"[A]sset managers and private equity fund sponsors have launched a coordinated push to bring private equity, private credit, and other alternatives into participant-directed accounts.... It is, we are told, time to democratize access. What this framing tactfully omits is that the accredited investor standard, the prudent expert rule under ERISA, and the diversification and liquidity expectations baked into Section 404(a) exist for reasons.... Stripping those guardrails away is not democratization. It is the unilateral repeal of protection, sold to the people who lost it as a favor."  MORE >>