Plunder
Plunder is a powerful, evidence-based exposé of private equity: what it is, how it kills businesses and jobs, how the government helps, and how we stop it. Former federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou presents a compelling narrative of private equity firms causing price hikes, declining service quality, mass layoffs, pension cuts, and even bankruptcies in sectors like retail, healthcare, nursing homes, prisons, and mobile home parks. Ballou highlights government complicity, showing how regulatory and antitrust bodies often enable this exploitation, rather than curbing it. He also reveals in an agenda for reining in the industry, private equity can be stopped from wrecking further havoc.
ABOUT PLUNDER
Plunder is a well-sourced, compelling indictment of modern private equity’s extractive practices across multiple sectors.
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.
He combines eye-opening case studies, sharp structural analysis, and practical policy proposals to highlight how PE often prioritizes short-term profits at society’s expense, and how we can limit the damage.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
“Plunder is the right word, as Brendan Ballou lucidly explains in his infuriating, illuminating, essential book. And his practical plan for reining in this monstrous new centerpiece of our system makes total sense.”
―Kurt Andersen, author of Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America
“Ballou shows how these modern-day robber barons not only target the poor and serve themselves, but also bore into the foundations of our economy and society, weakening it for everyone. He ends with a stirring roadmap for reform.”
―Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica, author of The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives
“If you’re interested in understanding the hidden sources of our economic problems—and in fixing them—read this book.”
―Ganesh Sitaraman, professor of law, Vanderbilt University, and author of The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution
“Ballou has shown how private equity has been so phenomenally successful in advancing its agenda at every level of government, and how government has been so tremendously solicitous of private equity.”
―Russ Feingold, former senator, president of the American Constitution Society, and author of The Constitution in Jeopardy
“Crisp prosecutorial delivery…Ballou also does an admirably clear job detailing how private equity firms use legal wrangling to their advantage.”
―The New York Times
“A powerful, maddening account of some of the chief drivers of inequality and immiseration in the world's richest economy.”
―Kirkus