the detail to this complexity. Here’s another talk that might help: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HZvnc47r2So.html
Private equity operators reduce staffing and other expenses at nursing houses. So, for example, the remaining staff is short-handed and cannot keep up with the patients who have to be taken to the bathroom in timely fashion. The operators also save money by reducing nursing staff and services such as physical therapy. They stint on food quality. If food service personnel is limited, the patients have to wait hours to be fed. This is very cruel.
Effectiveness is the beginning of the defnition and measure of efficiency. Were these investments improving the effectiveness of service delivery to the foundational demand upon which the business and industry depend. If the people in that demand cohort are experiencing lesser outcomes, the business is arguably maximizing inefficiency.
it’s past time politicians eradicate the rent seeking in the economy otherwise pretty soon they’ll be experience what it means to lose governing consent
Capitalism has a way of changing definition when convenient. To big to fail should not exist especially when using taxpayer money. it's only socialism when regular people and communities are being aided vs businesses.
Gretchen, I so miss you in the NY Times. You are such a valuable critic of financial b.s. And the Times did not replace you! Instead, they just print whatever the companies want. The Times is far worse without you.
The links (integrated structure, concentration of private wealth and corporate power) between the Private Equity firms, Hedge Fund firms and Wall Street banks are well documented in Professor Peter Phillips' book, 'GIANTS: The Global Power Elite' (Seven Stories Press, 2018). Its like a spider web.
750 billionaires among 330 million own the city council, state house, congress and media. Their profits matter. Your problems don't. You must not be smart enough, dedicated enough, not positive enough if you're not succeeding.
I have to push back a little. Average PE funds have outperformed the S&P 500 by 3% or more through time after fees. Second, PE funds dont go into a company for the sole purpose of levering them up and push them to bankruptcy. Thats actually a loss making proposition as no investors would want to give that PE money. Bankruptcy does happen but it is not the norm for average to great PE firms. There is alot of nuance here she is not explaining.
Investors celebrated and protected for their short-sighted predation... for the sake of efficiency over anarchy... sure seems like a dying industry. Stub your toe. Private equity steppin' on the other foot and charging you for the distraction from the stubbed toe. "Stop hitting yourself." Big older brother bully energy.
Although there may have been some bad outcomes with nursing homes, this is not generally how Private Equity works and the problems described are a gross over-simplification
Imagine being so lost to decency and sense that speaking honestly about the strip mining of American industry and the hollowing out of the care sector is seen as somehow being too ‘tough’ or ‘untoward’. If Isaacson isn’t a dimwit he sure gives a great imitation.
The healthcare industry company I used to work for was taken over by a private equity firm. They did create new jobs --- by reducing the labor force in the US and moving the jobs to another country. A country with no knowledge of the American healthcare or insurance system. The result was coding and billing errors, denied insurance claims, patient billing errors, etc. The providers and patients were and are still being harmed by this.
