Parties Split Over Public Inequities of Private Equity

PARTIES SPLIT OVER PUBLIC INEQUITIES OF PRIVATE EQUITY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Dale Russakoff]
As attention intensifies on the growing role of private equity in the U.S. economy, a House committee yesterday raised the question of whether the government should intervene to protect the interests of affected workers and communities. The hearing, "Private Equity's Effects on Workers and Firms," was planned weeks ago, and the discussion of exactly what, if anything, the government should do was tentative. Both critics and supporters of private-equity firms -- which use pools of investment capital to buy and run companies with growth potential and later sell them for a large profit -- acknowledged that there are no reliable data on the industry's overall impact on wages, benefits or jobs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR200705...
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