End Wall Street’s Stranglehold On Our Economy

Elizabeth Warren’s Plan to Rein in Wall Street

Here are some bullet points, but do yourself a favor and read the whole thing:

My plan would transform the private equity industry and end this looting with a comprehensive set of legal changes, including:

• Putting private equity firms on the hook for the debts of companies they buy, making them responsible for the downside of their investments so that they only make money if the companies they control flourish

• Holding private equity firms responsible for certain pension obligations of the companies they buy, so that workers have a better shot of getting the retirement funds they earned.

• Eliminating the ability of private equity firms to pay themselves huge monitoring fees and limiting their ability to pay out dividends to line their own pockets.

• Changing the tax rules so that private equity firms don’t get sweetheart tax rates on all the debt they put on the companies they buy.

• Modifying bankruptcy rules so that when companies go bust, workers have a better shot at getting pay and benefits and executives can’t pocket special bonuses.

• Preventing lenders and investment managers from making reckless loans to private equity-owned companies already swimming in debt and then passing along the danger to the market by requiring them to retain some of the

  risk

  .

• Empowering investors like pension funds with better information about the performance and effects of private equity investments and preventing private equity funds from requiring investors to waive their fiduciary obligations.

• Closing the carried interest loophole that lets firm managers pay ultra-low tax rates on the money they loot.