SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
private equity
In Viral Video, Journalist Ronan Farrow Explains How Private Equity Is Destroying Hospitals
"These deals produce harm reliably enough that researchers can now count it."
Jul 08, 2026
Investigative journalist Ronan Farrow on Tuesday published a video on social media where he examines how private equity firms have been buying up hospitals throughout the US and saddling them with enormous debt burdens.
At the start of the video, Farrow notes that private equity firms such as The Carlyle Group, Cerberus, and Pinta have acquired hundreds of hospitals and nursing homes over the last 20 years.
"The pitch is generally: Infuse capital, cut inefficiency, and exit in five to seven years," Farrow explains. "And the deals work like this: A private equity firm puts some of its own money and borrows the rest. Typically, it'll borrow more than 70% of the purchase price."
"The twist is that debt doesn't sit on the firm's books," Farrow continues. "It gets placed on the facility itself, so the hospital or nursing home now carries the debt and the interest on it."
Studies now present a striking picture of what happens when private equity firms acquire hospitals and nursing homes: predictable increases in harm and deaths. One landmark study shows: patient deaths up about 11% after such acquisitions. pic.twitter.com/N6yfXJQIwW
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) July 7, 2026
Farrow then cites research published by The Review of Financial Studies in 2023, which found healthcare facilities saw their interest payments more than triple after being acquired by private equity firms.
"In many cases," Farrow says, "private equity firms sold the nursing home's building shortly after acquiring it, returning the proceeds to investors, and then charging the facility rent on the building it used to own."
In addition to added debt burdens placed on hospitals and nursing homes, Farrow adds, the 2023 study found that private equity firms also cut staff hours after acquiring facilities, which has hurt patient care.
"The authors... found that private equity ownership can increase patient mortality by up to 11%," he says. "Over the study period, that translated to more than 20,000 lives lost."
Farrow then points to a 2025 study that found salaries of emergency room workers fall by an average of 18% in hospitals acquired by private equity firms, while hospital-acquired infections and complications rose by 25%.
Farrow concedes that not all private-equity deals turn out poorly and that some of the facilities are already in distress before being acquired.
However, he warns that "these deals produce harm reliably enough that researchers can now count it," adding that "so far, the industry has moved faster than the rules."
Research published Monday by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) warned that private equity firms have been increasingly relying on nonprofit joint ventures to expand their reach throughout the US healthcare industry and "siphon profits from health systems and critical healthcare infrastructure."
"Private equity's healthcare playbook is evolving,” said Jim Baker, executive director of PESP. “Our research documents how private equity has increasingly relied on joint ventures with nonprofits to expand its presence in healthcare. These arrangements have received far less attention than traditional private equity buyouts, even as they become more common across hospitals and other healthcare sectors."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Platner Says His Anti-Private Equity Ad Targeting Red Sox Owners Was 'Taken Down' During Game Broadcast
"Private equity is destroying our favorite baseball team, stripping them for parts," Democratic US Senate candidate Platner said in an ad that aired on the New England Sports Network.
May 23, 2026
Maine Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner on Saturday said that a campaign ad that aired during a Boston Red Sox game was "taken down" after it took aim at the team's ownership.
The ad in question features Platner discussing the role that private equity firms play in the US economy, including sports teams.
"Private equity is destroying our favorite baseball team, stripping them for parts," Platner says at the start of the ad. "Private equity is buying up our homes, our sports, and our lives. I will reverse the private equity curse."
Private equity is taking our homes. It's taking our hospitals. It's taking beloved local businesses and stripping them for parts.
And now private equity is running the Red Sox into the ground.
Our new ad ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/w7LapElpdA
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 22, 2026
Platner concludes the ad by saying that he approves this message "because I miss Mookie Betts," the star player whom the Red Sox traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020 in a deal that was widely decried by local fans as a salary dump.
According to Platner, his campaign began airing the ad Friday on the New England Sports Network (NESN), the cable TV station owned partially by Fenway Sports Group, the conglomerate that owns the Red Sox.
However, he said that "midway through the game the ad was taken down" by NESN, after which the Red Sox proceeded to blow a 4-0 lead, losing to the Minnesota Twins by a final score of 8-6.
Platner, an oyster farmer and upstart candidate who has never before held political office, became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for the 2026 US Senate race in Maine last month after his top rival, Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills, dropped out of the race.
In recent weeks, Platner has pivoted to challenging incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has held the seat since 1996 and is now running for her sixth term in office.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Why Did We Stand in the Freezing Rain and Snow? Healthcare
In Colorado and all over the country, we gathered to demand that those who vote to take our healthcare away will be held accountable.
May 08, 2026
What we say at rallies and meetings with people who could help, but rarely do, is sometimes abstract and loaded with policy discussions that muddle even interested advocates at times. Healthcare in Colorado and all over the country is not only taking a hit with provisions of the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress in 2024 beginning to take effect, the healthcare industry is also still and increasingly one of the most profitable investment opportunities and nearly one-fifth of our GDP, or gross domestic product, flows from the healthcare industry. Private equity is in. Wall Street is in. It is as though the health industry CEOs and the elected officials they fund know exactly how to play the market to win. Human life is on the balance sheet bottom line buried in accounting lingo and those gorgeous profit terms.
Medicaid cuts hurt people. Medicaid cuts hurt communities. And on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, Coloradans were busy explaining the pain. Some were in warm conference rooms at Denver Health with a United States senator, and some were in the cold rain outside a clinic that could suffer or even close because of the cuts.
Cut losses; maximize gains. We are human widgets—forget the AI revolution if you have ignored the business insurgency into every aspect of the healthcare industry. We all needed to learn the language of greed and profit taking without regard for human life, and all the while we argued lives were lost without coverage. Those numbers of sacrificial dead are no match for the billions and yes, trillions, of dollars wagered, won, and lost making sure that final bottom line looks sexy.
So, in Colorado and all over the country, we gathered to demand those who vote to take our healthcare away will be held accountable. We may be widgets to the bean counters, but to one another and across multiple states and organizations, we stood together against the storm. In Westminster, Colorado, it was freezing rain and chilly, but we stood and carried on.
We intend to love one another enough to make sure human life is the profit we value more than the almighty dollar.
Dr. Vince Markovchick ran the emergency medicine department at Denver Health for 26 years. Think about what he must have seen and heard over time. Human life saved. The care not given when a patient tells the doctor they cannot afford the care or missing work or groceries if they allow care for a serious illness or injury. That is what Dr. Markovchick spoke about. Tender mercies delayed and shared as the rain briefly paused as we listened, as if the universe cared too. (Meanwhile, safe and sound and warm, in the hospital where he gave his professional life for us all, Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) held an invitation only round table on the Medicaid cuts. Even the press stayed nice and warm and didn’t come to witness the more than 25 Coloradans who gathered in the cold.)
Lydia Guzman spoke with passion and fire about the damage she saw and sees in lives without access to care; Tyler Quick spoke to us about the issues the LGBTQ+ community faces in receiving not only gender affirming care but HIV prevention and care. We might weep for his reminder to us that what happens in the LGBTQ+ community will also spread to the straight community and others among us. Like it or not, no human is an island. Nope. We are the human community.
What do we demand together in this drippy, difficult weather? We spoke clearly, “Stop Taking Our Healthcare.” No more beautiful bills taking benefits away; no more enforcement of policies in unrelated ways to healthcare delivery; and no more healthcare dollars wasted on business measures like advertising, stockholder pleasures, “inducements” for prescribing or procedures, lobbying expenses for policies passed or policies blocked, or even baubles and freebies when you table with your wares at all those conferences.
Then, we would be fine with seeing that end of the healthcare industry given over to actual delivery of care—for us all. And we intend to stay loud. We intend to be seen. And we intend to love one another enough to make sure human life is the profit we value more than the almighty dollar.
Keep ReadingShow Less
New Trump Rule Would Let Private Equity, Crypto ‘Endanger Retirement Savings of Millions'
“This isn’t about advancing the interests of retirement savers, it is about opening a new profit center for crypto and Wall Street," said one critic.
Mar 31, 2026
US President Donald Trump's Labor Department on Monday unveiled a proposal that would welcome private equity and cryptocurrency investments into Americans' 401(k) plans, the culmination of an aggressive Wall Street lobbying push that could leave the retirement savings of millions vulnerable to the wild swings of so-called "alternative assets."
The proposed rule, now subject to a public comment period, was issued at the direction of a Trump executive order from last year that was characterized at the time as "the holy grail for private equity."
In addition to giving employers a green light to include private equity and crypto investments in 401(k) plans offered to workers, the new rule would establish a "safe harbor" allowing retirement account administrators to avoid legal action from employees who believe their funds were steered into excessively risky products.
"The legal immunity created by this safe harbor will incentivize financial advisers to pitch these toxic products, which will become ticking time bombs in tens of millions of retirement accounts, which will no doubt result in significant losses," warned Benjamin Schiffrin, director of securities policy at the advocacy group Better Markets. "There are good reasons why 401(k) plans have been considered closed to private markets and cryptocurrencies, and those reasons have not changed. The only thing that has changed is the administration’s support for these industries and regulators’ willingness to do their bidding."
"This is no reason to endanger the retirement savings of millions of Americans," Schiffrin added.
Oscar Valdés Viera, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, similarly warned that "opening 401(k)s to these products risks turning workers’ retirement savings into a Ponzi-like scheme that throws a lifeline to an industry scrambling for fresh cash."
"This isn’t about advancing the interests of retirement savers, it is about opening a new profit center for crypto and Wall Street," said Viera. "Retirement savers should not be bailing out these high-risk industries and subsidizing the Wall Street and crypto billionaire class."
"Private equity firms should not get a free pass to loot workers’ 401(k) retirement savings."
Americans currently hold over $10 trillion combined in 401(k) plans, a huge trove of wealth that the private equity industry has been working for years to access. The Labor Department indicated that its proposed rule would apply to over 720,000 retirement plans covering roughly 118 million workers.
The American Prospect reported Tuesday that the managers of private equity firms are "already pressuring companies, third-party administrators, and the consultants who advise them to list their offerings" among workers' retirement plan options.
"One staffer at an institutional investor who is not authorized to speak to the media told the Prospect about their primary worry: that private equity will stick their most overvalued companies into continuation funds exclusively for 401(k) plan holders, or 'retail investors,' as they are known," the outlet continued. "Private credit firms are retailoring their funds for 401(k) plans as well, and some of the biggest have already struck deals with asset managers like Voya and Vanguard. 'I’d be shocked if the industry doesn’t attempt to dump their garbage onto retail,' the staffer said."
One recent analysis by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) found that private equity funds for retail investors "dramatically underperformed publicly listed stock indexes" in 2025 while charging much higher fees.
Jim Baker, PESP's executive director, said Monday that "private equity firms should not get a free pass to loot workers’ 401(k) retirement savings."
“The bar for including private equity in 401(k)s should be extremely high,” said Baker. “Private equity funds have lagged public markets while charging much higher fees, and public pension funds are pulling back from the asset class. Instead, this rule risks shifting more financial risk onto workers who rely on their retirement savings for long-term security.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also ripped the Labor Department rule, saying in a statement that "Americans facing an uncertain future in Trump’s economy will now have more reasons to question the security of their retirement savings—all so that Trump’s Wall Street buddies have another pile of cash to play with."
"Anyone who cares about the financial security of working people," said Warren, "should oppose this proposed rule."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Senate Probe Launched Into Soaring Childcare Costs Driven by Private Equity Takeover
“Private equity firms have increasingly brought their playbook to essential care industries," warns Sen. Jeff Merkley, by rolling local childcare centers nationwide "into large chains, and prioritizing investor profits over the well-being of the families.”
Mar 24, 2026
US Sen. Jeff Merkley announced the launch of a new investigation into the role of private equity firms in making childcare increasingly unaffordable for American families.
Merkley, the Oregon Democrat who serves as ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, sent letters to KinderCare Learning Companies and Learning Care Group (LCG), the two largest childcare companies controlled by private equity firms, seeking information about the impact of the relentless profit-seeking of their owners on day-to-day business decisions.
Among other things, Merkley wants the companies to provide insight into the influence that their private equity owners exert over facility acquisition, expansion plans, staffing levels, employee wages and benefits; and capital investments.
Merkley is also asking the companies to "describe how tuition increases... are determined and whether financial obligations to lenders or owners are considered in pricing decisions." He also noted that both KinderCare and LCG faced serious accusations of mismanagement in multiple states.
KinderCare, which is owned by Switzerland-based private equity firm Partners Group, has been cited by state regulators in Indiana and Wisconsin for maintaining facilities with "inadequate supervision, staff-to-child ratio violations, unsafe or unsanitary conditions, and failures to report or respond appropriately to alleged abuse," Merkley wrote.
LCG, which is owned by private equity firm American Securities, operates facilities that have been reported for health and safety violations in numerous states, including Georgia, Missouri, and Texas, Merkley noted, "with incidents involving children left unattended on buses, supervision failures, and alleged physical abuse by staff."
Merkley said he was concerned that the failings at these facilities were being driven by the profit considerations at Partners Group and American Securities.
"Private equity firms have increasingly brought their playbook to essential care industries," said Merkley, "buying up independent providers, rolling them into large chains, and prioritizing investor profits over the well-being of the families and communities that depend on these services."
The senator urged both the childcare companies and their private equity owners to "fully cooperate with this investigation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
After Helping Convince Trump to Attack Iran, Kushner Solicits Billions for His Private Equity Firm
"While US servicemembers die in another forever war in the Middle East, Donald Trump’s 'peace envoy' is raising money for his private equity firm," wrote US Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Mar 16, 2026
Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, is reportedly trying to entice governments in the Middle East to invest billions in his private equity firm while he simultaneously works as "a special envoy for peace"—a role he appears to have used to help convince Trump to wage war on Iran.
The New York Times reported late last week that Kushner "has spoken with potential investors in recent weeks about raising $5 billion or more for Affinity Partners, his investment firm."
Citing five unnamed people with knowledge of the talks, the Times reported that "Affinity’s representatives have already met with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund," Affinity's largest investor. Saudi Arabia's leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, reportedly played a significant role in the behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign urging Trump to attack Iran—Saudi Arabia's top regional rival.
Bin Salman controls the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which pumped $2 billion into Kushner's firm in 2022.
"Mr. Kushner’s fundraising is expected to stretch on for the better part of this year," the Times added. "The efforts show the blurring of the lines between public service and private profit-seeking during Mr. Trump’s second term. Only a few weeks ago, in his role as Mr. Trump’s 'peace envoy,' Mr. Kushner met in Geneva with Iran’s foreign minister. The US and Israeli bombing campaign in Iran began shortly after those meetings concluded without a deal on Iran’s nuclear program."
Last week, Trump said he decided to attack Iran in coordination with Israel—whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is a personal friend of Kushner's—because the president "thought they were going to attack us," a view he claimed to have reached after listening to "what Steve [Witkoff] and Jared and Pete [Hegseth] and others were telling me."
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in response to the Times reporting that "while US servicemembers die in another forever war in the Middle East, Donald Trump’s 'peace envoy' is raising money for his private equity firm."
Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, wrote in a social media post on Sunday that a "fair and equitable deal" between the US and Iran "was within reach" before Trump and Netanyahu started bombing.
"Those providing poor advice to POTUS are responsible for bloodshed," Araghchi wrote, attaching a screenshot of the Times story on Kushner's fundraising efforts. "This war is imposed on both Americans and Iranians."
I've been told that family of a U.S. soldier killed in the war of choice on Iran is relying on public donations.
As fair and equitable deal was within reach, those providing poor advice to POTUS are responsible for bloodshed.
This war is imposed on both Americans and Iranians. pic.twitter.com/fR15XKjfYk
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) March 15, 2026
Judd Legum, founder and author of the Popular Information newsletter, noted last week that Kushner's participation in the Geneva diplomatic talks that preceded the US-Israeli assault on Iran "violated his pledge not to be involved in foreign policy in a second Trump administration."
On Monday, Legum observed that Kushner also said in December 2024 that his private equity firm would not "have to raise capital for the next four years," allowing him to "avoid any conflicts" of interest.
Trump formally named Kushner a "special envoy for peace" last month, a move that means the president's son-in-law is now required by law to file a financial disclosure report. Kushner has just days left before the 30-day deadline to file the disclosure.
Donald Sherman, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote in a letter to the White House last week that "Mr. Kushner’s history of financial gains resulting from his time as a White House advisor during President Trump’s first term raises serious concerns about potential conflicts of interest that must be addressed before Mr. Kushner participates in any additional matters that may relate to his own financial interests or those of his investors."
"The risk of Mr. Kushner’s potential conflicts is particularly concerning because his private investment firm has very publicly done significant business with foreign partners who also have interests in the conflicts on which he has been assigned to work," Sherman noted.
Keep ReadingShow Less
We're Renting Our Lives Away to Enrich Tech Lords and Wall Street Oligarchs
In the new, out-of-control rental economy, the product is often just bait. The real commodity, the real profit center, the real source of unending corporate cash flow is you.
Dec 30, 2025
On Sunday, both President Donald Trump and his secretary of Housing and Urban Development told us that 50-year home mortgages may soon be a thing. While seemingly insane (you could end up paying more than three times the cost of the house and never escape the burden of debt before you die), this is just the latest iteration of one of American businesses’ most profitable scams: the rental economy.
It’s a growing threat to the American middle class that rarely gets named, even as it reshapes our lives every day. Over the past two decades, it’s snuck in quietly, disguised as convenience, efficiency, and “innovation.”
As a result, nothing is “ours” any more. Instead, we’re renting our lives away.
There was a time when you bought things.
It’s become a never-ending extraction of money and personal data from each of us, every month, every year, time after time, over and over again until we’re financially exhausted.
You bought a house, a book, a record, a car, a word processing program. You paid once, took it home or lived in it, and it was yours. If the company went out of business, your stereo still worked. If the manufacturer didn’t get their annual payment, your computer didn’t lock you out of your own words. You could read books on your phone or pad without an internet connection to “confirm your purchase.”
That America is disappearing.
Today, almost everything that used to be a purchase has become a rental.
Take Microsoft Word. Decades ago, you bought it once and used it for years. Now it’s a monthly fee. Stop paying, and you may not even be able to open documents you wrote yourself. Adobe did the same thing. So did music, movies, and television. At first, it felt like convenience; a few dollars a month didn’t seem like a big deal.
Even the latest versions of the two major computer operating systems are essentially spyware, constantly tracking everything you do while demanding that you put all your personal information on their “cloud” servers.
Instead of buying homes, people are renting because, in part, massive New York hedge funds and foreign investors are purchasing as many as half of all the homes that come available for sale in some communities, and then flipping them into rentals. Renters can end up on the hook for their entire lives.
Even the means to get a good job—a college education—has become something you must pay for over a period of decades or even a lifetime instead of the pay-as-you-go model my generation had before Ronald Reagan gutted federal aid to higher ed. We now have almost $2 trillion in student debt—the only developed nation in the world that does this to its students—and I regularly get calls into my radio program from people in their 70s still paying off their student debt.
But this change was never really just about money. It has morphed over the past decades into a new form of corporate control over our lives and our wealth. It’s become a never-ending extraction of money and personal data from each of us, every month, every year, time after time, over and over again until we’re financially exhausted.
When you own something, you decide how it’s used. When you rent, someone else makes that choice. They can raise prices, change terms, remove features, track everything you do with it, or shut it off entirely. Your “choice” becomes compliance.
The billionaire Tech Bros and Wall Street are hoping we’ll all just roll over, sign up, and let them ding our credit cards until our dying day.
That same model has spread everywhere.
Cars used to be machines you owned. Now they’re rolling computers with features like heated seats, remote start, or performance upgrades locked behind monthly fees. Similarly, cars are increasingly leased instead of purchased. Miss your payment this month and the lender will remotely disable “your” vehicle. Your car doesn’t just take you places anymore: It reports on you.
Phones are even worse. They’re not just devices; they’re gatekeepers. Apps can be removed. Accounts can be banned. Services can disappear overnight. And because so much of modern life runs through that phone—banking, work, navigation, healthcare—being cut off isn’t an inconvenience. It’s a functional exclusion from society.
This extends from major things like our cars and homes to simple things like apps. Louise loves to play Scrabble on her phone, and would gladly pay a one-time fee for an app that doesn’t throw ads at her, track and sell her information, or demand constant interaction. Instead, since the old Scrabble app she’s used for years went to a rental model, she’s gone through a half-dozen apps, each worse than the last at demanding her interactions or throwing ads.
And to add insult to injury, layered on top of this rental business model is a vast, multibillion-dollar industry harvesting our personal information.
Every website you visit. Every app you download. Every product you register just to make it work. Your location, habits, preferences, relationships, and even emotional responses are tracked, analyzed, packaged, and sold. Most often without meaningful consent, and almost always without real alternatives.
This is not how American capitalism worked for over 250 years.
The question business leaders used to ask was simple: “What unmet needs do people have that our company can satisfy with a new product or service?” You built something useful, people bought it, and that was the deal.
Today, the question has changed: “How do we make our product so essential that people can’t function without it, then crush or buy out our competitors so there’s no real consumer choice, then charge a monthly fee forever, all while extracting user data we can sell for even more profit?”
That’s not innovation. It’s parasitism.
If everything we touch is leased, freedom is just another fee.
In this model, the product is often just bait. The real commodity, the real profit center, the real source of unending corporate cash flow is you.
And because the billionaire “Tech Bros” and Wall Street oligarchs control the products, the data, and increasingly our nation’s news and social media, they also control the content and algorithms that shape public opinion.
As a result, social media and even our news (think CBS, the Washington Post, the LA Times, Fox “News”) increasingly doesn’t just reflect reality, they engineer it to get us to think of this new rental economy as normal, as innovative, as The Way Things Should Be.
In addition to profitably amplifying outrage, profitably distorting truth, and polishing the public image of this new rental economy—all to create billions in ongoing month-after-month profits—America’s billionaire tech lords and the right-wing politicians they bankroll (thanks to five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court) are manufacturing our consent (to apply Noam Chomsky’s phrase).
Thomas Jefferson warned that people are inclined to suffer evils while they are sufferable rather than abolish the forms to which they’ve grown accustomed. The billionaire Tech Bros and Wall Street are hoping we’ll all just roll over, sign up, and let them ding our credit cards until our dying day.
It’s gotten so bad that apps—which also acquire and then sell our data—have emerged that track our “subscriptions” so we can try to get it all under control. They’re advertising them on TV every day: Get this app to find out what apps are secretly extracting your cash because you long ago forgot you clicked on that link.
None of this was inevitable.
The solution is not to smash technology or retreat into the past. It’s for government to once again work for the 99% instead of the 1%. That means once again regulating money in politics, private equity, social media, data harvesting, and the out-of-control rental economy that has replaced ownership.
It means breaking monopolies, restoring regulatory independence, making education affordable, supporting home and car ownership, and reaffirming that democracy—not billionaires—sets the rules of the road.
Technology should serve human freedom, not manage it. Markets should reward service and quality of content, not extraction. People should be able to choose to pay or not to pay for things from apps to the functionality of your car or home’s HVAC system.
Nothing is ours any more. Not the road, not the floor. If everything we touch is leased, freedom is just another fee.
If we don’t act to regulate this out-of-control rental economy, we may one day realize we didn’t lose our wealth and even our democracy all at once: We simply rented our way out of it.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sanders Slams Private Equity Scrooges Ending Paid Holidays for Walgreens Workers
"While the rich get richer, workers are struggling, and your decision to cut workers' paid vacation is making the problem worse."
Dec 23, 2025
Independent US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday urged the private equity firm that recently acquired Walgreens to reverse its decision to strip hourly workers at the second-largest US pharmacy chain of paid days off on Christmas and other major holidays.
After Sycamore Partners finalized its $10 billion purchase of Walgreens in late August, the pharmacy chain—now headed by CEO Mike Motz—eliminated paid holidays for New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Workers were notified of the move, which was first reported by Bloomberg, in October.
The move is typical of what private equity firms—sometimes called vulture capitalists—often do in order to maximize profits. In addition to slashing paid time off and benefits, they often reduce or freeze pay, fire workers, close locations, introduce aggressive sales targets, and reduce job security by replacing full-time positions with hourly or independently contracted workers. Walgreens announced last year that it planned on closing around 1,200 of its roughly 8,000 US stores, citing their struggling performance.
"This Thanksgiving, Walgreens' hourly workers faced the impossible choice between losing pay and spending the holiday with their loved ones," Sanders (Vt.)—who is the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee—wrote Tuesday in a letter to Sycamore Partners founder and managing director Stefan Kaluzny.
"Walgreens employs 220,000 employees, the vast majority of whom are hourly workers... Sycamore Partners' decision to cut paid holidays for these hourly workers is unfortunately not surprising," the senator continued. "The firm follows the private equity playbook of buying businesses and aggressively extracting profit while using and abusing workers."
"For example, just one year after Sycamore Partners purchased Staples, the firm extracted $1 billion from the company as it closed 100 stores and laid off 7,000 workers," Sanders noted. "That same year, Sycamore Partners drove Nine West into bankruptcy and was accused of siphoning off over $1 billion in funds."
"Meanwhile, from 2016-22, companies owned by Sycamore Partners racked up over $3 million in labor violations, including wage-and-hour and workplace safety and health violations," he added.
During the holiday season, we all want to spend time with our loved ones. And yet, just two months after buying Walgreens for $10 billion, the private equity firm Sycamore Partners stripped hourly workers of paid vacation, including Christmas and New Year’s Day. Shameful.
[image or embed]
— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) December 23, 2025 at 9:41 AM
Sanders contrasted a reality in which "60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck" with the fact that "more private equity managers make over $100 million annually than investment bankers, top financial executives, and professional athletes combined."
"While the rich get richer, workers are struggling, and your decision to cut workers' paid vacation leave is making the problem worse," he stressed. "Some Walgreens workers make as little as $15 an hour. Cutting their paid leave will make it even more difficult for these workers to pay for housing, childcare, healthcare, and groceries."
"In short," Sanders concluded, "Sycamore Partners is forcing workers to sacrifice their basic needs for private equity profit."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Why Walgreens’ New CEO Should Alarm Us
The man who oversaw massive store closures and job cuts at Staples is now in charge of one of America’s most important companies.
Dec 11, 2025
Sycamore Partners finalized its $18.8 billion acquisition of Walgreens this summer, relying on a staggering amount of debt to close the deal. However, a more innocuous decision may be the real warning sign that could spell doom for Walgreens and its workers: Sycamore installed Mike Motz, the CEO of Staples US Retail—another company it owns—as Walgreens’ new chief executive.
That appointment should alarm every patient, pharmacist, and community that depends on Walgreens. Motz took over at Staples US Retail in April 2019, the same month that Sycamore Partners added debt to Staples’ balance sheet to extract a $1 billion dividend for itself. Under Sycamore’s ownership, Staples has shuttered a third of its US stores, cutting tens of thousands of jobs. Just this September, Staples subsidiary Essendant announced hundreds of layoffs in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, New Jersey. If 33% of Walgreens stores were to close, the fallout could be catastrophic: more than 70,000 layoffs and communities losing access to pharmacies and essential medications.
Sycamore Partners has developed a reputation for squeezing cash out of its acquisitions at the expense of long-term stability. The firm's history already contains documented, high-profile bankruptcies and mass layoffs. Belk and Nine West both went bankrupt while under Sycamore’s control. At Nine West, bankruptcy meant the closure of 70 stores and widespread layoffs. Belk, which Sycamore Partners acquired in a leveraged buyout in 2015, filed for bankruptcy in 2021 with $1.9 billion in funded debt. Aeropostale, meanwhile, claimed that onerous terms from Sycamore’s apparel sourcing arm helped drive it into bankruptcy.
Staples, one of Sycamore’s best-known acquisitions, has endured years of store closures since being taken private in 2017. With Sycamore in control, Staples closed roughly 33% of its stores. The decision to put the Staples CEO in charge of Walgreens signals that the same corporate strategy of mass closures may now be applied to one of America’s most important healthcare access points. The problem is not only who is running Walgreens, but also the strategy that the new executive represents.
The Walgreens acquisition is one of the largest private equity healthcare buyouts in history. That makes its outcome a bellwether for how Wall Street’s debt-fueled model could continue to reshape the healthcare sector.
Sycamore’s portfolio companies have also been cited repeatedly for workplace safety failures. Staples alone has had 37 Occupational Safety and Health Administration violations totaling more than $192,000 in fines since Sycamore acquired it—23 of them classified as serious, meaning hazards that could cause severe injury or death. Across Sycamore’s retail holdings, the absence of significant union representation has left workers without a collective voice to push back against these conditions.
Beyond leadership, the financial engineering behind this deal sets Walgreens up for trouble. Sycamore Partners relied on more than 70% debt ($13.33 billion out of $18.8 billion) to fund its acquisition of Walgreens, which is an unusually high level, compared to recent private equity buyouts. That level of leverage puts Walgreens on unstable footing from day one.
The risks of the usage of high levels of debt in private equity takeovers is well-documented. In the first quarter of this year alone, 70% of large US corporate bankruptcies involved private equity-owned companies. These bankruptcies followed a familiar script: Firms borrowed heavily to finance buyouts, extracted value from their portfolio companies, and left them unable to withstand market pressures or economic downturns. Walgreens now carries those same risks.
Sycamore Partners’ acquisitions have amassed it a portfolio of mostly retail companies, but now the Walgreens buyout brings the firm directly in contact with a public health system that hundreds of millions of Americans rely on daily. Many communities, particularly rural towns, low-income areas, and minority neighborhoods, have limited access to pharmacies.
Store closures in those communities wouldn’t just mean inconvenience; they could mean patients losing access to lifesaving medications, routine vaccinations, and basic health consultations. The potential job losses are equally severe. If tens of thousands more workers are laid off, that kind of shock would ripple across local economies, cutting off benefits and wages for tens of thousands of families.
The Walgreens acquisition is one of the largest private equity healthcare buyouts in history. That makes its outcome a bellwether for how Wall Street’s debt-fueled model could continue to reshape the healthcare sector. Unfortunately, the early warning signs are clear. A heavily indebted company, led by an executive imported from another Sycamore-owned retailer, looks less like a turnaround story and more like the setup for another collapse.
Sycamore Partners insists it can manage Walgreens successfully. But the history of the firm’s operation of its portfolio companies tells a different story. From bankruptcies at Belk and Nine West to sweeping layoffs at Staples, the firm’s track record speaks for itself. Local communities, workers, and patients may once again pay the price for Wall Street’s short-term gains.
Walgreens is more than just a household brand. For millions of Americans, it is a vital link to the healthcare system. By wresting control of Walgreens, and importing the same leadership that oversaw Staples’ store closures and job cuts, Sycamore Partners has put that link at risk. Unless something changes, the consequences could be measured not just in balance sheets, but in lost jobs, shuttered stores, and diminished access to care.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Shamelessly Corrupt': Trump Frees Private Equity Executive Convicted of Defrauding 10,000+ Investors
One elderly victim said they "lost a significant portion" of their retirement savings to David Gentile's $1.6 billion scheme.
Dec 01, 2025
In yet another gift to corporate criminals, President Donald Trump has reportedly used his executive authority to commute the seven-year prison sentence of a former private equity executive convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors of around $1.6 billion.
David Gentile, the founder and former CEO of GPB Capital, was convicted of securities and wire fraud last year and sentenced to prison in May, but he ended up serving just days behind bars. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the White House "argued that prosecutors had falsely characterized the business as a Ponzi scheme."
One victim said they lost their "whole life savings" to the scheme and are now living "check to check." Another, who described themselves as "an elderly victim," said they "lost a significant portion" of their retirement savings.
"This money was earmarked to help my two grandsons pay for college," the person said. "They had tragically lost their father and needed some financial assistance. So this loss attached my entire family."
In a statement following Gentile's sentencing earlier this year, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia—who was appointed to the role by Trump's loyalist FBI director, Kash Patel—said the private equity executive and his co-defendant, Jeffry Schneider, "wove a web of lies to steal more than one billion dollars from investors through empty promises of guaranteed profits and unlawfully rerouting funds to provide an illusion of success."
"The defendants abused their high-ranking positions within their company to exploit the trust of their investors and directly manipulate payments to perpetuate this scheme," said Raia. "May today’s sentencing deter anyone who seeks to greedily profit off their clients through deceitful practices."
Critics said Trump's commutation of Gentile's sentence sends the opposite message: That the administration is soft on corporate crime and rich fraudsters despite posturing as fierce protectors of the rule of law and throwing the book at the vulnerable.
"Trump will deport an Afghan living in the US with Temporary Protected Status if he is accused of stealing $1,000," said US Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). "But he’ll set a white dude free who was convicted of stealing $1.6 billion from American citizens to go commit more crime."
After criticizing former President Joe Biden for commuting the sentences of death-row prisoners, Trump has wielded his pardon power to spare political allies—including January 6 rioters—and rich executives while his administration works to "delegitimize the very concept of white-collar crime."
Since the start of Trump's second term, his administration has halted or dropped more than 160 federal enforcement actions against corporations, according to the watchdog group Public Citizen. White-collar criminals reportedly view Trump as their "get-out-of-jail-free card."
"The most shamelessly corrupt administration in history," journalist Wajahat Ali wrote in response to the Gentile commutation.
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy