Something that stands out to me is the extent to which PE is in all kinds of different agencies through various sector-specific funds. I recognized several of the firms mentioned from the power sector, where they have a habit of acquiring somewhat distressed assets that still have some value in one of the market structures (e.g., selling capacity) even if they don't really expect the plant to run very much at all.

In one sense it's good that someone has the flexibility to maintain an asset that still has real value but a different use case than its original intention, but on the other side that money could be propping up something that doesn't really have long-term value; distorting the market by delaying entries by newer or more efficient technologies.

I remember seeing a comment the other day about how the next recession could probably/easily not be housing (the last one) or tech (the one before that), but the next big chunk of the economy that's under-studied and not well known. Maybe it's these pools of cash at the top extracting more $ from everyone below them on the global financial stage. Not sure what the failure point or mechanism would be though.