Fully 20% of American business is now controlled by private equity, which is draining billions out of our economy every week to stash in the money bins of its morbidly rich owners... The last time Louise took one of our pets to the vet, there was a cute little dog running around the clinic as if he owned the place. She asked about him, and it turned out that somebody had brought him in for a medical problem but then wasn't able to pay the vet's bill; they simply left the dog behind. The cost of veterinary medicine has been exploding since 2020, in large part because that was the year private equity firms began buying up vet clinics across the country. Once acquired, the clinics and pet hospitals are drained of assets by some of America's most morbidly rich individuals. The simple result: higher prices for pet care. Most people think private equity is essentially the same as venture capital, the business/investment model you see on TV shows like Shark Tank. Venture capitalists invest their own (or their company's) money in startup companies so the recipient company can use that money to bring a new product to market, expand operations, and generally grow the business. The venture capital investors make their return by the company growing and thus increasing the value of its stock. Private equity, however, is an entirely different animal, borne out of Reagan era deregulation, lowering of capital gains taxes, and lobbying — facilitated by five Republicans on the Supreme Court legalizing billionaires buying legislation from members of Congress — that even created an entirely new income tax loophole called "carried interest" just for private equity managers.