NPR.
When Richard Cox retired back in 2024, his broker pitched him on this hot new place to invest some of his savings.
He made it sound very.
Very attractive.
That new place was something called private credit.
It's basically what it sounds like.
Richard would be investing in a big pool of tons of money that gets loaned out to businesses,
kind of like alternatives to bank loans.
The catch is that you often have no idea what you're invested in.
Still, Richard went for it.
He parked $30,000 of his retirement money into private credit.
Later on, he mentioned this to another broker.
This long silence on the phone and like an audible gasp.
That investment was, in that broker's view,
too risky for a guy like him to get into and potentially too difficult to get out of.
When Richard did eventually ask to pull his money out, he was not alone.
So not alone that some private credit funds have limited saying yes to everyone who asks.
This is The Indicator from Planet Money.
I'm Waylon Wong, and I'm joined today by Indicator intern Vito Emanuel.
Hello.