Employees, Get Lost!

In the 80's, when so much of the bad economic behavior which has destroyed our economy began, the private equity firms were called something else:

But in the mid-1980s, Simmons caught the attention of a new type of
investor. The businesses that stormed corporate America in recent years under
the banner of private equity were not always called private equity firms. In the
1980s, they were known as leveraged buyout shops. Their strategy is essentially
unchanged, however: they try to buy undervalued companies, using mostly borrowed money, fix them up and sell them for a fast profit.

Because they pile debt onto the companies they buy, the firms free up
their own cash, allowing them to make additional investments and increase their
potential profits. Simmons’s first trip through the revolving door of
private equity came in 1986. Like the latest trip, it was not a pleasant one for
employees, but the buyers did just fine.