The felon’s lending his investment acumen to *everyone’s" 401(k).
Thanks to President Donald Trump, your retirement plan could soon include a mix of stocks, bonds, and private equity investments.
According to White House officials, Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that will make it easier for several alternative investments to be added to 401(k) accounts. The list includes private equity, which was previously reserved for sophisticated investors.
It’s a proposal that’s raising red flags among some investment experts, who say a 401(k) should typically be a simple and relatively low-risk investment vehicle. Private equity investments, meanwhile, are often concentrated in a small number of portfolio companies, are less liquid than stocks and bonds, and carry valuations that can be difficult to measure day-to-day.
Trump’s green light doesn’t surprise those monitoring the private equity space, but it’s concerning nonetheless.
“Private equity kind of always gets what it wants in Congress, but I think it’s a bad idea,” Jeffrey Hooke, professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, said. “It’s illiquid, the fees are very high. Private equity funds, for the most part, don’t beat the stock market.”
“I don’t think it’s a good investment for the rank and file retail market,” Hooke added.
And the clencher?
“It’ll make the retirement plans suboptimal,” Hooke said. “When people retire 20 to 30 years after investing in private equity, returns are going to be a little less than one would expect.”
By now, it’s become a party game: Sharpied or Not Sharpied? (The bolding is mine.)
Two months into the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have updated their forecast, predicting slightly fewer named storms. The new outlook released Thursday says there is a 50% chance of above-normal activity, a decrease from 60% in the agency’s May forecast.
NOAA, the federal agency in charge of weather and climate predictions, now expects 13 to 18 named storms, five to nine of which could become hurricanes, including two to five major hurricanes. The previous ranges were 13 to 19 named storms, six to 10 hurricanes and three to five major hurricanes.
The adjusted predictions include the four named tropical storms so far this season.
As President Donald Trump’s global tariffs go into effect, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva remains staunchly opposed to making deals with the U.S. The South American leader has been an outspoken critic of U.S. tariffs, which he sees as a bullying tactic.
“The day my intuition says Trump is ready to talk, I won’t hesitate to call him,” Lula told Reuters. “But today my intuition says he doesn’t want to talk. And I won’t humiliate myself.”
Bom trabalho, Senhor Presidente! (Good job, Mister President!)
The cruelty is not only the point, it’s the very reason for the action.
Alyx, a transgender woman who has served in the Air Force for 15 years, was approved in May for early retirement due to the Trump administration’s policy prohibiting trans people from serving and enlisting in the military.
On Wednesday, that retirement was revoked under a new Air Force directive. She said she wasn’t provided any reason other than that her retirement was “prematurely" approved, according to documentation she provided to NBC News.
“Being told that I would be discharged for a decision on somebody’s part was hard, but then being offered the retirement that I feel I’m owed, that my service is owed, that helped, and then having that yanked away for no reason, with no recourse … that is complete and utter betrayal,” said Alyx, who is based in Virginia and asked to only use her first name due to fear that she and her family could face harassment.
Multiple federal judges initially blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order barring trans troops, but the Supreme Court allowed it to take effect in May.
As a result of the ban, trans service members were required to choose between voluntary and involuntary separation. Voluntary separation included double the lump payout than an involuntary separation and wouldn’t require the service member to pay back any bonuses they had received.
Trans airmen who served at least 20 years could apply for retirement, and those with 18 to 20 years of service could apply for early retirement under the Temporary Early Retirement Authority, or TERA. In late May, the Air Force announced in a memo that airmen with 15 to 18 years of service could request early retirement under an exception to TERA.
Now, I’m by no lawyer, but I think the following tidbit of information from the article shows the administration did not act in good faith. (The bolding is mine.)
On Wednesday, that decision was reversed for Alyx and about a dozen other service members who were approved for early retirement.
“In accordance with DoD Guidance, the Department of the Air Force approved service members with 18-20 years of honorable service who self-identified to retire under the Temporary Authority for Early Retirement (TERA) program,” an Air Force spokesperson told NBC News. “Although service members with 15-18 years of honorable service were permitted to apply for an exception to policy, none of the exceptions to policy were approved.”
To me that means that they were lied to about exception to policy.