We had a society that functioned. That people could live a life. We no longer have that due in part to private equity buying up retirement homes, dental offices, HVAC/plumber shops, doctor offices, funeral homes, etc, etc and restructuring them for optimal extraction.

When I deal with bob renting his house, we come from a kind of equal place. When I rent from XYZ agencies, there is no fair deal, there is their deal or no deal, designed to be as exploitive of me as possible. There is no coming to terms from somewhat equal place, there is only agreeing to corporates terms. The same with dental work. Getting a roof put on. The society we had didn't work that way in every transaction in life, and the society we have now doesn't really work for large swaths of society anymore.

Systems with no slack become brittle. In the case of modern society, that brittle aspect is people not able to afford to live and businesses so 'optimized' they can't afford to do their core businessing well, their workforce unable to themselves live, and their workforce pushed in a way that isn't sustainable long term, but since their owners have purchased large amounts of the competition the business is able to stumble along for a while. Until they get their exit by selling the unsustainable bundle to a retirement fund, with PE yet again destroying another aspect of what made society work in the past.