Mitt Romney was denounced as a “vulture capitalist” for having worked in private equity. His critics failed to understand what it is that private-equity firms do — and the important role played by vultures in their ecosystems.

Better to let those corporate carcasses rot or to do something with them?


Private-equity investors and others of that stripe help to liberate useful capital from dead or moribund corporate structures and put it to productive use. How does that work? Consider this recent report from the Wall Street Journal about what rose from the ashes of Enron: EOG Resources (an unconventional oil producer), Kinder Morgan (a pipeline company), and GE Renewable Energy (which acquired Enron’s wind-power business as part of its bankruptcy) all took a piece of Enron and made something out of it, as a result of which there is more petroleum, more pipe to move it, and more wind energy available — and more jobs, more profit, more taxes paid, etc. — than there would have been otherwise.

It isn’t always pretty, but it works. The next time you hear Elizabeth Warren lectures the world at large about corporate greed, see how far your car will run on what she produces.