The private equity industry, facing a slowdown in exits and fizzling returns, has long coveted a $12.2 trillion pool of money: retirement savings. Now it is one step closer to managing some of the funds in Americans’ 401(k)s and related plans.
President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that clears a path for plan managers to add private equity and other alternative assets to retirement savings accounts. The administration’s stance “marks a major step forward in modernizing the retirement plans of everyday savers,” Jaime Magyera, the head of BlackRock’s retirement business, said in a statement to DealBook. (BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, earlier this summer announced a big push to include private equity and private credit in its retirement plans.)
And, since the financial “management” industry successfully defeated an “intrusive, burdensome, big gummit regulation” to hold them to a fiduciary standard, they can put Prole’s money into whatever PE or crypto scheme puts the most money in their pocket. and the Proles can’t do anything about it, especially as the government edges closer and closer to mandating Proles hand over a chunk of their earnings to an unaccountable Wall St.
Are the Trump Accounts still a thing, from the BBB ? Every newborn in America gets $1k placed into a retirement account as “seed money”. I can see that being routed into PE and Crypto. Google says there were approximately 3.6 million births in 2024, so that is $3.6 Billion available for siphoning. Chump change, I know, but I’m sure PE and the Crypto guys will not hesitate to hoover it up.