More fun summer reading. What is relevant are recent rumblings – promoted by “gee, not sure” – to allow 401K funds to offer Private Equity offerings to their constituents. The giant picture is that this completely resembles the Bank Trust Department/Nifty Fifty debacle of the late 1960s/early 1970s whereby Bank Trust departments completely missed a 20 year rally in US equities because they were deemed “risky” by a historical and severe interpretation of the Prudent Man Rule, only to be allowed to pile in the late 1960s, at what became a classic top which took 13 years to break even.

And how is it possible that companies offering 401Ks have been repeatedly sued for actual or perceived breaches in their fiduciary responsibilities by not offering low fee investment options, are now going to pile into the highest fee option devised by man with questionable performance criteria as noted in this piece? Oy.

An Inconvenient Fact: Private Equity Returns & The Billionaire Factory – Ludovic Phalippou, University of Oxford, Said Business School