From Cradle To Krispy Kreme To Grave, Private Equity Is Making Everyone’s Life Worse

Your local doughnut shop got taken over by private equity and, like everything else private equity touches, things got worse. Gone is the experience of watching the conveyor belt fry doughnuts in front of you. No more biting into a freshly made pastry that melts in your mouth. Bad for you? Sure. Delicious? Yes. Now, it is just bad for you. Private equity stepped in and doughnuts are now shipped to nearly every location from a corporate shop. Krispy Kreme has lost more than 80 percent of its stock value since its peak. What matters most to Americans? Family, work, community, a good meal, health — all things that have been tampered with by private equity. Private equity now controls $9 trillion worth of assets and companies, all of which touch the lives of everyday Americans in significant ways. And as private equity attacks industry after industry, the quality changes and the consumer suffers. If you want to live a normal life — buy a house, raise a family, spend Saturdays at kids sporting events — every aspect of life is touched by private equity. Homebuying Take a young couple looking to buy a home. This was once a straightforward task — find a house, buy it, move in, call it home — but the reality is, a large percentage of homes are purchased by private investors. In 2025, this number climbed to 34 percent, almost twice as high as the 2020-2023 average. The number now sits at almost 32 percent. Meanwhile, families are struggling to afford a house and first-time homebuyers accounted for an all-time low of 21 percent. The median age of first-time homebuyers is 40. In 2021 and 2022, one neighborhood in North Carolina saw 50 percent of homes sold go to private investors. Having a Family The only thing growing faster than the age of a first-time home buyer is the age of a first-time parent. That explains why the hottest investment prospect in America right now is the fertility industry. In the 21st century, young women have been convinced to chase careers over families during their peak fertility years. Now the same employers who propagandized the “girlboss” trope and sold egg freezing as liberation want to profit off the struggles to conceive. Private equity owns roughly 30 percent of the fertility industry, cashing in on corporate-sponsored egg freezing schemes to implantation attempts. While IVF can lead to pregnancy and a child nine months later, it often comes with side effects. For one, in 2019 only 3 percent to 46 percent (it depends largely on age) of egg retrievals resulted in a live birth and not every egg is used or viable. An IVF baby has a roughly 15 percent chance of preterm birth. The underlying fertility issues in the parents are rarely addressed, leading to parents choosing IVF over and over again for however many children they are hoping to raise. Where private equity comes in is through how it has popularized IVF. Between 2020 and 2022, IVF and other assisted reproductive technology cycles jumped 33 percent. Meanwhile, private equity found itself with 32 percent of fertility clinics on its hands by the end of 2023. Fifty-four percent of all IVF cycles in 2022 were performed by that 32 percent. This has only grown worse over time. It is also noteworthy that the American Society for Reproductive Medicine invests in IVF practices that include helping women masquerading as men get pregnant. It wants IVF to be “America’s response to infertility.” Daycare and Youth Sports Many families turn to daycares to take care of their children during the day, so mom and dad can get back to work in the rat race. Private equity has meddled with this as well. It now owns more than 10 percent to 12 percent of childcare facilities across the country. Of the 11 largest childcare providers, eight are owned by private equity. This has only served to make childcare more expensive, while in many cases, staff are underpaid and overworked. By the time kids are starting to get ready for elementary school, most parents are already thinking about sports as a way to keep their kids active, build community, and, yes, land a scholarship at a good school. Cheap rec leagues with Costco snacks and parent volunteers used to be the norm, but not so much anymore. Thanks to private equity. More kids than ever are participating in travel sports with professional expectations. It’s a full-time job for the child and a full-time commitment for the parents who are simply trying to help their children achieve their dreams. And the worst part for many American families is the costs are through the roof. This is all thanks to private equity. Private equity firms have stepped into kids’ sports and created a whole network of money-making opportunities for the company to the detriment of the families. A New York Magazine article documented this well. “Private investment firms began buying up teams, facilities, software, camps, apparel, and media streaming in a roll-up strategy that allows them to profit from almost every aspect of a family’s participation.” The road trips and overscheduling and empty social calendar all end in the same way: with a crappy stale doughnut that some beleaguered two-income-trap parent picked up at the gas station on the way to the field. Because a private equity firm owns the team and everything around it, the business model is very profitable, sucking parents into a trap they can’t get out of without feeling like they are stepping in the way of their child’s dream. Medical Industry Most families have had to deal with the medical industry in some capacity or another and again, this is bought out by private equity. Between 5 percent and 13 percent of nursing homes are owned by private equity. In at least three cases, the firm or the nursing home company have filed for bankruptcy, affecting the quality of life of those receiving care. The investor takeover in the old folks’ home follows the same formula as corporate raiders of the 1980s: enter town, fire the nurses, shift costs to local hospitals that are backstopped by the American taxpayer — rather than one’s shareholders — and make a nice profit. The business model used for nursing homes is not conducive to grandma and grandpa’s welfare: it’s geared toward making money. Private equity views the world with the same greedy eyes as King Midas and strives to turn everything to gold. However, there is always a catch, and when the priority is money, someone has to pay the price. That someone is the American family, which now faces lower standards of living, falling standards of care, higher prices, more stress, and crappier doughnuts to boot. Once independently owned companies are absorbed into large investment portfolios and maximizing returns becomes the No. 1 priority, the consumers — the American people — suffer. Politicians have been heard to cry from the rooftops about providing free health care, free childcare — free you-name-it. But this is a Band-Aid fix. The real solution is not to keep giving handouts, it is to regulate the oligarchs that are swallowing every aspect of American life and put the control once more into the hands of every-day Americans. Terry Schilling is the president of American Principles Project PAC. Follow him on Twitter @Schilling1776 American Society for Reproductive Medicinedaycarefamiliesfertility industryfirst-time homebuyershomebuyingIVFnursing homesprivate equityyouth sports