NPR.

This is the indicator from planet money on Darym Woods.

And I'm Patty Hirsch.

Private equity.

To some people, private equity funds are sober agents of efficiency and corporate optimization.

To others, they're a horde of asset-stripping barbarians, intent on draining every penny of value out of vulnerable enterprises like, I don't know, local newspapers and Little League.

Yeah, the phrase private equity brings a lot of emotion.

And whichever side of the fence you're on, the point is

they are private. They're mysterious, risky and expensive. Not the kind of thing your average

investor should be sticking their nose into, you might think. Except that's not what the president

thinks. It appears Mr. Trump thinks we can handle private equity. Which is why he's

reportedly on the point of issuing an executive order that could allow investment plans like your

401k, Darien, to include a private equity option. On today's show, we'll look at the potential

risks and benefits of 401k investments in private equity, why the president might be issuing an executive

order to make it happen, and whether he even really needs to. That's all coming up after the break.

Investment plans offered by companies to workers, like 401Ks, typically only invest in highly regulated,

publicly traded securities.

Stock traded on a public exchange like the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ, or bonds regulated

by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The reason, ERISA.

So it stands for the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. This is Anita Mukherjee. She's an

associate professor in the Department of Risk and Insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business.

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