Yeah if instead of "PE" you had to say "I take out a massive loan to buy a business collateralized against itself, saddle the business with the debt, take money out of the company to pay myself, and then ruthlessly cut quality in the business to make short term profits look higher to resell the business (and the bank is happy to finance this because they get paid first if the business goes bankrupt)" it feels like it would be a lot harder to come across as legitimate