Private equity underwriters (PEU's) became ubiquitous this past decade. The Carlyle Group grew from $19 billion in assets under management in 2004 to $199 billion today. That's 950% growth in ten years or an average of 95% per year. Investors selected Carlyle based on their historical 30% annual returns on equity.
PEU greed combined with executive incentive compensation to balloon corporate profits. The question is how much is real profit growth and how much is fudged figuring. I would trust the accounting profession to keep things clean, but they've sold out like their human resources brethren.
Greed is alive and well, in part due to PEU's.