Thank you, Jessica. Puts it all into perspective. The answers are right there. It's a Counter Reset that involves tearing that whole edifice down. It's in reach and viable, if enough of humanity sees it and decides to do something about it.
Thank you for sharing and recommending. I think this does a great job of pointing out what is happening and why. Highly recommend people take the time to watch and pay attention.
Those institutional investors are buying on behalf of individual investors. Millions of average people own shares of funds managed by those big institutional investors. A lot of people don't buy stock directly, they buy shares in a fund that diversifies and manages their investment for them. The big institutional investors are custodians. I like a good conspiracy as much as the next guy but this isn't one.
Who has the money at the moment - the investors or the institutions? Think they're going to get their money back, when the present currencies are about to disappear? Who has the power to make decisions about which "companies" thrive, when they own them all?
"Who has the money at the moment - the investors or the institutions?"
Neither. When you buy a stock, the seller gets paid and the buyer receives a claim on the company's earnings and assets in the form of a stock certificate, which can be either an electronic registration or a paper certificate. So neither party has any money until they sell the stock.
My understanding of finance is rudimentary to none, but it seems to me that you are talking about REselling stock. Surely they must initially be bought from the company?
Of course. That happens when a company sells stock to raise funds, but after that they trade on whatever market the company is listed on, and whoever buys their stock then owns a 'share' in that company. The money raised from the original sale is used for whatever purpose the company intends, but after that the company runs on the income generated from their operations.
Are you voting at shareholder meetings? My guess is no!
Look at Vanguard's Stewardship and Corporate Governance. This is the body that's voting at shareholder meetings via proxy, selecting / installing members of the boards of the vast network of companies that they are primary shareholders in.
Take a look at their "values" and the woke ideology that permeates their stewardship team. There's a reason so many large corporations are virtually aligned when it comes to what they're pushing on the public - corruption!
Okay, kept watching - the part about families makes a much more compelling argument. Shouldn't have commented until I watched the whole thing...apologies!
I saw his presentation early in the pandemic, but it looks as though he's expanded and deepened it.
Or maybe I just didn't have the experience of the oppressive censorship, propaganda, criminalization of any form of expression, and financial retribution that we've seen brought into play in the past 3 years. They operate with impunity because they think they own us. It certainly does give a sense of the scale of their operation and how much we will need to overcome to get them to back off. Obviously, governments have been bought and paid for, limits constitutional and common law have failed, and these actors have disdain for any of that. They want us controlled and compliant...or dead.
Never would have said that 3 years ago, even though I was cynical and knew plenty about BigFood, BigPharm, BigRetail, BigGovernment. Turns out I was naive.
Had to turn the video off, It is a complete farce and bears no relation to reality.
The investment managers cited - like Vanguard, BlackRock ad State Street do now own any of the shares - these investment management companies are AGENTS of other investors - individuals that save for retirement in 401k's and Target Date Funds, State pension funds, Insurance companies and so on.
The narrator does not even touch on the competitive forces between the dozens of food manufacturers or how they are regulated.
Almost all the funds managed by State Street and Vanguard are PASSIVE funds, that mechanistically replicate stock and bond market indices. Half of BlackRock's funds are also PASSIVE.
There are issues with investment managers that bear scrutiny, but this shallow, ill-informed and slick video does not deal with them.
all i know about active versus passive investing is that there's a weird war between the two. it makes sense to me that these entities would be doing the passive thing since they are looking for long term, lazy, diverse investments and they know the true worth of the things they invest in. food, communication, etc...
The market for US savers is huge - it has a self section process - you screw up you are fired and either exit the industry or start again from scratch - by building an attractive track record.
"As of June 30, 2021, 401(k) plans held an estimated $7.3 trillion in assets and represented nearly one-fifth of the $37.2 trillion US retirement market.."
This is, or rather was, my wheelhouse. I was part of a team that advised clients (State, company pension funds, insurance companies etc) with trillions which investment managers with trillions to select - in a matrix of many currencies x many asset types - my specialty was the 25% invested in fixed income - (US Head of Global Fixed Income) - but also headed up US research on Index tracking (passive) investment managers - US Target Date Funds and helped out on the rating of Insurance companies.
Passive is exactly that - no discretion - sole task to match a single index like the S&P500 - hold the stocks in the exact weight they hold in the S&P500 - no more no less.
The competition between active and passive managers relates to the ability of active managers to generate excess returns ahead of fees on a risk adjusted basis. For US equities, they struggle and hence clients (not investment managers) decide that they may as well own the index - passively.
Just to confuse matters a little, the S&P500 allocation is the result of an asset allocation decision. Fixed income is invariably active. So is asset allocation = how much in bonds, equities, cash, real estate, hedge funds, alternatives etc.
Investment managers do have discretion - within bounds - to manage funds ON BEHALF OF clients. They do not own the assets and must OBEY discretionary limits.
even the aggregating pension funds have limited discretion - defined in their Trust Deeds to manage funds on behalf of contributing pensioners. (There is a difference here also between Defined Contribution (pension contributors risk) and Defined Benefit (Company or State risk).
Happy to be available to answer any questions on any aspect - decades of experience from the trading, through hands on investment management, through strategic investment management aspects and investment manager characteristics.
P.S. Enquiring minds might want to know why BlackRock 2025 LifePath Fund was down 15.8% for the year ended 31 December 2022 - the Fund is meant for investors retiring in 2025 - be a bit of a worry if you were approaching retirement and your investments lost one sixth of funds you had accumulated slowly over 40 years right?
The fact that the Fund recovered 5.35% in January 2023 is indicative of annual volatility of annualized monthly volatility of 18.5% - highly risky for a short term investment of a little over two years. - the benchmark (BlackRock design) was also down around 15% for the 2022 calendar year and so was the industry average - not good for anyone.
Can I offer a helpful suggestion here? You're very good at what you do Jessica. Please don't be like the doctor who designed the house our company bought in West Vancouver. Eight revisions to the construction plan and the place still had major problems. I suspect the contractor just gave up at revision #8. 'Write about what you know' is the first thing they teach you in writing class. It's good advice.
A point worth mentioning here is the algos, short for algorithms. Most high volume large cap trading is automated these days, so the advantage accrues to the firm with the best mathematicians, many of who come from the physics world and were lured away by the high salaries and bonuses. Don't expect to compete with these entities, or even understand their strategies. You can ride their coattails to some degree, but if you're an active trader like I was for 20 years, better to stick to the small caps in industries you understand, which in my case was technology, energy and mining.
BlackRock is the major shareholder after Zuckerberg in Facebook. The platform that has the world by the balls and censors unapologetically is controlled by Black Rock. 1984 is a walk in the park compared to the world we currently live in.
Try to find the book 'The Earth Brokers' by Pratap Chatterjee and Matthias Finger published 1994.
I had trouble finding a copy that was affordable.
This answered all my questions about when (1992) these fiends decided to own everything. Rio de Janeiro. Biodiversity summit, which I cheered at the time(!)
We're going to need to prioritize on other things beyond money, and not let ourselves be owned in that manner. Some of those big companies mentioned are at the root of our retirement fund options (401K's). If we pulled our money out of those funds, they'd have to sell off assets. And if we bought those successful assets ourselves, then it would divest them of power.
There is a need for less consumption in many ways, particularly of the mainstream media, where our slavish focus allows manipulation, through the spreading of fear and hopelessness. It slowly ensnares us into a life of ease, without focus on relationships around us (family and communities) where something as simple as communication and collaboration there, building friendships, etc. can lead to service for one another, or the sharing of infrequently used tools that would otherwise be individually purchased.
The strengthening and restoration of the family as a central organization of our societies, with focus on raising children on good principles ,will help cut back on divorce leading to individualized households (and all the appliances, building materials, individual purchases, etc) help propel more consumerism and further enrich these people.
Imagine having family members or neighbors on whom we could interrelate with, and support one another instead of relying on costly services, mental health issues, drug use/addiction, and so many other crutches that we use to enrich our lives. This would help slow down the ability for people to be pitted against one another, or fall into homelessness and poverty because they can't individually survive.
This would set back so many costs that we individually incur to satisfy the emotional hunger within us, or because it's more convenient.
For them, it's more profitable to tear families apart so that they can multiply the purchases needed to sustain life as an individual. And it weakens the nations, drives animosity, keeps people from bonding with one another through relationships established through other family members (think of parents of your kids' friends, or through their sports teams, through our churches, friends of our family members, etc)
Late edit (in case anybody chooses to pull their heart):
Jesus taught us two great commandments: Love God first (with all your heart/mind/mind/strength), and to love your neighbor as yourself. These alone would undermine all the fear, animosity, estrangement, etc. that plagues us.
Heck, I would want to create a slogan that's easy to remember and put out on bumper stickers. Something like "I support a love of God, family, country and communities. How about you?"
One of the current fallacies about the markets is that pension funds can earn a return on their investments sufficient to cover their payouts. Truth is, they can't. This is one of the reasons you get these constant bailouts, going all the way back to 1987. It's not just the big banks that are bailed out in these debacles, it's also a rear-guard action to keep the pension funds solvent. Most folks don't understand the relationship between banks, governments and markets, but they sure as hell 'get it' when their pension fund fails, and any politician in office when that happens will be blamed, regardless of whose fault it was.
The truth about pensions, and this applies to social security as well, is that when they were designed (to counter the rising threat of socialism during the Great Depression) the average life expectancy was only a few years beyond retirement. Now, thanks to modern medicine, it can be measured in decades.
To understand the problem, consider the recent protests in France over raising the retirement age from 62 to 64! Next, consider the effect on pension funds of near-zero interest rates over the last decade when those funds are required by law to invest in 'safe' products, such as government bonds.
To clear the fence, the average pension fund has to earn an 8% return on assets, but typically only has a small portion of discretionary funds to invest, so the return on those has to be even higher than 8% to meet obligations. Also, as automation and offshoring take their toll on employment, there are fewer employees making contributions, so those either have to rise (not popular) or the funds have to earn even more to offset that shortfall.
This is not speculation, it's a mathematical certainty. Most private pension funds will either fail, or will drastically reduce payouts in the coming years. Social Security won't fail, but the payouts will be smaller and eaten away by inflation, plus the retirement age will be raised along with contribution levels.
I rode on a bus with an investment advisor with CalPERS, California's retirement BEHEMOTH pension fund. He mentioned that as the fund gets bigger, and their huge pot of money has to be diversified out further and further to avoid being too heavy in any one company or sector, that the returns diminish, and becomes increasingly hard, if not impossible, to keep up with returns seen in smaller funds.
And your points, ebear, are all spot on, and is (my personal opinion) a big driver for the whole covid emergency and subsequent kill shot - to be rid of some of the financial burdens of pensioners and the associated health care costs they incur.
unfortunately it is almost impossible to not be part of some here and there. Our bank belongs to one and the bank of my parents to another. And god knows how much of merchandise belongs to them
Thank you, Jessica. Puts it all into perspective. The answers are right there. It's a Counter Reset that involves tearing that whole edifice down. It's in reach and viable, if enough of humanity sees it and decides to do something about it.
Thank you for sharing and recommending. I think this does a great job of pointing out what is happening and why. Highly recommend people take the time to watch and pay attention.
I came across this early last year. It’s staggering! Fortunately Twitter is now a privately held company. #ThanksElon
Nice to see you back on Twitter Jess!
Elon is just one of them a front man for the cabal dont believe his phony stuff
Twitter is a mixed blessing. It has the same downside as transacting in fiat currency.
Opinion can be easily molded with the centralized control.
Found this kinda devastating. Left me in tears.
Thanks very much Jessica for posting. x
Those institutional investors are buying on behalf of individual investors. Millions of average people own shares of funds managed by those big institutional investors. A lot of people don't buy stock directly, they buy shares in a fund that diversifies and manages their investment for them. The big institutional investors are custodians. I like a good conspiracy as much as the next guy but this isn't one.
Who has the money at the moment - the investors or the institutions? Think they're going to get their money back, when the present currencies are about to disappear? Who has the power to make decisions about which "companies" thrive, when they own them all?
Wakey wakey.
"Who has the money at the moment - the investors or the institutions?"
Neither. When you buy a stock, the seller gets paid and the buyer receives a claim on the company's earnings and assets in the form of a stock certificate, which can be either an electronic registration or a paper certificate. So neither party has any money until they sell the stock.
My understanding of finance is rudimentary to none, but it seems to me that you are talking about REselling stock. Surely they must initially be bought from the company?
Of course. That happens when a company sells stock to raise funds, but after that they trade on whatever market the company is listed on, and whoever buys their stock then owns a 'share' in that company. The money raised from the original sale is used for whatever purpose the company intends, but after that the company runs on the income generated from their operations.
Are you voting at shareholder meetings? My guess is no!
Look at Vanguard's Stewardship and Corporate Governance. This is the body that's voting at shareholder meetings via proxy, selecting / installing members of the boards of the vast network of companies that they are primary shareholders in.
Take a look at their "values" and the woke ideology that permeates their stewardship team. There's a reason so many large corporations are virtually aligned when it comes to what they're pushing on the public - corruption!
Not to mention pension funds, which are often managed by those same investment firms.
Okay, kept watching - the part about families makes a much more compelling argument. Shouldn't have commented until I watched the whole thing...apologies!
What minute mark for the families part?
I saw his presentation early in the pandemic, but it looks as though he's expanded and deepened it.
Or maybe I just didn't have the experience of the oppressive censorship, propaganda, criminalization of any form of expression, and financial retribution that we've seen brought into play in the past 3 years. They operate with impunity because they think they own us. It certainly does give a sense of the scale of their operation and how much we will need to overcome to get them to back off. Obviously, governments have been bought and paid for, limits constitutional and common law have failed, and these actors have disdain for any of that. They want us controlled and compliant...or dead.
Never would have said that 3 years ago, even though I was cynical and knew plenty about BigFood, BigPharm, BigRetail, BigGovernment. Turns out I was naive.
Had to turn the video off, It is a complete farce and bears no relation to reality.
The investment managers cited - like Vanguard, BlackRock ad State Street do now own any of the shares - these investment management companies are AGENTS of other investors - individuals that save for retirement in 401k's and Target Date Funds, State pension funds, Insurance companies and so on.
The narrator does not even touch on the competitive forces between the dozens of food manufacturers or how they are regulated.
Almost all the funds managed by State Street and Vanguard are PASSIVE funds, that mechanistically replicate stock and bond market indices. Half of BlackRock's funds are also PASSIVE.
There are issues with investment managers that bear scrutiny, but this shallow, ill-informed and slick video does not deal with them.
More here:
https://peterhalligan.substack.com/p/investment-managers-act-as-agents for their clients investments, and cannot act as principals without their clients consent
o be sure Fink acts as a fink, to be sure ESG issues are a drain on returns and an increase in costs, to be sure proxy voting is an issue.
But this video?
These are not the droids you are looking for.
all i know about active versus passive investing is that there's a weird war between the two. it makes sense to me that these entities would be doing the passive thing since they are looking for long term, lazy, diverse investments and they know the true worth of the things they invest in. food, communication, etc...
The market for US savers is huge - it has a self section process - you screw up you are fired and either exit the industry or start again from scratch - by building an attractive track record.
check this out
https://www.ici.org/faqs/faq/401k/faqs_401k
"As of June 30, 2021, 401(k) plans held an estimated $7.3 trillion in assets and represented nearly one-fifth of the $37.2 trillion US retirement market.."
This is, or rather was, my wheelhouse. I was part of a team that advised clients (State, company pension funds, insurance companies etc) with trillions which investment managers with trillions to select - in a matrix of many currencies x many asset types - my specialty was the 25% invested in fixed income - (US Head of Global Fixed Income) - but also headed up US research on Index tracking (passive) investment managers - US Target Date Funds and helped out on the rating of Insurance companies.
Passive is exactly that - no discretion - sole task to match a single index like the S&P500 - hold the stocks in the exact weight they hold in the S&P500 - no more no less.
The competition between active and passive managers relates to the ability of active managers to generate excess returns ahead of fees on a risk adjusted basis. For US equities, they struggle and hence clients (not investment managers) decide that they may as well own the index - passively.
Just to confuse matters a little, the S&P500 allocation is the result of an asset allocation decision. Fixed income is invariably active. So is asset allocation = how much in bonds, equities, cash, real estate, hedge funds, alternatives etc.
Investment managers do have discretion - within bounds - to manage funds ON BEHALF OF clients. They do not own the assets and must OBEY discretionary limits.
even the aggregating pension funds have limited discretion - defined in their Trust Deeds to manage funds on behalf of contributing pensioners. (There is a difference here also between Defined Contribution (pension contributors risk) and Defined Benefit (Company or State risk).
Happy to be available to answer any questions on any aspect - decades of experience from the trading, through hands on investment management, through strategic investment management aspects and investment manager characteristics.
P.S. Enquiring minds might want to know why BlackRock 2025 LifePath Fund was down 15.8% for the year ended 31 December 2022 - the Fund is meant for investors retiring in 2025 - be a bit of a worry if you were approaching retirement and your investments lost one sixth of funds you had accumulated slowly over 40 years right?
The fact that the Fund recovered 5.35% in January 2023 is indicative of annual volatility of annualized monthly volatility of 18.5% - highly risky for a short term investment of a little over two years. - the benchmark (BlackRock design) was also down around 15% for the 2022 calendar year and so was the industry average - not good for anyone.
https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/products/227837/blackrock-lifepath-index-2025-portfolioinst-cl-fund
Can I offer a helpful suggestion here? You're very good at what you do Jessica. Please don't be like the doctor who designed the house our company bought in West Vancouver. Eight revisions to the construction plan and the place still had major problems. I suspect the contractor just gave up at revision #8. 'Write about what you know' is the first thing they teach you in writing class. It's good advice.
A point worth mentioning here is the algos, short for algorithms. Most high volume large cap trading is automated these days, so the advantage accrues to the firm with the best mathematicians, many of who come from the physics world and were lured away by the high salaries and bonuses. Don't expect to compete with these entities, or even understand their strategies. You can ride their coattails to some degree, but if you're an active trader like I was for 20 years, better to stick to the small caps in industries you understand, which in my case was technology, energy and mining.
Vanguard Stewardship Team.
https://www.vanguard.co.uk/content/dam/intl/europe/documents/en/investment-stewardship-about-our-programme.pdf
thanks - after my time - 7 years ago
BlackRock is the major shareholder after Zuckerberg in Facebook. The platform that has the world by the balls and censors unapologetically is controlled by Black Rock. 1984 is a walk in the park compared to the world we currently live in.
Try to find the book 'The Earth Brokers' by Pratap Chatterjee and Matthias Finger published 1994.
I had trouble finding a copy that was affordable.
This answered all my questions about when (1992) these fiends decided to own everything. Rio de Janeiro. Biodiversity summit, which I cheered at the time(!)
This tweet explains it in 2 minutes.
https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1620325590556618753?cxt=HHwWgsDR2cXixvwsAAAA
SUPERB
Ahhh, reading comments and appreciating the controversy about the movie here. Still, it is well done!
Thank you for this. Nothing really new here but a reminder of the pickle we are in. No easy
answers but localizing our efforts seem to be the path that we must follow.
This is a good concise summary and should be mandatory viewing for all normies.
You can buy anything in this world with money.
We're going to need to prioritize on other things beyond money, and not let ourselves be owned in that manner. Some of those big companies mentioned are at the root of our retirement fund options (401K's). If we pulled our money out of those funds, they'd have to sell off assets. And if we bought those successful assets ourselves, then it would divest them of power.
There is a need for less consumption in many ways, particularly of the mainstream media, where our slavish focus allows manipulation, through the spreading of fear and hopelessness. It slowly ensnares us into a life of ease, without focus on relationships around us (family and communities) where something as simple as communication and collaboration there, building friendships, etc. can lead to service for one another, or the sharing of infrequently used tools that would otherwise be individually purchased.
The strengthening and restoration of the family as a central organization of our societies, with focus on raising children on good principles ,will help cut back on divorce leading to individualized households (and all the appliances, building materials, individual purchases, etc) help propel more consumerism and further enrich these people.
Imagine having family members or neighbors on whom we could interrelate with, and support one another instead of relying on costly services, mental health issues, drug use/addiction, and so many other crutches that we use to enrich our lives. This would help slow down the ability for people to be pitted against one another, or fall into homelessness and poverty because they can't individually survive.
This would set back so many costs that we individually incur to satisfy the emotional hunger within us, or because it's more convenient.
For them, it's more profitable to tear families apart so that they can multiply the purchases needed to sustain life as an individual. And it weakens the nations, drives animosity, keeps people from bonding with one another through relationships established through other family members (think of parents of your kids' friends, or through their sports teams, through our churches, friends of our family members, etc)
Late edit (in case anybody chooses to pull their heart):
Jesus taught us two great commandments: Love God first (with all your heart/mind/mind/strength), and to love your neighbor as yourself. These alone would undermine all the fear, animosity, estrangement, etc. that plagues us.
Heck, I would want to create a slogan that's easy to remember and put out on bumper stickers. Something like "I support a love of God, family, country and communities. How about you?"
Catherine Austin Fitts is very vocal about all of us investing in our communities, friends & families. You've nailed it in your response.
One of the current fallacies about the markets is that pension funds can earn a return on their investments sufficient to cover their payouts. Truth is, they can't. This is one of the reasons you get these constant bailouts, going all the way back to 1987. It's not just the big banks that are bailed out in these debacles, it's also a rear-guard action to keep the pension funds solvent. Most folks don't understand the relationship between banks, governments and markets, but they sure as hell 'get it' when their pension fund fails, and any politician in office when that happens will be blamed, regardless of whose fault it was.
The truth about pensions, and this applies to social security as well, is that when they were designed (to counter the rising threat of socialism during the Great Depression) the average life expectancy was only a few years beyond retirement. Now, thanks to modern medicine, it can be measured in decades.
To understand the problem, consider the recent protests in France over raising the retirement age from 62 to 64! Next, consider the effect on pension funds of near-zero interest rates over the last decade when those funds are required by law to invest in 'safe' products, such as government bonds.
To clear the fence, the average pension fund has to earn an 8% return on assets, but typically only has a small portion of discretionary funds to invest, so the return on those has to be even higher than 8% to meet obligations. Also, as automation and offshoring take their toll on employment, there are fewer employees making contributions, so those either have to rise (not popular) or the funds have to earn even more to offset that shortfall.
This is not speculation, it's a mathematical certainty. Most private pension funds will either fail, or will drastically reduce payouts in the coming years. Social Security won't fail, but the payouts will be smaller and eaten away by inflation, plus the retirement age will be raised along with contribution levels.
I rode on a bus with an investment advisor with CalPERS, California's retirement BEHEMOTH pension fund. He mentioned that as the fund gets bigger, and their huge pot of money has to be diversified out further and further to avoid being too heavy in any one company or sector, that the returns diminish, and becomes increasingly hard, if not impossible, to keep up with returns seen in smaller funds.
And your points, ebear, are all spot on, and is (my personal opinion) a big driver for the whole covid emergency and subsequent kill shot - to be rid of some of the financial burdens of pensioners and the associated health care costs they incur.
unfortunately it is almost impossible to not be part of some here and there. Our bank belongs to one and the bank of my parents to another. And god knows how much of merchandise belongs to them
Already bought... not buying.
The AI guy is weird
right?