Elizabeth Warren - “Stop Wall Street Looting Act”

My personal answer is I am going to have to wait to see what happens next year and what happens to the tax rate in the New York area or basically in the United States. If it is absolutely unreasonable, I will leave and I will tell you where. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez said who needs more than $10 Million and Bernie Sanders is suggesting 70%+ on millionaires/billionaires? It will take time to answer this question.

Good point, the problem is not people having money, it is the fact that politicians allow themselves to be influenced by the investor/donor class more than the average american or an organization of average Americans.

While this proposal would personally affect my employment prospects I can't deny that there are a lot of negative effects of private equity that likely offset most of the positive ones.

Negatives 1) Job Loss- the most common strategy in PE always involves job cuts. I can count on my hands how many deals that I've looked at that didn't have some sort of synergies / cost savings which were primarily headcount related. Popular PE plays such as roll ups in fragmented industries always result in job losses which leads to my next point;

2) Consolidation and pricing power- consolidation being a popular strategy always leads to higher prices for consumers and businesses in the end. Sure you get benefits of economies of scale (and dont raise prices) and there maybe improved service / product but in the end if you go from 100 providers to 10-20 (or less) prices will always go up.

3) Over reliance on debt- I'm much more impressed by operator driven shops vs those that just bring financial engineering to the table and hope for a quick flip by timing the market. The era of low interest rates has created a huge number of zombie companies that are way over levered. They cant grow out of the debt as there is no cash flow they can invest into new products so they just chug along hoping that rates stay low.

The retail industry has been decimated by eCommerce but PE had a big role in it too by over levering companies giving them little wiggle room to adjust to new customer trends or put money into online platforms / re design their stores. Toys' R US , Sears to name a few were milked to the bone (mgt fees, dividends, sales lease backs on real estate), while employees and creditors were ultimately left holding the bag. These examples are not widely understood so populist anger hasn't manifested itself vs PE as it has against Banks.

4) Shrinking of public markets- Increasingly retail investors, your mom and pops so to say have fewer and fewer picking to choose from as the assets they can invest in ( at low cost) have shrunk as demonstrated by decline in # of publicly listed companies. At the same time private markets have grown driven by the exponential growth in PE and alternative investments. This effectively locks out majority of the populace from being able to benefit from a large sector of the economy and thus locks in gains for the select few. With $2 trillion of dry powder in PE funds out there this will only continue.

**Positives **

1) Higher Returns for Pension funds and public investment vehicles. In an era of low rates and under-performance in traditional investments (bonds, equities) PE (and real estate) has been driving outsize returns, albeit with high fees. This directly benefits retirees and public finances, especially in states were pension funds are severely underfunded.

2) Turnaround of Distressed Assets - As others have mentioned PE takes the risk on a lot of assets that were in bad shape, rescuing those businesses ( if possible) and thus jobs in the process.

3) Professionalizing operations - this is more true in lower middle market PE where family run companies are running inefficiently or not being ambitious enough. Shrewd operators can make all the difference and push the business to the next level, while creating value and jobs in the process.

There are likely some other positives that i'm missing or dont want to expand on (efficient markets, etc).

She is not dumb or a moron. She's disingenuous. She knows this would have ramifications that would wreak havoc on the financial system, but she proposes it anyway to get sound byte brownie points from those who don't know any better.

She would lose a debate against a U-Penn graduate in Economics even if she is a Harvard Lawyer. What does a lawyer know about the market? She would never win a debate against Trump. Hillary Clinton lost the debate against Trump as a Yale Lawyer. Trump would destroy her.

See where her campaign funding and financial support for the DNC comes from and you'll see that this law makes no sense if taken at face value.

Lol as if this being one's area of focus throughout one's time in congress means anything. I strongly suggest you go back and watch the post crisis senate hearings, particularly GS and another that included most of the CEO's/Chairmen. "We can't actually do that because it's illegal." - John Mack having to remind the lawmakers about their own laws pertaining to holding underwritten securities on the IB's own books.