There are now some fixed annuities that are paying almost 6.5% APY guaranteed locked in for 8 years. Sure does’t have the tax advantages as a muni, but damn that is as attractive as I have ever seen fixed annuities (not a rider).

The next PE grift. If you have family and friends with whole life policies or annuities you may want to check on the quality of the Insurance companies. TLDR: a big portion of the Life Insurance and Annuities industry has been captured by Private Equity. They sell for premiums and have future liabilities on their balance sheet. They all have set up affiliate entities In lenient states like Vermont or off shore in Bermuda. Those entities do not have to disclose their assets. The US company transfers some of their liabilities to the affiliate to free up their balance sheet. The guy says he has seen cases where a company had $200B of liabilities and transferred $195 to the affiliate. He also saw by accident an affiliate that had $2B of liabilities supported by $200 million of assets. And many of the assets are PE and illiquid. Bottom line there are many life insurance policies and annuities that will not pay their commitments. The States will be on the hook but they have capped payouts. Interestingly he has been screaming about this and the Senate Banking committee took an interest and heard his testimony. But, a Federal bailout is a question mark. It’s incredible. Another case of PE screwing the common man who buys life insurance and annuities. Phoenix Life just failed causing $2B of losses larger than expected. There will be more. 🤦‍♂️

By the Time It’s in the News, It’s Too Late | Short Seller Laks Ganapathi By the time it's in the news, it's too late. Short seller Laks Ganapathi, whose new fund Michael Burry advises, says the AI selloff is just the beginning, and the real risk is in the debt, not the stocks. Ganapathi, founder of Unicus Research and Minerva Investment Management, joins Jeremy Szafron to explain what her team found driving across Texas to AI data centers, why a bank is selling $500 million of data center loans, why the bond market is flashing red on AI borrowers while stocks rally, and how private credit can end up inside the insurers behind retirees' annuities. She also explains why she only trusts physical gold, never paper #gold#.