James Coulter has a net worth of around $3 billion. He didn’t invent anything. He didn’t cure a disease. He didn’t build a product people love.

He got rich the old-fashioned private equity way: by buying companies with other people’s money, loading them with debt, firing workers, and cashing out before everything collapses.

Meet the man who turned human suffering into a business model. Private equity is legalized looting dressed up in a nice suit. Here’s how it works:

You find a company that’s doing okay. Maybe it employs thousands of people. Maybe it’s been around for decades. Maybe it’s the backbone of a small town’s economy.

Then you borrow a ton of money to buy it.

Here’s the trick: you don’t pay back that debt. The company does. You just bought a house and made the house pay the mortgage.

Now the company is drowning in debt it didn’t ask for. So what do you do? You cut costs. And by “costs,” we mean people. Their jobs. Their pensions. Their healthcare. Their dignity.

You pocket millions in fees just for showing up. You pay yourself dividends from the company’s cash reserves. And when you eventually sell or the company goes bankrupt, you walk away richer.

The workers? They get a cardboard box and a security escort