Optimists will take all that as further evidence of private equity's bright hopes. But it is also possible that the weather is turning and the debt that powers private equity's siege engines is starting -- just starting, mind you -- to become harder to scrape together. It may not happen this month, perhaps not even this year, but sooner or later the private-equity boom will come to an end.

This possibility will delight private equity's many critics. Private equity is routinely charged with all sorts of iniquity. It strips companies of assets and flips them for a fast buck. It loads them up with dangerous amounts of debt to suck out capital for its investors. It pays scant attention to employees and suppliers. Its greedy partners avoid the tax that others have to pay. If the markets turn, the volume of condemnation will only increase. Imagine the derision when funds stop making money even as their partners take home large salaries on the basis of past achievements; when private-equity-owned companies default on debts, leaving insurers and pension funds saddled with the losses; when workers are put on to the street because of desperate cost-cutting or bankruptcies.

Sometimes shareholders cause trouble. They often make conflicting demands that managers must struggle to reconcile. Institutional investors tend to insist on instant performance, because their funds are judged on that quarter's returns -- which undermines criticism of private equity's short-termism.