These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Gretchen Morgenson and financial policy analyst Joshua Rosner investigate private equity and Wall Street corporate takeovers, examining how a small group of elite financiers and their government enablers use excessive debt and questionable practices to accumulate wealth while destabilizing the broader economy. These Are the Plunderers traces thirty years of corporate takeovers in America and private equity's growing dominance. The authors examine major private equity firms, detailing how they acquire companies, burden them with debt, and extract assets and profits while regulators and prosecutors remain inactive. Morgenson and Rosner document the negative consequences of private equity ownership across multiple sectors: employees face job losses and benefit cuts; companies are more likely to fail; healthcare costs rise for patients; nursing home residents experience worse outcomes; local economies suffer when private equity acquires key businesses; and public sector workers—teachers, firefighters, medical technicians—see reduced pension returns due to private equity fees. The book argues that private equity's practices harm the broader population while enriching a small financial elite.