BusinessWeek had a very interesting cover story on the Carlyle group. Thornton, Emily. 2007. "Carlyle Changes Its Stripes." Business Week (12 February): pp. 46-59.
The gist of the story is that: "By the end of this year it expects to have an unprecedented $85 billion in investor commitments under management, up sixfold from 2001." In a BusinessWeek podcast, the author suggests that private equity firms may end up running a large share of corporate America, rather than just flipping companies for a quick profit. In effect than, managerialism may be giving way to something more like the old German system, where the banks were in control. Part of this transition is fueled by cheap capital, the cover story of this week's edition of BusinessWeek, which I have not had time to read. But cheap capital also eventually means excessive capitalization, leading to huge busts. All this is speculative, but I think it bears watching. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
