Cartel of Cartels

Who’s Calling the Shots?, part 3

In the last installment of Who’s Calling the Shots?, I argued that several cartels were clearly collaborating in the implementation of Operation Covid. The media, medical, government, and big tech cartels have been supporting each other in maintaining the fiction that we are under siege by a lethal virus. Lockdowns, masks, social distancing, and “vaccines” have been promoted as defensive tactics to protect the public health. The messaging from those cartels has been obviously coordinated. Unscientific, baseless claims have been presented as scientific and well-supported. Scientific, logical, and supported arguments have been censored. I won’t review the absurdities here, but assume that each reader could share with the rest of us outrageous examples of official malfeasance. Since we are sixteen months into this farce, we are beyond the point of convincing the credulous of the illogical foundations of Operation Covid. They may wake up at some point.

The question I am asking in this installment is why and how these industries have coordinated their response to the alleged pandemic. Even before that, how did each industry – medical, media, tech, government – come to the consensus that there was indeed a pandemic? Once the consensus was formed within each industry, how did they all coordinate their responses? I named the individual industries cartels, based on the coordinated actions of their constituent parts. But the pan-industry response suggests a cartel of cartels. Who is behind this? Who’s Calling the Shots?

At the University of Amsterdam, a group of research scientists has been studying the issue of the consolidation of ownership and power of corporations since the financial crisis of 2008. “The CORPNET research group uncovers, investigates and aims to understand global networks of corporate control in contemporary global capitalism.” Their publications are mostly open access. I will be applying their discoveries and insights in the next couple of installments of Who’s Calling the Shots? Other analysts have also benefitted from CORPNET. The recent documentary, Monopoly: Follow the Money, also draws on CORPNET.

Before Operation Covid, the inherent dangers of the new financial economy were brought to our attention by researchers publishing in The Conversation.

What is the common denominator in the three main cartels that we had identified in the last installment: media, medical, and big tech? For the moment, and for obvious reasons, we will exclude the government cartel from our analysis. So, let’s look at who could potentially coordinate the responses of the medical, media, and big tech cartels?

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In the table below, I list the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world, based on market capitalization. Next to each, the top four investors, according to data available on stockzoa.

Take Pfizer as an example. It’s total assets are listed at $179 billion. The Vanguard Group holds 451 million shares of Pfizer stock, valued at sixteen billion dollars as of March 2021. BlackRock holds 406 million shares, valued at fifteen billion dollars. After Capital Research Global Investors and State Street, there are hundreds of other investors – including pension funds, insurance companies, and banks – with much smaller shares in Pfizer. (Three major investment funds divested themselves of Pfizer shares in the latter half of 2020: Berkshire Hathaway, Morgan Stanley, and Norges Bank Investment Management.) So, The Vanguard Group and BlackRock, while not owning a controlling share of Pfizer, together have substantial influence over the company.

The same is true of most of the major pharmaceutical companies; The Vanguard Group and BlackRock are consistently present among the top investors. Even when we look at Moderna, we find BlackRock and The Vanguard Group as the third and fourth most important investors. The Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street have placed themselves in a position to control the medical cartel through their investments in pharmaceutical companies.

Take a look at The Vanguard Group‘s website. It is a private company and, as such, doesn’t have to tell us who owns it. It does, however, tell us that it is owned by all the little investors – like you and me – who trust Vanguard’s investors to take care of our money. There are images of us: everyday, hard-working, racially-diverse people. However, it is likely that some of those everyday people who depend on The Vanguard Group to care for their hard-earned money include the world’s richest families.

Now let’s look at the media cartel.

In the table below are listed the nine largest media companies, according to Investopedia, in descending order of market capitalization. Next to each are the four largest investors.

Now, the top ten tech companies by market capitalization:

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We can see the dominance of three asset management firms across all three industries. Since the financial crisis of 2008, The Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street have acquired pivotal shareholdings in thousands of publicly-listed corporations, both in the United States and internationally. This has been the consequence of a shift from actively-managed to passive-managed funds. Active managers invest their clients’ funds in particular corporations, based on any number of criteria, in order to secure the best outcome. However, passive fund managers – like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – invest in a broad spectrum of companies of a particular index. William McNab, chairman and CEO of Vanguard, says that this strategy should not be mistaken with a passive attitude towards corporate governance. Likewise, Larry Fink, founder and CEO of BlackRock, wrote in a letter to all S&P 500 CEOs that he requires them to engage actively with the long-term providers of capital. In other words, Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street, demand that the corporations in which they are invested be accountable to them. They have proclaimed their intention to actively manage their holdings for years.

This is not to say that Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street have engineered Operation Covid. However, it is obvious that Operation Covid could not have had the support of the three key cartels – media, medical, and big tech – without their approval. It doesn’t yet tell us Who’s Calling the Shots, but it does help us to understand who is onboard.

CORPNET has probed more deeply into the consequences of the new financial economy. The next installment will deal with how passive asset managers influence the behaviour of corporations. And then, who creates the indices? Is there another power behind the asset managers? And, whose funds are being invested? Pension funds and small, individual investors, hoping to “make their money work for them” may well be the authors of their (our) own demise.