Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

"Private equity" refers to the entity in any privately owned business that is NOT traded on a stock market.   Your neighborhood pizza establishment, if it is not part of a chain but is simply the result and destination for some local family's sweat, is a bearer of private equity. How much?  That can at best be guesstimated, until such time as they try to sell it. The guesstimation would depend on similar businesses that have been sold recently in similar places. More specifically, "private equity" can refer to a private equity investment fund, like Mitt Romney's Bain Capital. This is a fund that focuses chiefly on operating businesses that are not exchange traded. A PE fund might buy the pizza place we have in mind. Ma and Pa might be thrilled by this, and take off to Florida for a well-earned and now well-financed retirement. Then Bain or a similar operation, might bring in new management, improve the profit margins, and then start shopping it around to the...

It has 8 months left to run, but here are some retrospective thoughts on almost-the-whole of it. 1. Gitmo's infamous detention camp remains open. This wouldn't necessarily stick in one's craw except that Obama issued an executive order as early as January 22, 2009, with the confetti from the inaugural parties still incompletely cleared away, that said it would be closed within one year. 2. Another one that goes back a ways. Obama early on pressed for a cash-for-clunkers bill, which he signed on June 26th of that first year, supposedly to revive the auto industry. It was a cheap gimmick that had no good effect at all. 3 .   The whole rebellion in Libya thing was horrendously mismanaged.    Absurdly, the administration seems to have thought it was exercising what it called "smart power" in this connection., Nothing smart about it.  Ended with the need to use a random video as a cover for whatever the heck actually happened in Benghazi. 4. Waffling o...