Adam Gonnerman

If you'd asked me a week ago what I knew about private equity, I could have told you about Toys R Us. That company was acquired by private equity and then run into the ground. Now that I've read Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream―An Exposé of Private Equity's Devastating Impact on American Lives, Communities, and the Economy , I could probably tell you a lot more. This book isn't just about Toys R Us, though. The author, Megan Greenwell , deftly weaves the stories of four people together, from before their encounter with private equity, during, and then after as matters resolve. These are tales of retail, newspapers, hospitals, and apartments, all impacted through acquisition by private equity. But what is private equity? "In the simplest terms, 'private equity' describes a system in which a firm bundles money from outside investors—including university endowments, public pension funds, state-owned investment funds, and ultrawea...

The following is adapted from an essay I wrote a few years ago as part of my graduate program at Avila University . Several years ago I attended a church retreat in New Jersey. Some of us were talking in a group one day, and someone I did not know spoke up to say (in the context of the conversation) that his parents had leased out their farm for fracking. We looked at each other uncomfortably, and someone commented "that's not great." As for me, I said, "that's not going to do the groundwater any favors." Within seconds that man was stepping up to me, in an alpha male sort of way, and said something about fracking being perfectly safe. My reply was something along the lines of "not my problem," and I backed away. What Is Fracking? "Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Water, sand and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure ...

The following is adapted from an essay I wrote a few years ago as part of my graduate program at Avila University . Advertising to children is a bit more complicated than it used to be. It's not all about what's on TV any more, and the ability to track children online can raise concerns about manipulation and data collection. Still, I'm not certain the situation is as dire as some would have us believe. Confessions of an '80s Cartoon Kid As a kid growing up in the 1980s without cable television, Saturday morning cartoons were a big deal for me. Every Fall I even made a point of watching the preview shows that aired during prime time on the major networks, introducing the new cartoons coming up for the season. When my family got our first VCR my mother gave me a tape to use, and I carefully programmed it every week to record one of the three networks while I watched one of the other two. Then, during the week, I'd watch an hour or so of cartoons from that tape af...

The following is adapted from an essay I wrote a few years ago as part of my graduate program at Avila University . CEO pay is not a new topic. Both texts I read for this module were written in 2006, and reference is made to as far back as 1992. Still, the political significance of this topic is near the forefront again with the accusations (and in places, embrace) of "socialism." It doesn't take a socialist to be fed up with the sky-high amounts CEOs are paid. Abigail Disney spoke for many of us when she said: "Jesus Christ himself isn't worth 500 times his median worker's pay." — Abigail Disney, filmmaker, Disney heiress, and Patriotic Millionaires member (Edgecliffe-Johnson, 2019) The Numbers Don't Lie Earlier this year USA Today published a list of the top 100 highest paid CEOs at major companies in the United States. The results demonstrate the immensity of the problem. At number 100 was Michael Kaufmann of Cardinal Health, whose most r...

The following is an adaptation of an essay I wrote a few years ago as part of my graduate program at Avila University .  Comparing an article by Milton Friedman written in the 1970s to one by a person in the 2000s seems a stretch, to say the least. The former won a Nobel Prize in Economics and was precise in explaining his ideology, and the attention-grabbing writing of our times doesn't hold up well in comparison, as I see it. And yet, I have to side with Joseph Hart on this one in saying that no, the sole social responsibility of business is not profits. Friedman argues that corporations are not people, and yet years later we are living with the consequences of the US Supreme Court deciding that corporations are people and entitled to all the same rights. Try putting a corporation in prison for any crimes, though, and you'll see the limits of its personhood. He then goes on to describe the purpose of a business to be making profit, and considers any use of funds for any p...

This is the last post in a short series on Uberlândia Development Initiatives (UDI), the nonprofit I helped found to support Estação Vida, a community center in Uberlândia, Brazil. The earlier posts covered the neighborhood UDI exists to serve and the story of getting the organization off the ground back in 2020. A few years have passed since then, and it's worth catching up on what's happened. From startup to established Founding a nonprofit is one thing; keeping it running is another. In December 2020, UDI was granted 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status by the IRS — the milestone that made every donation to the organization officially deductible for U.S. donors. That was the piece that had been missing the whole time: a legal, secure way for people outside Brazil to support Estação Vida's work. It then took time to build out banking and a reliable transfer process. In April 2023, UDI made its first donation via bank wire to Brazil. Those funds went toward installing a syst...

In my last post I introduced Shopping Park, an under-resourced neighborhood in Uberlândia, Brazil, and Estação Vida, the community center that's been serving its kids since 2004. What I didn't get into is how a graduate school capstone project turned into an actual nonprofit organization. By 2020 I'd spent about 12 years in project management, earned my PMP certification back in 2013, and was working on a Master's in Management. I needed a capstone project, and the pieces lined up: why not use it to build the thing I'd been quietly imagining for years — a U.S.-based organization that could receive donations and channel them to Estação Vida? The problem I was solving was a practical one. Sending money into a Brazilian bank account from abroad is a confusing process if you've never done it, and even once you manage it, the gift isn't tax-deductible for a U.S. donor. Estação Vida had a Portuguese-language site set up to receive local support, but nothing fo...