Is private equity as dangerous to your dog as Christy Nome?

Last time Louise took one of our pets to the vet, there was a cute little dog running around the clinic as if he owned the place.

She asked about him and it turned out that somebody had brought him in for a

medical problem but then wasn't able to pay the vet's bill. They simply left the dog

behind. The cost of veterinary medicine has been exploding since 20 in large part because that was

the year private equity firms began buying up vet clinics across the

country once acquired the clinics and pet hospitals are drained of assets by some of America's most morbidly rich individuals.

The simple result, higher prices for pet care.

Most people think private equity is essentially the same as venture capital.

The business investment model you see on TV shows like Shark Tank.

Venture capitalists invest their own or their companies money and startup companies

so the recipient company can use that money to bring a new

product to market, expand operations, and generally grow the business.

The venture capital deregulation lowering of capital gains taxes and lobbying facilitated by five

Republicans on the Supreme Court legalizing billionaires buying

legislation for members of Congress that even created an entirely new income tax loophole called carried interest

just for private equity managers.

In the truest sense, private equity represents capitalism run amok, what I've referred to in

several books as the cancer stage of

capitalism. The business model is somewhat complex so most Americans have no

idea what private equity is or how it works. I've tried to make it simpler with a somewhat

imperfect but hopefully clarifying analogy. Imagine this. Your next-door

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