Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Talking Real Money - Investing Talk
Episode: Alternative Adversities
Description: Questions? Comments?Don shares a deeply personal tale from 2007 when, as an HOA treasurer, he dodged a financial landmine involving auction-rate securities—just before the 2008 crisis froze their liquidity. That real-life scare flows into a fierce takedown of today’s institutional obsession with illiquid assets like private equity, especially in university endowments. Harvard’s high-risk strategies, retirement plans promoting alternatives, and the seductive myths of market outperformance get picked apart. Don and Tom warn investors not to chase complexity or “exclusive” returns, especially when liquidity disappears. Plus: a pension tax trap, Opportunity Zone hype, and the nerdy joys of CD ladd...