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"Private equity has trillions of dollars of money waiting to be spent," said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform. "So it takes real chutzpah for these Wall Street titans to now say they need government assistance." Private equity and venture capital firms, which provide early funding for new companies to get off the ground, are worried that companies they own will be blocked from obtaining loans. That's because Small Business Administration rules calculate the aggregate number of employees for an enterprise seeking aid — meaning not just the individual small business but also other businesses in an investment firm's portfolio.