Decades of DC’s fake “free trade” – combined with its awful, crony tax and regulatory policies – has driven millions of once-domestic companies overseas. (And with them tens of millions of once-domestic jobs).
This thinning of the corporate herd has made it oh-so-much-easier for Big Business to conquer and consolidate the now-depopulated corporate landscape.
Ask the Big Banks. I’d say ask the small banks – but they’ve almost all closed and been consumed by the Big Banks.
‘Too Big to Fail’ – to ‘We Only Need 3 or 4 Banks’ – in 13 Years
But Big Banks are pikers compared to the hedge funds. Or private equity funds, or index funds, or Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) – whatever you want to call them.
What we’ve seen over the last few decades is Big Business consolidate the US. And hedge funds consolidate Big Business. (And even the smallest of small businesses – as we’ll see in a bit.)
It is the hedge funds that are truly murdering the US. With DC’s enthusiastic crony assistance, of course. Especially so the Big Three hedge funds: BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard.
The Big Three currently manage $24.1 trillion in assets. The entire US economy last year was $29.2 trillion. The Big Three have monetary near-parity – with the hugest economy in the history of the planet. I’m sure that’s not a problem.
Oh wait: That seems to be a problem….
BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard Accused by US Government of Colluding To Drive Up Energy Prices:
“‘(T)he holders of large quantities of stock in competing companies agreed to use those shareholdings to reduce the output of US coal to increase profits at the expense of American consumers and businesses.”
It’s OPEC for coal. Except OPEC has twelve member countries. And the Big Three own a greater share of US coal than OPECs share of global oil.
Awareness of the Big Three’s ever-growing dominance has long bubbled beneath the surface. Here’s an article from May 10, 2017. When the transition from actively managed funds to Big Three-type index funds had already been underway for about a decade….
These Three Firms Own Corporate America:
“A fundamental change is underway in stock market investing, and the spin-off effects are poised to dramatically impact corporate America….
“The magnitude of the change is astounding: from 2007 to 2016, actively managed funds have recorded outflows of roughly $1.2 trillion, while index funds had inflows of over $1.4 trillion….
“The fast-growing index sector…is highly concentrated. It is dominated by just three giant American asset managers: BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street – what we call the Big Three.”
Except: Our Corporate Media certainly isn’t going to report on Corporate America being dominated by the world’s largest-ever corporations. Because duh.
So it has fallen to the Little Guy to do that reporting. A guy named Ian Carroll became Internet-famous with what ended up being his nearly 1,400 videos showing how 90+% of the products in nigh every grocery store aisle are sold to US by the Big Three.
Carroll carried on with his newfound-career, analyzing the Big Three’s domination of more and more of everything America. But he has by no means been the only such “underground” analyst of hedge fund dominance.
About a year ago now-Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr video interviewed Tiffany Cianci about hedge funds reaching all the way down into America’s smallest towns and gobbling up even the companies that Big Business seemed to have deemed too small to consume:
RFK, Jr: “(Hedge funds) are now doing this all over the country to franchise owners. It’s kind of the last frontier for private equity of destroying small business in this country.”
Cianci: “Correct. In the last five years, private equity acquisition of franchises has doubled and tripled each year – year over year. The independently-owned small business owners have no way to defend themselves against these billion (actually trillion) dollar corporations that come in.
“The hardest thing is they are buying up these large swaths of industries in regions….Everything from home services to car services to insurance services to real estate brokerages, schools,.…”
Having monopolized…everything in the local markets? They then start jacking the prices of…everything.
On the surface, it appears you still have several “local” options for HVAC service, and car repair service, and maid service, and.… Except every “local” company in every single sector in your town is now weirdly charging the same hyper-inflated price for each good and service.
Because they’re ALL actually owned by the same hedge fund.
The Big Three and their hedge fund cohorts are colluding and rigging prices EVERYWHERE. From national energy – all the way down to ALL of your local services.
Artificial Intelligence scrapes the Internet for data. Hedge funds scrape the nation for cash.
“But wait” I hear the anti-antitrust zealots say. “It’s the Big Three. That’s not a monopoly.”
Except:
State Street is OWNED by BlackRock. And State Street’s largest shareholder? Is Vanguard.
And the two biggest shareholders in BlackRock? Are Vanguard and State Street.
That’s how the Big Three – is actually the BIG One.
And that’s how DCs decades worth of awful, crony policies – has turned the US into a money extraction machine for hedge funds.
Because Lord knows they need the money WAY more than we do.