Why are you mad at Target, Ford, or Disney? What if I told you that the division was planned and not by the people that you think are driving a wedge between the American people?
Recent support for LGBTQ and liberal policies has done little more than fan the flames of the bridge that stands between two sides in America, and no one knows or understands what will happen when that bridge is devoured by the flames and there is no going back.
Everyone on both sides needs to stop and look at who is responsible for lighting the match, and why they set fire to it in the first place.
Investment firms like BlackRock and Vanguard not only control an astronomical amount of the entire world's wealth, they like to play a part in pushing their ESG plans through the corporations that we love to shop at.
ESG... Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing refers to a set of standards for a company's behavior used by socially conscious investors to screen potential investments. Environmental criteria consider how a company safeguards the environment, including corporate policies addressing climate change, and corporate policies that support abortion rights or LGBTQ rights, among other issues.
Environmental
Preservation of our natural world
- Climate change
- Carbon emission reduction
- Water pollution and water scarcity
- Air pollution
- Deforestation
- Greenhouse gas emissions
Social
Consideration of humans and our interdependencies
- Customer success
- Data hygiene and security
- Gender and diversity inclusion
- Community relations
- Mental health
Governance
Logistics and defined processes for running a business or organization
- Board of directors and its makeup
- Executive compensation guidelines
- Political contributions and lobbying
- Venture partner compensation
- Hiring and onboarding best practices
BlackRock manages nearly $10 trillion in investments. Vanguard has $8 trillion, and State Street has $4 trillion. Their combined $22 trillion in managed assets is the equivalent of more than half of the combined value of all shares for companies in the S&P 500 (about $38 trillion). Their power is expected to grow. An analysis published in the Boston University Law Review in 2019 estimated that the Big Three could control as much as 40 percent of shareholder votes in the S&P 500 within two decades.
So what does this mean?
The biggest purse gets to decide how, what, when, and who a company chooses to support. If they want to get paid, have access to capital, or see their investments grow then they must toe the line.
In recent years BlackRock has positioned itself as an industry leader in ESG investing as demand for funds that take these factors into account has soared. But ESG funds like the ones sold by BlackRock have little bearing on climate change, a 2021 Bloomberg investigation found.
The ESG rating company BlackRock uses doesn’t take into account a firm’s impact on climate change, but rather the effect of climate risks on their bottom line. Still, that hasn’t stopped states from pledging to pull more than $3 billion collectively from the asset manager in recent months.
BlackRock continues to invest in fossil fuel and has cited more than $100 billion worth of investments in Texas energy companies as proof of that. In June BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told Bloomberg he didn’t want to be the “environmental police,” and said it was wrong to ask the private sector to protect the environment through their work.
So who are the biggest investors in Target and Disney?
If you guessed Vanguard and BlackRock then you would be correct.
According to The Bussiness Model Analyst, two of the largest stakeholders of Disney are none other than Vanguard and BlackRock.
The Vanguard Group is one of the world’s largest investment management companies, and it has its fingers in many different pies. According to the official Vanguard group website, they have over 440 holdings in some of the top companies in the world, like AT&T, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo & Co., Pepsi, HP, and of course, Walt Disney.
Vanguard’s stake in Disney is a testament to the company’s long-term investment strategy and its belief in the potential for growth in the entertainment industry. CNN Business News puts them at the top of the shareholder list with a 7.49% stake which equates to 136,614,265 shares owned, which have a total value of $11,869,047,343.
For Disney, having Vanguard as a shareholder can bring stability to its stock price and provide reassurance to other investors. When a company like Vanguard is invested in a company like Disney, it sends a message to the market that they believe in the company’s future and are willing to bet on it for the long term.
BlackRock Fund Advisors is a subsidiary of BlackRock, Inc., one of the largest investment management firms in the world. They provide investment advisory services to various companies, institutions, and individuals, including mutual funds, and pension plans. They also manage a wide range of assets across multiple asset classes.
Reports indicate that the BlackRock Fund has a 4.09% stake in Walt Disney, which equates to 74,577,472 shares valued at $6,479,290,767. This stake represents a significant percentage of the common stock of the Walt Disney Company, making it one of the largest institutional shareholders of the company.
The top shareholders of Ford are William Clay Ford, James D. Farley, James P. Hackett, Vanguard, BlackRock, and Newport Trust Co.
In the United States, there is a number called “M0” that represents all of the minted money (coins and bills) in domestic circulation. This number is projected at around $1.5 trillion. However, New York city alone has over $3 trillion in private wealth. What this means is that the vast majority of money in the United States, and likely the rest of the world, is immaterial, digital.
Worldwide, M0 is projected at around $5 trillion. This is the sum of all the minted money of all currencies in circulation. However, the figure that we may be more interested in can be referred to as “broad money” or M3. This figure accounts for all funds in checking, savings, and money-market accounts; it’s essentially all digital money owned by anyone, anywhere. This figure runs much, much higher with an estimated $80 trillion in worldwide funds.
No think back to what I told you at the beginning of this article. BlackRock manages nearly $10 trillion in investments. Vanguard has $8 trillion, and State Street has $4 trillion. Their combined $22 trillion in managed assets is the equivalent of more than half of the combined value of all shares for companies in the S&P 500 (about $38 trillion).
There is approximately US$ 40 trillion in circulation, which includes all the physical money and the money deposited in savings and checking accounts.
Money in the form of investments, derivatives, and cryptocurrencies exceeds $1.3 quadrillion.
The combined Gross Domestic Product of all countries is projected at $142 trillion. Currently, the world owes about $220 trillion in debt and the world’s total property value is somewhere around $220 trillion as well. While these astronomical figures could really throw a wrench in our answer, for all intents and purposes, let’s just use the nice round figure of $80 trillion, as it most closely fits the definition of how much “money” is in the world.
How is it possible that these investment managers control a large percentage of the entire world's wealth and ask yourself why they would want to control the division in America?
While the idea of ESG-backed investing sounds like a good thing, many fear that with so much power over the companies that we know and trust, how can we ensure that they are not hijacked to push an agenda as well as a secret agenda that could leave the world in tatters, with brother hating brother?
These investment groups moved silently through our society, buying and securing power without many Americans realizing what was happening. Next time you get mad when a company takes a stand or goes in a direction that would alienate so many, stop and ask, who is pulling the strings and why?