How private equity looted America

The MoJo Daily newsletter, Monday through Friday. [View in browser]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter](     May 9, 2022 There once was a man from Nantucket. His name is David Rubenstein, actually, and he’s not dead or anything. It’s just that ever since I started reporting on the private equity industry for our latest magazine package, I’ve been seeing him everywhere. Rubenstein shows up on my Instagram in sponsored posts for the New York Historical Society, where he hosts regular “conversations” with newsmakers. He is reportedly considering buying the Washington Nationals, which would join a collection of trophies that includes an original Declaration of Independence. He hosts a TV show on Bloomberg News where he talks to successful people about success. It’s also available as a book. The logo for the show is a pair of black-frame spectacles, like the kind that Rubenstein wears, the implication of which is not just that David Rubenstein is serious and maybe near-sighted, but also that he is a brand. Oh, the glasses, you think; that’s classic Rubenstein. Why is he everywhere? The short answer is because he’s rich. The longer and more interesting answer is because of why he’s rich. Rubenstein is a co-founder of the Carlyle Group, one of the largest firms in an industry that has quietly been remaking the world. Carlyle’s private equity wing has $169 billion assets under management, in basically every industry. A Big Mac in China? That’s Carlyle. A T-shirt from Supreme? Also Carlyle. But before that, Rubenstein worked in Democratic politics. His connections with powerful figures in Washington provided the foundation for his wealth, and his wealth has in turn kept him connected with powerful figures. The White House chief of staff was recently on his show. So was John Kerry. As a staffer for President Jimmy Carter, Rubenstein [used to]( eat meals from the White House vending machine; now he owns the $30 million estate where President Joe Biden eats on Thanksgiving. (Also, it turns out, Carlyle is heavily invested in the vending machine space.) The reason I’m mentioning this guy you’ve never heard of is because the growth of private equity is not just the story of why you lost your job and why your new dentist sucks. I started reading about Rubenstein because I was writing about something called the [carried-interest loophole](, one weird trick that has allowed private equity managers to save billions of dollars on their taxes. It’s a ridiculous and deeply unpopular loophole. Each of the last three presidents promised to close it. Rubenstein, the New Yorker [reported](, was involved in saving it. In the grand scheme of things, the carried-interest loophole is a small thing. What’s a few billion dollars a year? But it’s the kind of small thing that tells a story about a lot of bigger things. It’s a story about how politics works, and who it works for. Carried interest is where the Democratic Party’s attempts at populist messaging collides head-first with its rolodex. And the rolodex is on one hell of a winning streak. —Tim Murphy Advertisement [House Subscriptions Ad]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [Everything Everywhere All at Once: How Private Equity Rules Your World]( From your favorite burger joint to your local dentist, PE titans are invested in almost everything you do. BY HANNAH LEVINTOVA AND TIM MURPHY [Trending] [Biden and Trump both trashed private equity's favorite tax dodge. Surprise! It's still here.]( BY TIM MURPHY   [Overturning Roe will ignite a legal civil war]( BY PEMA LEVY   [The next president of the Philippines? The son of a dictator.]( BY DAN SPINELLI   [These California condors just did something no California condor has done in 130 years]( BY TIM MURPHY Advertisement [House Donations Ad]( [Special Feature] [Special Feature]( [An Iowa powerbroker plans to make a windfall from piping ethanol emissions]( Landowners and environmentalists are joining together to oppose the “Midwest Carbon Express.” BY TOM PHILPOTT [Fiercely Independent] Support from readers allows Mother Jones to do journalism that doesn't just follow the pack. [Donate]( [Recharge] SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ONCE [Remembering George Pérez, a Superhero of Superhero Comics]( One of the first comics I remember reading was Crisis on Infinite Earths, an altogether ridiculous DC Comics series from the mid-’80s that featured approximately 1 billion characters fighting a villain named the Anti-Monitor. I don’t know why or how I stumbled upon a collected edition of those 12 comics, which require a PhD in dense comics lore to understand, but I absolutely loved them. And the reason why was George Pérez. For young fans like me, superhero comics felt like a secret passcode only you and your friends knew. Sure, the world might think this is silly, but to us, it’s the coolest thing going. How can you explain to someone what works about a bunch of weirdos in spandex fighting aliens or robots? It just does. Pérez, an iconic artist and writer who died Friday, at 67, following a battle with pancreatic cancer, was as important as anyone else in giving comics that sense of wonder and dynamism. His prolific career extended across decades at both major comics publishers, DC and Marvel, but his ’80s work is what I remember best. The ’80s was an incredible decade for superhero comics. The year Crisis wrapped up, DC started publishing two massively influential series: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, arguably the [most critically acclaimed comic]( of all time. Those comics, like much good art, revolutionized the form by making its competition look dated, overly simplistic, and morally suspect. Superheroes are not to be idealized or worshipped, Watchmen tells us. They are just as greedy and vain and violent as the rest of us. If anything, their power makes them act worse. But in Crisis and his long-running stint on The New Teen Titans, Pérez had an old-school appreciation for the joy of serialized superhero comics. His colorful characters burst off the page and sometimes barely fit on it—literally. His ability to draw crowd scenes, something other comics artists loathe, was legendary. In a time when superheroes have taken over popular culture, Pérez reminds us why they appealed to readers in the first place. Superhero comics are not just for children—[sorry](, Alan Moore—but at their best, they do evoke a sort of childlike wonder that is hard to explain. (Though when your boyfriend is 20 minutes into explaining the Doctor Strange post-credits scene, you may know what I mean.) I can’t remember much about Crisis or the individual issues of Teen Titans, but I know how important the characters felt to me. I was invested in Robin and Beast Boy and Raven as if they were longtime friends. Part of the beauty of comics—despite being an industry [rife]( [with]( [some]( not-so-beautiful things—is how easy it is for fans to come to know, or at least feel like they know, popular creators. When Pérez announced in December that his cancer was inoperable and that he had denied further treatment, I was struck by the unbelievable generosity he showed his fans. “I hope to coordinate one last mass book signing to help make my passing a bit easier,” he [wrote]( on Facebook. “I also hope that I will be able to make one last public appearance wherein I can be photographed with as many of my fans as possible, with the proviso that I get to hug each and every one of them. I just want to be able to say goodbye with smiles as well as tears.” The following months brought more Facebook updates as Pérez visited with fans and fellow comics creators like [Kurt Busiek](, with whom he published an amazing DC/Marvel crossover series featuring the Avengers and the Justice League. That series, like Pérez at his best, evoked the thrill of seeing your childhood dreams made manifest. I’ll never feel about today’s comics now the way I did as a kid. The ever-expanding superhero-industrial complex has robbed some of that context-free glee from the material, but every time I look at one of Pérez’s pages, I remember what made me sit next to a bookshelf in my parents’ basement, racing to see how the Anti-Monitor would be defeated. I don’t remember how the heroes won. I just remember how it made me feel. —Dan Spinelli Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by [forwarding]( it to a friend or sharing it on [Facebook]( and [Twitter](. [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755