Steve Roth has two related posts on the big rip-off

But is Unz talking about the financial industry and its government (particularly Republican) toadies? Of course not. That would be admitting that he and his movement are largely at fault for the problems he’s describing....

The financial industry, empowered and unleashed by that defanging (with American conservatives cheering and pushing every step of the way), has captured 20-40% of corporate profits over the last decade or so. But it’s the media that’s doing the extracting?All I can say is they’re not very damned good at it. Wouldn’t you expect the extractive elite to successfully . . . extract a lot of money into offshore bank accounts? Exactly which industry is doing that?

Some might find it significant that the word “banks” never appears in the article.

Read it at Asymptosis
The American Conservative: “Extractive Elites” and “Macro-Corruption”

by Steve Roth

The whole purpose of the private equity industry is to destroy the kind of mittelstand, long-lived, profitable, specialized, often family-owned and -operated companies that The Economist, Business Week, et al keep touting as the backbone of Germany’s remarkable success and resilience — its very “model of success.” Private equity’s model is to extract the expected future value of those companies in cash, while simultaneously, in most cases, destroying that value.

Mitt Romney, American Parasite, Destroys America’s Mittelstand

by Steve Roth