Two Crises, One Cause

And How We Rebuild

The heist wasn’t an accident.
And it wasn’t isolated.

It wasn’t just Toys R Us.
It wasn’t just JoAnn Fabrics.
It wasn’t just one hospital, one town, one lost job, one empty mall.

It was — and is — a system.
A machine designed to strip-mine value out of the real economy while protecting and enriching the people already at the top.

Private equity didn’t invent this machine.
They simply became its most efficient operators.

The Two Crises Are One Crisis

This week, in False Promises, we mapped how political corruption, short-term thinking, and false solutions are actively weakening America’s global standing.

Here, in The Private Equity Heist, we mapped how financial predation and corporate looting are hollowing out America’s internal strength — its businesses, its workers, its communities.

They are not separate problems.
They are symptoms of the same disease.

A country led by liars and grifters, serving liars and grifters, at the expense of everyone else.

  • Where the debts are never really paid — because the people who caused them are never the ones paying.

  • Where success is measured not by what you build, but how much you can grab before the roof caves in.

  • Where the public is left clinging to slogans and scapegoats while the real looters slip away smiling.

What We Lost — and What We Could Still Save

We lost businesses that were part of the fabric of American life.
We lost good jobs, stable careers, pensions, community institutions.

But more than anything, we lost trust.

Trust that the system would reward honest work.
Trust that building something real would be safer than looting something fragile.
Trust that if you played by the rules, you wouldn’t be thrown away when someone else wanted a bigger bonus.

Rebuilding that trust will be harder than passing any single law.

But it’s not impossible.

How We Rebuild

Expose the Heist

Make the system visible.
Call out the looting for what it is — not “bad management,” not “market forces,” but deliberate extraction.

Rein in Predators

Regulate leveraged buyouts.
Ban dividend recapitalizations.
Force real accountability onto private equity owners.

Strengthen Labor

Unions, worker co-ops, and employee ownership aren’t side issues — they’re bulwarks against looters.

Reclaim Public Investment

Stop handing public money to predatory firms through pension funds, subsidies, and tax breaks.
Invest in businesses that invest in people.

Refuse the False Choices

We don’t have to choose between corruption and collapse.
We can demand an economy — and a government — that rewards building, not looting.

The heist isn’t over.

But neither is the story.

If enough of us are willing to look clearly at what happened, name the culprits, and fight for something better, we don’t just stop the next heist.

We start rebuilding something that was stolen from us long ago:
an economy, a democracy, and a future worth trusting again.

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Meet the Real Adam Smith

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Choosing Our Future