TheDeal.com doesn't like what I said about KKR. But I know I'm right.

What I said on Monday was that how the private-equity shop KKR "stacks up in terms of influence over worker-lives" isn't too shabby.

KKR had said it would go public—partly as a way to take over its struggling affiliate KKR Private Equity Investors (KPE)—and in the process, bragged that the 46 companies it has in its portfolio employ some 855,000 people.

I copy-and-pasted from Fortune's list of biggest employers and posted this:

Rank—Company—2007 Number of employees

1—Wal-Mart Stores—2,055,000
2—State Grid—1,486,000
3—China National Petroleum—1,117,345
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts—855,000
4—U.S. Postal Service—785,929
5—Sinopec—634,011
6—Hon Hai Precision Industry—550,000
7—Carrefour—490,042
8—Deutsche Post—475,100
9—Agricultural Bank of China—447,519
10—Gazprom—436,096

This morning, TheDeal.com took offense, claiming that I had "offered some misleading insight" (contradiction, anyone?). Here, I'll be super-fair and let TheDeal.com speak for itself:

The [Curious Capitalist] claims that KKR's portfolio of 46 companies, which employs 855,000 people, makes it the fourth-largest employer in the world. Sound familiar? It should, because the Service Employee International Union bandies a similar statistic about -- as exemplified by a video of comedian Lewis Black below. Instead of putting the number in perspective of worldwide employers, the union usually claims the tally makes KKR the second-largest domestic employer to Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which according to Time is the world's largest employer.

What's more, the Time post admits such a distinction is dubious because KKR doesn't own portfolio company HCA Inc. outright. So why bother offering the statistic at all?

Here's what I just posted back (though I encourage any further discussion to take place on this blog, not theirs):

Actually, what I said the ranking shows is "how KKR stacks up in terms of influence over worker lives." I'm pretty comfortable standing by that statement. The self-proclaimed construct of private equity is that these guys know how to run businesses better--to squeeze out more value. Just because KKR doesn't own a company outright doesn't mean its managers aren't the ones parachuting in, making changes.

In a February conference call about KPE, George Roberts said: "For us, private equity investing has always meant working to improve the performance of corporate assets over a relatively long time horizon. While economic and market fluctuations may impact the daily operations of our businesses, they generally do not alter our multi-year investment theses nor our detailed plans for generating operational improvement in our portfolio companies." Detailed plans for generating operational improvement. I think if you work for a KKR company that's got a decent shot of effecting you.

Barbara!