The premise is this: Not only small brands are owned by large umbrella corporations (Unilever owns 400 brands, Nestle owns 2000 brands), and large companies deeply penetrate our lives (you drive your apple car to the apple store to buy some apples with apple pay that you access through your apple watch while listening to iTunes on your iPhone), all of them are largely owned by institutional investors, of which just a handful hold the majority voting rights. Effectively Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street hold voting rights (and therefore control) of near everything that exists under the sun. Agriculture, manufacture, logistics, communications, defense, everything. So it is concerning and… is currently the state of the art of things. What conclusions can be drawn from this? What action should be taken, if any?

I should also add, that nowadays I believe it’s money that is the biggest power, followed by the military. Military is not the biggest power because although it could have the final say, it almost never does, in day-to-day operations. It’s job is just to sit there, as a detriment. Money runs the world. It sounds trivially obvious. And of course a successful asset manager / fund will strive to absorb / internalize competitors and monopolize the market. It’s obviously rational in the game that is corporate survival. And it’s happening now.

Ah, someone has summarized it nicely. A presentation from Financial Times:

And another presentation from LewRockwell.com: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/bill-sardi/who-runs-the-world-blackrock-and-vanguard/

Sorry I can’t link the latter due to it being a non-standard video. I recommend watching these at 1.5 or 1.75 speed to save time.

The premise is this: Not only small brands are owned by large umbrella corporations (Unilever owns 400 brands, Nestle owns 2000 brands), and large companies deeply penetrate our lives (you drive your apple car to the apple store to buy some apples with apple pay that you access through your apple watch while listening to iTunes on your iPhone), all of them are largely owned by institutional investors, of which just a handful hold the majority voting rights. Effectively Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street hold voting rights (and therefore control) of near everything that exists under the sun. Agriculture, manufacture, logistics, communications, defense, everything. So it is concerning and… is currently the state of the art of things. What conclusions can be drawn from this? What action should be taken, if any?

I should also add, that nowadays I believe it’s money that is the biggest power, followed by the military. Military is not the biggest power because although it could have the final say, it almost never does, in day-to-day operations. It’s job is just to sit there, as a detriment. Money runs the world. It sounds trivially obvious. And of course a successful asset manager / fund will strive to absorb / internalize competitors and monopolize the market. It’s obviously rational in the game that is corporate survival. And it’s happening now.

All of this is publicly verifiable information. See? We didn’t need the Panama papers, the ownership info is free and public.

I also hope that this isn’t actually news to anyone.