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The result of her inquiry is 鈥淏ad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream,鈥� a deeply reported, briskly paced and highly disturbing account of how the private equity industry has 鈥渞eshaped the American economy to serve its own interests, creating a new class of billionaires while stripping ordinary people of their livelihoods, their health care, their homes, and their sense of security.鈥�

Instead of focusing on the macroeconomic level, she tells the story through four remarkable people whose lives were upended after private equity acquisitions. Liz was a floor supervisor when the storied retailer was acquired by Mitt Romney鈥檚 company, Bain Capital, and other investors and eventually went under, laying off 33,000 employees without severance pay.

Roger practiced medicine in rural Wyoming when private equity acquired his hospital and gutted services. Natalia was working for local Gannett newspapers at a time when the chain eliminated more than half its staff after years of private equity ownership. And Loren, an affordable housing organizer, escaped public housing only to end up in a mold- and rodent-infested apartment complex in northern Virginia owned by a private equity firm on the other side of the continent.

Greenwell has written an essential guide to an industry that operates largely in the shadows, donates generously to Democrats and Republicans in Congress to keep it that way, and has contributed substantially to the hollowing out of the American dream. Despite her immersion in this predatory world, she remains surprisingly optimistic. 鈥淓very year,鈥� she writes, 鈥渁 few more people like Liz, Roger, Natalia and Loren start fighting back.鈥�

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