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After reading Thomas Piketty's theories on "Capital in the 21st Century," a lot of these issues have really come to light. Capital grows about 2-4% each year in real terms, while the economy (labor) in general grows 1-2%. i.e. if you own stuff (shares of companies, property (real or intangible), land, etc. etc.) your worth grow twice that of a working person. Compounded over 60 years (time after WW2), capital has grown ~100% more than labor. There is real generational wealth in America & the rest of the OECD world, and this wealth is growing at absurd rates. I'm not to lobby or claim that I have a solution or that wealth should be distributed. All I'm saying is there is a giant monkey in the room. And this isn't just and Elon or Bezos or Ivy League elite problem. There are even small $1-$10M blue collar businesses that no one could possibly start today even if you had the skills & knowledge with how money it would take to buy equipment, have a shop space / real estate, cash burn in the first few years, etc. I do think it is worrisome that businesses and its capital are largely going private. Public companies have much more scrutiny with the SEC, big labor, and has more checks & balances. It's also a vehicle for normal folks to invest money into a retirement plan; you can throw tens of thousands of dollars and actually own parts of major companies. I also think the economy of scale for PE is very worrisome. Many folks here have talked about Vet clinics, medical clinics, etc. When PE gets together, they can buy buy buy and bleed bleed bleed money until the competition is out, and then they can jack up prices to make the difference up. Thoughts / 2 cents. |