The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything

Chapter 10

The Taxman Cometh

As Occupy Wall Street reached a fever pitch in early November 2011, I went downtown to check it out for myself, having seen spin-off protests in both central Phoenix and outside the U.S. Post Office in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Despite the ire being aimed broadly at Wall Street and corporate America, private equity has never been directly in the crosshairs of the protests. Schwarzman’s residence was picketed in mid-October 2011 when a throng of protesters marched on various apartment buildings known to house billionaires. His Park Avenue place, the sprawling apartment once owned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was on the route. Still, private equity remains largely ignored, to the genuine surprise of some in the industry, ...