{"product_id":"plunder-brendan-ballou-9781541702110","title":"Plunder: Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"A damning indictment of private equity\" (New York Review of Books), this authoritative expos? shows what it is, how it kills businesses and jobs, how the government helps, and how we stop it.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e Private equity surrounds us. Firms like Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR are among the largest employers in America and hold assets that rival those of small countries. Yet few understand what these firms are or how they work. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In  \u003ci\u003ePlunder\u003c\/i\u003e, Brendan Ballou explains how private equity has reshaped American business by raising prices, reducing quality, cutting jobs, and shifting resources from productive to unproductive parts of the economy. Ballou vividly illustrates how private equity firms buy up retailers, medical practices, prison services, nursing-home chains, and mobile-home parks, among other businesses, using little of their own money to do it and avoiding debt and liability for their actions. Forced to take on huge debts and pay extractive fees, companies purchased by private equity firms are often left bankrupt or as shells of their former selves, with consequences for the communities that long depended on them. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Perhaps most startling is Ballou's insight into how this is happening with the active support of various arms of the government. But, as Ballou reveals in an agenda for reining in the industry, private equity can be stopped from wreaking further havoc. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Brendan Ballou\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1541702115\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781541702110\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e PublicAffairs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/06\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 368\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.25h x 5.50w x 0.92d","brand":"Brendan Ballou","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46141045473535,"sku":"9781541702110","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_2d7152b4-e7c8-41f2-abff-e9dd6c4fb684.jpg?v=1726597773","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/plunder-brendan-ballou-9781541702110","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}