There is no question that large corporations absolutely dominate our society today. They control what we eat, they control what we watch on television, they own most of the stores that we shop at, they provide the energy that our nation depends upon, and they make almost all of the products that we use. Tens of millions of Americans make a living by serving these colossal firms, and at this point some of the biggest corporations are larger than many small countries. But of course the corporations aren’t the top of the food chain. They have owners, and there are 3 giant financial companies that the global elite use to control 88 percent of the corporations that are currently listed on the S&P 500.
The three financial companies that I am talking about are BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street.
According to CNN, those companies have a combined 15 trillion dollars in combined assets under management…
BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street manage a stunning $15 trillion in combined assets, equivalent to more than three-quarters the size of the US economy.
But that is actually an old number.
I wanted to come up with a newer number, and so I started digging.
According to Wikipedia, BlackRock had $8.67 trillion in assets under management as of January 2021…
BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment management corporation based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with $8.67 trillion in assets under management as of January 2021.[citation needed][6] BlackRock operates globally with 70 offices in 30 countries and clients in 100 countries.[7]
Vanguard is nearly as big. According to Wikipedia, Vanguard had $6.2 trillion in assets under management as of January 2021…
The Vanguard Group, Inc. is an American registered investment advisor based in Malvern, Pennsylvania with about $6.2 trillion in global assets under management, as of January 31, 2020.[5] It is the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the world after BlackRock’s iShares.[6] In addition to mutual funds and ETFs, Vanguard offers brokerage services, variable and fixed annuities, educational account services, financial planning, asset management, and trust services. Several mutual funds managed by Vanguard are ranked at the top of the list of US mutual funds by assets under management.[7]
While not as large as the other two, State Street had $3.1 trillion in assets under management as of the first month of this year.
So adding those numbers up, the “big three” had almost 18 trillion dollars in assets under management in January 2021, and that number is almost certainly quite a bit higher by now.
That is a giant pile of money that is almost impossible to imagine.
Sometimes people forget just how much money a trillion dollars is. If you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent a trillion dollars yet.
Collectively, the “big three” represent the largest ownership blocks in 88 percent of the companies that are currently listed on the S&P 500…
Combined, BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard are the largest owner in 88% of the S&P 500 companies, according to a paper published Tuesday by the American Economic Liberties Project, a group that launched in February taking aim at what it sees as excessive corporate power. For instance, the Big Three hold leading stakes in companies including Apple (AAPL), JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Pfizer (PFE).
Being the largest owner of a publicly traded company doesn’t mean that you can do whatever you want, but it does give you enormous power.
For example, last month BlackRock and Vanguard were instrumental in installing two new members on ExxonMobil’s board of directors…
BlackRock and Vanguard were among the major shareholders whose votes helped to install two new members on ExxonMobil’s board of directors, dealing the oil giant a major defeat in the election of board members at this year’s annual (virtual) shareholders meeting.
The two fund giants, which together own approximately 14% of ExxonMobil shares, according to reports, supported portions of a dissident slate of board nominees brought by a Engine No. 1, an activist, purpose-driven investment firm that sees ExxonMobil’s response to the global climate crisis as far too weak to help achieve net zero emissions by 2050, putting shareholder value at risk. Engine No. 1 put forth a slate of four nominees, all with experience in the oil and gas or renewable energy industry.
ExxonMobil did not want these new board members, but now they have been forced to take them.
And these new board members will help to ensure that ExxonMobil becomes more fully aligned with the climate agenda of the global elite.
Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.<
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@adamdalgliesh
Adam, a great topic to raise. You have mentioned it a couple of times in past comments, but it is a pretty BIG topic and badly misunderstood by many while not completely understood by anyone.
There are and have been for decades economists and financial advisors claiming the sky is falling on a regular basis. But unlike in past years, there has never been an imbalance in the US economy on so many fronts as exist today. The Wiemar Republic, is not relatable to the US economy at present, as they were largely setup following WWI and the Treaty of Versailles with great debts and no ability to honestly pay them – plus the war reparations had to be paid in gold, complicating their indebtedness. Many of their assets were seized after the war including all of their copyrights(they had been the world’s leader in this).
The Bank of International Settlement(BIS) was created to help resolve the great imbalance. But the world went into Depression first and so the German’s broke the Vesaille Treaty and the rest is history(side note – The Bush family was involved in much of all of this and HW’s father(later Senator Prescott Bush) was the Director of the bank that funded the rise of Hitler and had its assets seized in October 1942 – 11 months after Pearl Harbor – under the Trading with the Enemy Act)
Meanwhile. the US holds the world’s reserve currency(as opposed to England in the 1920-30’s) and may print til the ink wells run dry, so long as there is no growing doubt of the value of what is printed. Put another way, if other nations holding the US dollar were to respond to such spending as has occurred over the past year, and seems likely to either continue or accelerate, as Russia has recently(they dumped their US dollar holdings), it would be greatly devastating as the dollar would become quite worthless(think Zimbabwe more than Wiemar Republic).
But we are not there, yet, and I hope we never see that day as the world would be quite a different place on numerous fronts. So the concept of central banking was created in an attempt to assuage the serious fluctuations in the business cycle(this is where the economy fluctuates between robust economy and recession). In times of plenty, bankers like to lend out the holdings that people have in the bank and earn interest.
But when the economy stalls due to either unwise speculation or baseless rumors, loans repayments are delayed or defaulted and at the same time people with deposits in the bank want to gain access to the funds and it becomes a downward spiral toward failing banks and depositors loosing their savings.
The US from 1872-1898 went into an economic slump known as the Great Depression following the collapse of the Philadelphia banking center due to overextended investments in the railway developments. Consequently, a great fear of the natural business cycle was created, unduly I should add as the length of the economic downturn was really related to US economic policy and corruption rather than the business cycle.
The consequence of this fear was some 15yrs later to lead to the development of an amendment to the constitution that created the Federal Reserve Bank. This organization was meant to intercede and play a more active role in the US to “stabilize” the market.
But as the 1930’s would reveal, centralized manipulation made things worse – and so they stole the term ‘the Great Depression’. The management in recent years of keeping low interest rates has been to deal with the development of toxic assets that were pretty worthless after the 2008 crash(Patrick Byrne was quite involved in a behind the scenes role which he covers on his Deep Capture site).
Low interest rates were intedended to keep cheap capital available for investment and increase investments. The Fed tries to keep inflation going, as they are using Kensyean economic theory which is pretty baseless, but its what they’ve been using since the early 1900’s and haven’t stopped. This model claims you can keep printing money without fear of consequences. Not wanting to solve that argument, so….
The inflation in question is related to the purchasing power(as opposed to monetary inflation which relates to the volume of $$ in circulation). So as inflation increases the value of $$ drops. There are several consequences to this. This makes every dollar you hold worth less today than yesterday and encourages investment.
The individuals who get the newly printed money first receive more value out of the newly issued money than those who receive it in later transactions. Also the US prints money. This makes the US dollar weaker. This in turn makes it easier to sell US goods in foreign markets as such goods become cheaper to export.
The consequence to this is that as the US is printing a given country, say Germany, must buy US debt to keep their currency on par with the US, i.e. so to even the import-export ratio otherwise the German goods will become too expensive to sell internationally. Which is one reason why the concern about US default has not resulted in the sky falling.
The conditions are ripe, for it but if there are not many of the larger nations holding US dollars which dump US treasury notes, which will cost them $$ in the act of dumping and then it will cause their export prices to rise, costing more $$ – and of course, size matters in economies and no one wants to cut off exports to the US markets.
Such a thing as default could occur with what is happening with the US going insane currently with spending, but we will see(it is really a lot more complex than this as I am sure you know). The first thing to look for is that the US debt is not selling. That will be a first step towards the ledge.
Disclaimer – I don’t hold to Kaynsean theories so this is really just a slice of the story, as that debate is about 4/5 of the full conversation, but should serve as a good opener for the conversation. Interested in hearing your views.
(2 of 2)
The consequence of this fear was some 15yrs later to lead to the development of an amendment to the constitution that created the Federal Reserve Bank. This organization was meant to intercede and play a more active role in the US to “stabilize” the market.
But as the 1930’s would reveal, centralized manipulation made things worse – and so they stole the term ‘the Great Depression’. The management in recent years of keeping low interest rates has been to deal with the development of toxic assets that were pretty worthless after the 2008 crash(Patrick Byrne was quite involved in a behind the scenes role which he covers on his Deep Capture site).
Low interest rates were intedended to keep cheap capital available for investment and increase investments. The Fed tries to keep inflation going, as they are using Kensyean economic theory which is pretty baseless, but its what they’ve been using since the early 1900’s and haven’t stopped. This model claims you can keep printing money without fear of consequences. Not wanting to solve that argument, so….
The inflation in question is related to the purchasing power(as opposed to monetary inflation which relates to the volume of $$ in circulation). So as inflation increases the value of $$ drops. There are several consequences to this. This makes every dollar you hold worth less today than yesterday and encourages investment.
The individuals who get the newly printed money first receive more value out of the newly issued money than those who receive it in later transactions. Also the US prints money. This makes the US dollar weaker. This in turn makes it easier to sell US goods in foreign markets as such goods become cheaper to export.
The consequence to this is that as the US is printing a given country, say Germany, must buy US debt to keep their currency on par with the US, i.e. so to even the import-export ratio otherwise the German goods will become too expensive to sell internationally. Which is one reason why the concern about US default has not resulted in the sky falling.
The conditions are ripe, for it but if there are not many of the larger nations holding US dollars which dump US treasury notes, which will cost them $$ in the act of dumping and then it will cause their export prices to rise, costing more $$ – and of course, size matters in economies and no one wants to cut off exports to the US markets.
Such a thing as default could occur with what is happening with the US going insane currently with spending, but we will see(it is really a lot more complex than this as I am sure you know). The first thing to look for is that the US debt is not selling. That will be a first step towards the ledge.
Disclaimer – I don’t hold to Kaynsean theories and there is a lot of debate on this, so this is really just a slice of the story, as that debate is about 4/5 of the full conversation. But this should serve as a good opener for the conversation. Let me know if your not following something, it’s not that hard to get lost writing this stuff down. Interested in hearing your views.
/2
(1 of 2)
@adamdalgliesh
Adam, a great topic to raise. You have mentioned it a couple of times in past comments, but it is a pretty BIG topic and badly misunderstood by many while not completely understood by anyone.
There are and have been for decades economists and financial advisors claiming the sky is falling on a regular basis. But unlike in past years, there has never been an imbalance in the US economy on so many fronts as exist today. The Wiemar Republic, is not relatable to the US economy at present, as they were largely setup following WWI and the Treaty of Versailles with great debts and no ability to honestly pay them – plus the war reparations had to be paid in gold, complicating their indebtedness. Many of their assets were seized after the war including all of their copyrights(they had been the world’s leader in this).
The Bank of International Settlement(BIS) was created to help resolve the great imbalance. But the world went into Depression first and so the German’s broke the Vesaille Treaty and the rest is history(side note – The Bush family was involved in much of all of this and HW’s father(later Senator Prescott Bush) was the Director of the bank that funded the rise of Hitler and had its assets seized in October 1942 – 11 months after Pearl Harbor – under the Trading with the Enemy Act)
Meanwhile. the US holds the world’s reserve currency(as opposed to England in the 1920-30’s) and may print til the ink wells run dry, so long as there is no growing doubt of the value of what is printed. Put another way, if other nations holding the US dollar were to respond to such spending as has occurred over the past year, and seems likely to either continue or accelerate, as Russia has recently(they dumped their US dollar holdings), it would be greatly devastating as the dollar would become quite worthless(think Zimbabwe more than Wiemar Republic).
But we are not there, yet, and I hope we never see that day as the world would be quite a different place on numerous fronts. So the concept of central banking was created in an attempt to assuage the serious fluctuations in the business cycle(this is where the economy fluctuates between robust economy and recession). In times of plenty, bankers like to lend out the holdings that people have in the bank and earn interest.
But when the economy stalls due to either unwise speculation or baseless rumors, loans repayments are delayed or defaulted and at the same time people with deposits in the bank want to gain access to the funds and it becomes a downward spiral toward failing banks and depositors loosing their savings.
The US from 1872-1898 went into an economic slump known as the Great Depression following the collapse of the Philadelphia banking center due to overextended investments in the railway developments. Consequently, a great fear of the natural business cycle was created, unduly I should add as the length of the economic downturn was really related to US economic policy and corruption rather than the business cycle.
/1
So are the largest financial companies in the world driven by ideology?
This is what the article seem to imply.
If not, why do these companies support the Global Warming hysteria?
Among other things, I hope this article will begin a “conversation” about the state of the u.S. economy. The policies of the “Fed” heavily favor the large monopoly corporations, including the three “featured” in this article, at the expense of the overwhelming majority of “ordinary” Americans. Some American economists and financial market analyst believe that the extreme disparities of wealth created by this situation could cause the entire Americn economy to collapse. Or there could be a “Weimar-style” runaway inflation.
What do Israpundit’s readers and webmaster think would be the consequences for Israel if that happened? A penny for your thoughts.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/breaking-exclusive-un-us-facebook-smartmatic-executives-connived-together-2020-election-now-trying-stop-derail-2020-election-audits-taking-place/
There is a lot of interesting details relating both US and international groups, hostile to Trump’s agenda, that met and organized “observations” of the 2018 and 2020 elections. Further, preparatory meeting in May-June 2020 were granted in spite of international travel bans in the US.
Also involved in these meetings/observations were the NASS and NASED, organizations, respectively, of the Sec. of State’s for each state and the State’s Election Director.
Many players are linked to these observational schemes including Harry Hursti and Elizabeth Howard, each is acting to sabotage efforts in NH and AZ audits, respectively.
A great deal of info to be found in this article and well worth a read.