From Wikipedia: "Bloomberg Businessweek has called private equity a rebranding of leveraged-buyout firms after the 1980s. Common investment strategies in priva

From Wikipedia: "Bloomberg Businessweek has called private equity a rebranding of leveraged-buyout firms after the 1980s. Common investment strategies in private equity include: leveraged buyouts, venture capital, growth capital, distressed investments and mezzanine capital." So this is just a continuation of the Gordon Gekko LBO firms, made possible by the deregulation of Wall St that occurred around that time. No surprise here. The Wall St genie is out of the bottle, and it will continue to wreak havoc until we have another Great Depression.