As the presidential campaign leads to ongoing questions about the role of private equity in the American economy, the following exchange might prove useful: Charlie Rose chats with private equity CEO Donald Gogel in the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek.

Private equity firms and their investors can’t make money unless the businesses they are investing in get better. There’s no way to exit or sell them to someone else at a higher value unless you’ve created something that’s sustainable. And that somehow is lost in the debate … [the notion that] all private equity is involved in asset-stripping, and they’re just sort of vultures or vampires leaving carcasses behind—there’s nothing further from reality.