Episode Details

Private credit was a $250 billion niche a decade ago. Today it's a $2-3 trillion market — and most of it sits on the exact same balance sheets as your 401(k), your pension, and your index fund. Joe joins Hans Toohey on the Remnant Finance podcast for a conversation that starts as a breakdown of the private credit market and turns into a full framework for judging whether your capital actually protects you, or just looks good on a statement.

Joe and Hans unpack how a decade of zero interest rate policy built a shadow lending market now facing a wave of defaults as floating-rate loans reset against a normalized Fed funds rate — and why funds like Blue Owl and BlackRock have started gating investor withdrawals entirely. They trace a second, related risk most investors never see: hedge funds borrowing shares directly out of index funds to short stocks, tangled up in the same private credit machinery now locking up. From there, the conversation shifts to what actually makes an asset high quality — purchasing power protection, cash flow, tax treatment, downside protection, and track record — and why Joe's own equity allocation is just 10-12% of his net worth despite his stock picks doubling over the past year.

In this episode:

- What private credit actually is, and how a decade of zero-interest-rate policy turned it into a $2-3 trillion market operating almost entirely outside the banking system

- Why floating-rate private credit loans tied to the Fed funds rate created a rising wave of defaults once the Fed normalized rates

- Blue Owl, BlackRock, and the private credit "gating" crisis — what happens when investors can't get their money back

- The executive order moving through Washington to open 401(k) plans to even more private credit investment

- How hedge funds borrow shares out of your index fund and pension to short stocks — and the contagion risk that creates

- Why "buy index funds and chill" ignores the mountain of derivatives and hidden risk sitting underneath the shares you own

- A full framework for evaluating the true quality of any asset: purchasing power protection, cash flow, tax treatment, downside protection, liquidity, and track record

- Why property and casualty insurance companies — some over 250 years old — are a model for building a resilient financial foundation

- Gold and Bitcoin as savings, not investments — and why gold's lack of "returns" is precisely what makes central banks hold it

- Joe's actual equity allocation (just 10-12% of net worth) despite his individual stock picks doubling over the past year

- Why real estate, mortgage notes, and alternative income assets round out a genuinely diversified portfolio

This episode originally aired on the Remnant Finance podcast at https://remnantfinance.com/

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