Trend of companies going private

As part of my financial/Business interests I read various business related news websites, or atleast I try to. The most prominent item in this mornings news was that a group of Private Investors were buying SanAntonio based ClearChannel (the radio behemoth) for about $18B and making it private.

So, started the though process :
* Is this a trend that is catching up?
* Is this Industry specific, like just media?
* How does one company, going private, affect the overall market?
* What, if a significant number, or all, of the public companies go private?

I don't know if it's just me, but I have seen a growing number of companies going private and most of the buyout's I have been reading about are for large companies. I would vote for "Yes, there is a trend"

Is this Industry specific? Could be, there is a lot of consolidation in the media industry, there are major changes in the fundamentals of the industry. Like the good old Newspaper going out of favor for all these new Web-Based news delivery systems.

Does it affect the overall market? I may be too naive and too young in the market, but I think it does affect the market. The way I look at it: This company which was public, was an asset which people could invest in. Now that this company is private, we have one less asset to invest in. So there is an extra $18B, in cash, in the market. And who would sit on this ton of cash, NOBODY, they would eventually reinvest in the market, buying shares of other companies and driving the values up. This is good in the sense that the value of the market as a whole would go up, but more so in anticipation by folks like me, than the actual demand.

What if all the companies go private? This is one thing that bothers me the most, the reason being, I am an individual investor and the only way of investing I know, other than real-estate, is to invest in publicly traded companies, so, where would I invest my money to beat inflation? I know this sounds like a joke, and it may very well be, but there is a very remote possibility that this could happen, probably once in the next 200 years or so, but it is definitely a possibility right?

Some of you might be thinking, this guy is crazy, he needs to get a life. So, to oblige your very rational thought, I am gonna go and try to live a little. So Long.