1st May 2023
How they are using our pensions to fund Belt and Road critical infrastructure projects and Israeli cyber technology.
(Image from: BlackRock: The Secret Company that Owns the World | by Isaiah McCall | Yard Couch | Medium)
What do Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon, Goldman Sachs, Western Union, and Wells Fargo all have in common? They have all been accused of money laundering and all owned by BlackRock, Vanguard, and/or State Street. During my dig on the banks in the Pandora Papers, two names were noticeably absent: BlackRock and The Vanguard Group.
Vanguard Group is a private firm and its the funds they own that controls the group. You will notice the companies that own Vanguard are also owned by the Big Three or another firm they own. This is the circular ownership that allows the Big Three to hide their disproportionate power over the companies they own and the U.S. economy. There’s even a revolving door of BlackRock employees “Rockers” placed in the Biden Cabinet.
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI) Top 10 Holdings (23.08% of Total Assets)
Apple Inc 6.13% - Vanguard, BlackRock, Berkshire Hathaway, State Street
Microsoft Corp 5.31% - Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, FMR LLC
Amazon.com Inc 2.22% - Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, FMR LLC
NVIDIA Corp 1.60% - JP Morgan Chase & Company
Alphabet Inc Class A 1.53% - Vanguard, BlackRock, FMR LLC, State Street
Tesla Inc 1.38% - Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Geode Capital Management,
Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B 1.33% - Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Geode Capital Management, LLC, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust
Alphabet Inc Class C 1.30% - Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Price (T.Rowe)
Meta Platforms Inc Class A 1.17% - Vanguard, BlackRock, FMR LLC, State Street
Exxon Mobil Corp 1.10% - Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, FMR LLC
*Bill and Melinda Gates invested half their foundation’s money in Berkshire Hathaway which is also controlled by the Big Three.
“Asset management firms have become a part of a new ‘money trust’ — a system of financial architecture dominated by a few large banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds,” Graham Steele, director of the Corporations and Society Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
According to the American Economic Liberties Project, the major institutional stockholdings of BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street give them “outsized influence” in corporate elections. This creates anti-competitive behavior among companies in a given sector. This monopoly is how BlackRock and Vanguard are forcing companies to implement racist and discriminatory Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity programs. You really think Bud Lite wanted to put a man in a dress on their beer?
“The sheer size and interconnectedness of the three firms influence the stability of the financial system, and they benefit by providing critical infrastructure, such as custody and technology platforms.”