Don’t Let Wall Street Gamble with Your Golden Years

Your retirement savings are supposed to be the safest money you’ll ever have — not a roll of the dice. The whole point of a 401(k) and other retirement plans is to let you gradually build wealth that brings economic security in your golden years.

But private equity firms are itching to lure retirement savers into Wall Street’s casino. Anyone who wants a secure retirement should recall what Las Vegas tourists inevitably learn: the house always wins.

Private equity is a business model built on raising money from big, sophisticated institutional investors like pension funds, endowments, and insurance companies — then buying companies to flip them for profit.

It works out well for Wall Street executives who pocket enormous fees, but it often leaves companies and workers in ruins.

Toys “R” Us was driven into bankruptcy after being loaded with debt by its private equity owners. So were hospital chains Steward Healthcare and Prospect Medical Holdings, craft powerhouse Joann Fabrics, the TGI Fridays restaurant chain, Payless ShoeSource, and Sears. These companies were all gutted by private equity deals that prioritized quick payouts over long-term stability.

But now, the big investors these Wall Street firms once relied on — like Yale University, which oversees a staggering $41.4 billion endowment — are walking away after years of high fees, murky accounting, and disappointing results.

If the pros are stepping away, who’s left? Ordinary savers, who hold $12.4 trillion in retirement accounts. Private equity firms want to bring the workers holding this cash to the table, where the game is stacked against them.

And the Trump administration is helping them, pressuring the Department of Labor and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the very agencies meant to safeguard retirement savers, to open the door for private equity firms to enter 401(k) plans.

Private equity firms see you as easy prey. Your retirement account is a steady pot of money, and they’d love to siphon off fat fees while locking you into risky, opaque investments you can’t escape. They get rich whether you win or lose — and you get stuck with the bill.

While a standard index fund charges less than half a percent in annual fees, private equity takes 2 percent off the top every year plus 20 percent of whatever gains the investments make. There are “transaction fees,” “monitoring fees,” and other made-up charges that guarantee the casino wins — and your golden years pay for someone else’s yacht.

If you invest your money in the stock market, you can see what’s going on: up or down, it’s very transparent. Private equity funds set their own valuations, meaning your account balance could look fine on paper even as long-term losses pile up. Plus, your money could be tied up for five or ten years. Need cash for an emergency? Too bad.

No one saving for retirement ever asked, “Can you make my 401(k) riskier, less transparent and more expensive?” Instead, this push is coming straight from Wall Street, which has spent years buying political influence in Washington.

The Trump administration welcomed private equity executives into its ranks and has been eager to deliver on their agenda, weakening the rules that kept retirement funds safe for decades and clearing the way for Wall Street to raid ordinary people’s savings.

Retirement saving should be boring. Boring means low fees, broad diversification, steady growth, and money that will be there when you need it. But in the private equity casino, Wall Street never risks its own chips. They rake in the pot while you’re left holding the losses.

The lure of gambling is insidious. Wall Street will play on that as it pushes the Trump administration for finance-friendly changes. If private equity is allowed into 401(k)s, the only ones guaranteed to come out ahead are the billionaires.

And your golden years? You’ll be cleaned out.

This piece was originally published on our sister site OtherWords.org.