Comment by ryukoposting

> many jobs... millions upon millions

...no. It doesn't even matter what the rest of the words in the question are. Just no, lol.

> They need to be paid out somehow.

No they don't. Lots of pensions, especially the not-gilded ones, go bankrupt.

In fact, that's precisely what happens to pensions of companies that are acquired by PE. The company gets stripped for parts, it goes bankrupt, and PBGC covers a fraction of the affected pensioners' payouts.

In other words, with or without PE, bloated pensions ultimately end up being the taxpayer's burden.