October 16, 2025 • 18 mins
Work with Me: (https://tidycal.com/eringray/45-min-call-with-erin)
You might think you have a say in the market because you own shares. In this episode, I break down how the big 3 asset managers: BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street actually control the voting power across America’s largest companies, and why that matters to you.
In this episode we discuss:
- How funds centralize voting rights with a few asset managers
- The scale of ownership concentration across the top US companies
- The mechanics of shares, boards, and proxy votes
- Why fiduciary duty can tilt toward fund managers’ incentives
Resources mentioned in the episode:
Ep 152: Money Can't Buy Your Feelings: Here's How to Be Wealthy From Within
Ian Carroll: The Real Blackrock Conspiracy: The Mega Corp That Controls Capitalism
Other ways to connect with me:
Come learn with me in my monthly workshops
➡️ Join here
Grab your free Human Design chart
➡️ Schedule your free clarity call here
From my soul to yours,
Erin
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
ErinGray (00:00):
Welcome back to your money, your rules podcast with
me, your host, Aaron Gray.
Glad you're here.
If you're new here, I want tosay welcome.
If you've been around a while,I want to say thank you.
So on today's podcast, we aregoing to be talking about who
actually controls the stockmarket.
It's not actually me and you,like we have been taught.
And we're going to dive intowho actually controls it, what's
(00:24):
actually been going on.
And I want to empower you withmore knowledge and education so
that you can make your owndecisions.
So let's dive in.
Okay, so obviously, thispodcast, when I set out to do
this podcast, it was to andstill is to empower you.
And it is to what I call, youknow, the 5D, that spirituality,
(00:46):
the your wealth consciousness,like your self-concept, what you
believe about yourself,emotional regulation, all of
that stuff we cannot see.
That's really what I want us tofocus on.
And I also know that we live inthis 3D world, meaning the
observed world, what's actuallyhappening.
And I, like I have said beforeon previous podcasts, I do this
(01:07):
dance, it feels like a dance ofokay, really, what are we
wanting to go towards?
What do we want to create inour lives while also not being
completely naive of actuallywhat's going on in the world?
Because I truly feel like if weknow what's actually going on,
we don't need to focus on it,but we do need to see what is
(01:27):
actually happening so that wecan create something different.
And how do you know what youwant to actually create if you
don't have the contrast?
And I think we have beautifulcontrast right now.
And one of those is in thefinancial system.
So, you know, a lot of us thinkthat and have been taught that
the stock market isdecentralized, that there's how
(01:50):
many millions of investors, andthat we are all, you know,
sharing control because we ownshares, right?
But the reality is that'sactually not as what has
happened over time.
So I'm going to share a clip.
I'm first going to talk alittle bit about the stock
market, and then I'm going topipe in a man named Ian Carroll.
(02:13):
And I'm going to put his entireYouTube video up on the show
notes so that you can go andwatch it.
I always say to everybody, gowatch it, go do your own
research, like whatever book orYouTube video I suggest, like,
watch it, develop your ownthoughts and beliefs.
And like, what do you want tobelieve?
Don't just take my word for it.
But Ian actually started offwith like questioning like where
(02:35):
who actually is making all ofthese feminine products.
That's actually how he kind ofgot started.
He started questioning like,who owns this company and who
owns this company and who ownsthis company.
And then before he found out,like before, you know, in no
time, what he found out was isthat there's just basically
three companies that controllike who are making the feminine
products, who are making ourcereals, who are making, you
(02:56):
know, so much of what we arepurchasing, what we are buying.
Then he dove into the financialsystem and then he started
looking into the medical system.
So he's just kind of like aspider web of like investigative
reporting of like who actuallyis running the show here and how
are we being led to believethat we are when we're actually
(03:17):
not.
And so I want to talk just alittle bit about how Ian is
going to share with you in thevideo that the top 100 companies
on the US stock market, andthose would probably be
considered large cap stocks,they are controlled or owned by
three companies.
And those three companies areBlackRock, Vanguard, and State
(03:40):
Street.
Now, BlackRock actuallypurchased uh State Street.
So I guess you could say two,but that's a discussion for
another time.
So when you look at those threedifferent companies that they
own, the top 100 companies, thepercentage that they actually
make up of owning thosecompanies are 42%.
Now, if you actually look atexpand your scope, that the the
(04:05):
25 biggest financialinstitutions, then those three
companies actually own 83%,because BlackRock, Vanguard, and
State Street actually own someof these financial institutions,
right?
So when you plug all thattogether, then really BlackRock,
State Street, and Vanguardactually own 83% of those 100
(04:25):
companies.
And that's just the top 100companies.
Like that doesn't even includeor mention the other companies
of like your mid-cap, your smallcap companies, your
international companies, REITs,which are short for real estate
investment trusts, basicallyreal estate that they go and
then they put it in kind of likeit's kind of like a mutual fund
(04:46):
where you put a bunch of realestate in and then you sell that
mutual fund.
And also like T bills, like itjust goes on and on and on.
And so one of the things that Ijust want you to be aware of,
which is why I'm always this myprevious podcast episode,
episode 152, I believe, is likethe biggest investment that we
can ever make is in ourselves,is in our wealth consciousness,
(05:09):
is in our mindset, is in ourself-concept, in, you know, our
own business.
You know, the society will haveyou to believe to diversify,
which I think is another tacticof having us be distracted.
But I think the most importantthing, and I remember my first
coach used to say this, and Iand I believed her at the time,
(05:30):
but I don't know if she gaveevidence for things like this.
But now it's like in my bones.
Like the most importantinvestment you will ever make is
in yourself.
And if you are a businessowner, it is in your business
because you have completeautonomy and complete.
And when I say control, what Imean is you control your belief,
you control your belief anduncertainty, you control how
(05:54):
often you want to spend timethinking about your mindset and
changing your mindset and yourwealth consciousness and
changing your self-concept.
Like all of that is within yourcontrol because the way that
the stock market works, also tothe real estate market, but
let's just talk about the stockmarket here.
That stock market can be easilymanipulated because of the way
(06:15):
that it is owned and because forsome people, they act from a
very fear-based place.
So the rest of us that areactually invested in the market,
besides Vanguard State Streetand BlackRock, if you are making
and you are pulling out moneywhen you are feeling fear, then
that is also something that likewe don't have control over
(06:36):
those people, right?
So I think that it is soimportant to one, educate
yourself on what is actuallyhappening within the stock
market.
I'm going to let you listen tojust a clip of Ian talk about
these three companies and whatthey have been doing.
And the thing that I also wantto mention here, too, is you
know, since I came from thefinancial industry, I can tell
(07:00):
you that this is not talkedabout.
Maybe it's talked about now,you know, that was 20 years ago,
but this is not somethingthat's talked about.
What's talked about is likemutual funds and understanding
mutual funds.
And I mean, I'm very being uhsurface level and generalizing,
but like, you know, it's notlike when I took my CFP that
(07:20):
they were actually talking aboutthis stuff.
And it's kind of like how bigpharma is actually paying for
medical, right?
It's like you you've got yourhand in the cookie jar and
you're also, you know, tellingus how to do things.
It's this symbioticrelationship with it's conflict
of interest.
That's the word that's comingto mind.
Like it's a conflict ofinterest.
And so I don't know if a lot ofadvisors are actually even
(07:45):
aware of this.
And if they are aware of this,I don't know if you're actually
educating your clients on this.
So, like I always say, takewhat I talk about, take what I
teach you, go do your ownresearch, empower yourself,
watch the video, read the books,learn from your own
perspective, and then make yourdecision.
But one thing I do want to dois to plant the seed so that you
(08:10):
are able to actually take theblinders off, right?
Like we've been so conditionedto believe that other people
know more than us.
And the financial industry onpurpose has become a complicated
industry on purpose to have usdoubting ourselves and to have
us outsourcing our decisionmaking to someone who, and I'm
(08:32):
air quoting, might be moreknowledgeable than us.
But I think the biggest thingthat we can do for ourselves is
to educate ourselves so that wecan actually learn about what's
happening so that we can makevery informed decisions.
So I'm gonna let you listen toIan and I'll be back in a bit.
IanCarroll (08:49):
So, as I did all this research across basically
every industry in the economy, Ifound the same major thing over
and over and over again.
It's a big club and we are notin it.
So naturally, I got curiousjust how much of the stock
market of all the publiclytraded companies do BlackRock,
Vanguard, and State Streetactually own?
(09:10):
Like, how big is their share orslice of the pie?
So I took the top 100 companieson the US market, companies
that you're very familiar with,like Tesla, Pfizer, Starbucks,
Verizon, Lockheed Martin, HomeDepot, you know, normal
companies, the big ones, the top100.
(09:30):
And I built a giant spreadsheetthat scraped their stock
ownership information live offthe web and into my charts.
And then I used all that datato build this sheet showing what
percentage of the top 100companies in America are owned
by each of these investmentfirms, banks, and billionaires.
And even though I had alreadybeen doing this research for
(09:51):
months, this kind of shocked me.
Vanguard, BlackRock, and StateStreet combined represent more
than $5 trillion invested in thetop 100 companies.
On the right of this chart, youcan see that collectively, that
represents 42.2% of all theshares of ownership in the top
100 companies.
(10:11):
If you expand your scope to the25 biggest financial
institutions, they collectivelyown 83% of the shares.
There are hundreds of themabove us on these lists.
(10:31):
So now it's important to slowdown and explain what a share
actually is.
Like what does it represent?
What does it mean?
Because a lot of us think ofshares of stock as something
nebulous, like a form ofgambling for white guys in
suits, and kind of, but a shareis way more than that.
A share is a share of ownershipof a company, and it's a share
(10:54):
of the voting rights for howthat company is run.
Because, in a sick way, all ofthese companies are actually run
democratically, except that youbuy your votes.
Like the more shares you own,the more votes you get.
So if you own 10% of theshares, you get 10% of the
voting rights.
It's actually pretty simple.
(11:15):
You don't vote on every tinylittle thing the company is
going to do, like what color thepackaging will be, or how many
Cheerios go into a box, but youvote on the big things, like
major policies that the companyis going to adopt or reject.
Shareholders can introducetheir own items for voting.
In the 2010s, one of the mostpopular ones were like various
versions of sustainabilityinitiatives like eco-friendly
(11:37):
packaging, zero emissioncommitments, stuff like that.
Almost every company in theAmerican market was voting on
those sorts of initiatives overthe last decade.
And there is a reason why thatwe will get to.
But most importantly,shareholders vote on who will
sit on the board of directors.
And they are the ones thatguide the company and hire and
(11:57):
fire the executives thatactually run the company on the
day-to-day, like the CEO, CFO,COO.
It's a lot of C names.
Those guys are called the Csuite because they're all
chiefs, you know?
So they, the C suite, are hiredand fired by the board of
directors, who we elect with ourshared voting rights.
(12:19):
And all of this is determinedby shareholder voting.
The more shares you own, themore votes you get.
You see where this is goingyet?
Because this is where we kindof crush the typical BlackRock
conspiracy theories that you'veprobably seen all over YouTube
and Reddit and wherever else.
This is where the finance brosare all screaming that BlackRock
(12:42):
doesn't actually own theshares, and that's that's kind
of correct.
But let's start by just meetingthe big three: Vanguard,
BlackRock, and State Street.
Although State Street isactually owned by BlackRock now,
so it's kind of awkward.
But anyways, these guys areinvestment management firms, and
you probably are invested withthem.
(13:04):
At least if you're old enoughand well off enough to have any
sort of retirement account orinvestment savings account or
anything like that.
Maybe if you dabble in buyingETFs or index funds or the like,
the big three mostly manageother people's money for them.
They invested across widesweeping portfolios of stocks to
just like minimize risk andmake your wealth grow slowly
(13:25):
over time without you knowlosing it all.
Vanguard pioneered this mutualfund model decades ago and then
BlackRock elevated it withpopularization of index and
exchange traded funds.
So now you buy a share of,let's say, I don't know,
BlackRock's Voltron 3000 fund orwhatever.
I just made that up.
BlackRock's Voltron 3000 fundhas a whole bunch of shares of
(13:46):
3,000 different companies allacross the markets in its
portfolio.
And you have a tiny littleslice of that portfolio and of
its profit or loss, right?
So because your risk is nowspread out across 3,000
different stocks, you're notgoing to lose it all when
Circuit City goes bankruptbecause you thought it was going
to go to the moon.
But you also won't get richwhen GameStop does go to the
(14:09):
moon.
So, you know, whatever.
They don't really want yougetting rich anyways.
So it's true though, most ofthe money that the big three
manage is not their own money.
Most of it is actually ourretirement accounts, like
trillions of dollars of ourretirement accounts.
So all the half-wits out therethat just accept what they're
(14:29):
told in business school as likegospel fact think, oh, nothing
to see here.
It's all good, bro.
BlackRock doesn't actually ownany of these companies.
They're just holding it for us.
Like, right?
Eh, sort of.
You can look this up foryourself.
It's not hard to figure outwhen you buy a share of a mutual
fund or an index fund or anexchange traded fund, all the
(14:51):
types of products that the BigFree are selling.
You sign over your votingrights to the fund managers.
To BlackRock.
Sure, they are managing yourmoney, but they are also
managing your voting power.
You are now a beneficial ownerof a share of their fund, not
the underlying shares of thecorporations they are investing
(15:11):
in on your behalf.
And so when we say thatBlackRock, Vanguard, and State
Street own 42% of all the sharesin the top 100 companies on the
market, that means that theycontrol 42% of the voting power.
Add in their buddies, and thetop 25 financial institutions
control 83% of the voting power.
(15:32):
That means they control all ofthese companies.
They pick the boards ofdirectors, they pick the
policies, they decide how thingsare going to run, when
companies will do share buybacksor dividends, all the rest of
it.
Obviously, they're not allpowerful, but by the rules of
their own game, they'vebasically got it all locked
down.
And perhaps most subtle andsinister of all, this changes
(15:57):
the nature of capitalism in afundamental way.
Because fiduciary duty is alegal term binding these
companies and their chiefofficers to act in the best
interest of their shareholders.
And honestly, this makesperfect sense.
The whole point of a publiccompany is that this company
serves our whole community orcountry or state or whatever it
is, and we can all buy into itand have a say in how it's run.
(16:20):
And in exchange for taking ourinvestment money, they have a
duty to do what's best for us,the investors.
But that's not how the worldworks today.
We are not the investors thatthey are beholden to anymore.
Now, all of these companies'fiduciary duty is to the bankers
and the fund managers and theLarry Finks of this world.
They are legally bound to dowhat is best for them, not for
(16:44):
you.
And if it's best for them tosell baby food with 177 times
the legal amount of lead in it,well, they're gonna do it.
If it's best for them to sellyou untested pharmaceutical
products, then they're gonna doit.
If they'll make more moneyfilling the food with drugs and
poisons, not only are they gonnado it, they are legally
(17:05):
obligated to.
It's their fiduciary duty, andthey can actually be fired if
they don't.
ErinGray (17:11):
Okay, so I will put his information in the show
notes.
You can go watch the full videoon YouTube.
He's highly insightful.
He has done his research.
Like I said, you do your ownresearch, you do your own
fact-finding and digging andmake your own decisions.
I just want to empower you andto educate you as to what is
(17:32):
actually happening with thestock market.
And if anything, I want tofurther reinforce that you are
your number one investment andthat your knowledge and your
skill sets and your mindset andyour wealth consciousness and
self-concept and your financialconcept and your financial
(17:52):
consciousness and your financialliteracy, those are all assets
that you own that can never betaken away from you.
So when you think about wheredo I need to put my money, where
do I need to invest, I want youto really ponder first within
me first, right?
Yourself.
The answer needs to beinvesting in yourself first,
always.
(18:13):
And then wherever else you wantit to go.
But increasing your financialliteracy, your knowledge, and
your wealth consciousness andyour self concept is numero in
a.
Okay, my friends.
I'll see you in the nextepisode.
Welcome back to your money, your rules podcast with
me, your host, Aaron Gray.
Glad you're here.
If you're new here, I want tosay welcome.
If you've been around a while,I want to say thank you.
So on today's podcast, we aregoing to be talking about who
actually controls the stockmarket.
It's not actually me and you,like we have been taught.
And we're going to dive intowho actually controls it, what's
(00:24):
actually been going on.
And I want to empower you withmore knowledge and education so
that you can make your owndecisions.
So let's dive in.
Okay, so obviously, thispodcast, when I set out to do
this podcast, it was to andstill is to empower you.
And it is to what I call, youknow, the 5D, that spirituality,
(00:46):
the your wealth consciousness,like your self-concept, what you
believe about yourself,emotional regulation, all of
that stuff we cannot see.
That's really what I want us tofocus on.
And I also know that we live inthis 3D world, meaning the
observed world, what's actuallyhappening.
And I, like I have said beforeon previous podcasts, I do this
(01:07):
dance, it feels like a dance ofokay, really, what are we
wanting to go towards?
What do we want to create inour lives while also not being
completely naive of actuallywhat's going on in the world?
Because I truly feel like if weknow what's actually going on,
we don't need to focus on it,but we do need to see what is
(01:27):
actually happening so that wecan create something different.
And how do you know what youwant to actually create if you
don't have the contrast?
And I think we have beautifulcontrast right now.
And one of those is in thefinancial system.
So, you know, a lot of us thinkthat and have been taught that
the stock market isdecentralized, that there's how
(01:50):
many millions of investors, andthat we are all, you know,
sharing control because we ownshares, right?
But the reality is that'sactually not as what has
happened over time.
So I'm going to share a clip.
I'm first going to talk alittle bit about the stock
market, and then I'm going topipe in a man named Ian Carroll.
(02:13):
And I'm going to put his entireYouTube video up on the show
notes so that you can go andwatch it.
I always say to everybody, gowatch it, go do your own
research, like whatever book orYouTube video I suggest, like,
watch it, develop your ownthoughts and beliefs.
And like, what do you want tobelieve?
Don't just take my word for it.
But Ian actually started offwith like questioning like where
(02:35):
who actually is making all ofthese feminine products.
That's actually how he kind ofgot started.
He started questioning like,who owns this company and who
owns this company and who ownsthis company.
And then before he found out,like before, you know, in no
time, what he found out was isthat there's just basically
three companies that controllike who are making the feminine
products, who are making ourcereals, who are making, you
(02:56):
know, so much of what we arepurchasing, what we are buying.
Then he dove into the financialsystem and then he started
looking into the medical system.
So he's just kind of like aspider web of like investigative
reporting of like who actuallyis running the show here and how
are we being led to believethat we are when we're actually
(03:17):
not.
And so I want to talk just alittle bit about how Ian is
going to share with you in thevideo that the top 100 companies
on the US stock market, andthose would probably be
considered large cap stocks,they are controlled or owned by
three companies.
And those three companies areBlackRock, Vanguard, and State
(03:40):
Street.
Now, BlackRock actuallypurchased uh State Street.
So I guess you could say two,but that's a discussion for
another time.
So when you look at those threedifferent companies that they
own, the top 100 companies, thepercentage that they actually
make up of owning thosecompanies are 42%.
Now, if you actually look atexpand your scope, that the the
(04:05):
25 biggest financialinstitutions, then those three
companies actually own 83%,because BlackRock, Vanguard, and
State Street actually own someof these financial institutions,
right?
So when you plug all thattogether, then really BlackRock,
State Street, and Vanguardactually own 83% of those 100
(04:25):
companies.
And that's just the top 100companies.
Like that doesn't even includeor mention the other companies
of like your mid-cap, your smallcap companies, your
international companies, REITs,which are short for real estate
investment trusts, basicallyreal estate that they go and
then they put it in kind of likeit's kind of like a mutual fund
(04:46):
where you put a bunch of realestate in and then you sell that
mutual fund.
And also like T bills, like itjust goes on and on and on.
And so one of the things that Ijust want you to be aware of,
which is why I'm always this myprevious podcast episode,
episode 152, I believe, is likethe biggest investment that we
can ever make is in ourselves,is in our wealth consciousness,
(05:09):
is in our mindset, is in ourself-concept, in, you know, our
own business.
You know, the society will haveyou to believe to diversify,
which I think is another tacticof having us be distracted.
But I think the most importantthing, and I remember my first
coach used to say this, and Iand I believed her at the time,
(05:30):
but I don't know if she gaveevidence for things like this.
But now it's like in my bones.
Like the most importantinvestment you will ever make is
in yourself.
And if you are a businessowner, it is in your business
because you have completeautonomy and complete.
And when I say control, what Imean is you control your belief,
you control your belief anduncertainty, you control how
(05:54):
often you want to spend timethinking about your mindset and
changing your mindset and yourwealth consciousness and
changing your self-concept.
Like all of that is within yourcontrol because the way that
the stock market works, also tothe real estate market, but
let's just talk about the stockmarket here.
That stock market can be easilymanipulated because of the way
(06:15):
that it is owned and because forsome people, they act from a
very fear-based place.
So the rest of us that areactually invested in the market,
besides Vanguard State Streetand BlackRock, if you are making
and you are pulling out moneywhen you are feeling fear, then
that is also something that likewe don't have control over
(06:36):
those people, right?
So I think that it is soimportant to one, educate
yourself on what is actuallyhappening within the stock
market.
I'm going to let you listen tojust a clip of Ian talk about
these three companies and whatthey have been doing.
And the thing that I also wantto mention here, too, is you
know, since I came from thefinancial industry, I can tell
(07:00):
you that this is not talkedabout.
Maybe it's talked about now,you know, that was 20 years ago,
but this is not somethingthat's talked about.
What's talked about is likemutual funds and understanding
mutual funds.
And I mean, I'm very being uhsurface level and generalizing,
but like, you know, it's notlike when I took my CFP that
(07:20):
they were actually talking aboutthis stuff.
And it's kind of like how bigpharma is actually paying for
medical, right?
It's like you you've got yourhand in the cookie jar and
you're also, you know, tellingus how to do things.
It's this symbioticrelationship with it's conflict
of interest.
That's the word that's comingto mind.
Like it's a conflict ofinterest.
And so I don't know if a lot ofadvisors are actually even
(07:45):
aware of this.
And if they are aware of this,I don't know if you're actually
educating your clients on this.
So, like I always say, takewhat I talk about, take what I
teach you, go do your ownresearch, empower yourself,
watch the video, read the books,learn from your own
perspective, and then make yourdecision.
But one thing I do want to dois to plant the seed so that you
(08:10):
are able to actually take theblinders off, right?
Like we've been so conditionedto believe that other people
know more than us.
And the financial industry onpurpose has become a complicated
industry on purpose to have usdoubting ourselves and to have
us outsourcing our decisionmaking to someone who, and I'm
(08:32):
air quoting, might be moreknowledgeable than us.
But I think the biggest thingthat we can do for ourselves is
to educate ourselves so that wecan actually learn about what's
happening so that we can makevery informed decisions.
So I'm gonna let you listen toIan and I'll be back in a bit.
IanCarroll (08:49):
So, as I did all this research across basically
every industry in the economy, Ifound the same major thing over
and over and over again.
It's a big club and we are notin it.
So naturally, I got curiousjust how much of the stock
market of all the publiclytraded companies do BlackRock,
Vanguard, and State Streetactually own?
(09:10):
Like, how big is their share orslice of the pie?
So I took the top 100 companieson the US market, companies
that you're very familiar with,like Tesla, Pfizer, Starbucks,
Verizon, Lockheed Martin, HomeDepot, you know, normal
companies, the big ones, the top100.
(09:30):
And I built a giant spreadsheetthat scraped their stock
ownership information live offthe web and into my charts.
And then I used all that datato build this sheet showing what
percentage of the top 100companies in America are owned
by each of these investmentfirms, banks, and billionaires.
And even though I had alreadybeen doing this research for
(09:51):
months, this kind of shocked me.
Vanguard, BlackRock, and StateStreet combined represent more
than $5 trillion invested in thetop 100 companies.
On the right of this chart, youcan see that collectively, that
represents 42.2% of all theshares of ownership in the top
100 companies.
(10:11):
If you expand your scope to the25 biggest financial
institutions, they collectivelyown 83% of the shares.
There are hundreds of themabove us on these lists.
(10:31):
So now it's important to slowdown and explain what a share
actually is.
Like what does it represent?
What does it mean?
Because a lot of us think ofshares of stock as something
nebulous, like a form ofgambling for white guys in
suits, and kind of, but a shareis way more than that.
A share is a share of ownershipof a company, and it's a share
(10:54):
of the voting rights for howthat company is run.
Because, in a sick way, all ofthese companies are actually run
democratically, except that youbuy your votes.
Like the more shares you own,the more votes you get.
So if you own 10% of theshares, you get 10% of the
voting rights.
It's actually pretty simple.
(11:15):
You don't vote on every tinylittle thing the company is
going to do, like what color thepackaging will be, or how many
Cheerios go into a box, but youvote on the big things, like
major policies that the companyis going to adopt or reject.
Shareholders can introducetheir own items for voting.
In the 2010s, one of the mostpopular ones were like various
versions of sustainabilityinitiatives like eco-friendly
(11:37):
packaging, zero emissioncommitments, stuff like that.
Almost every company in theAmerican market was voting on
those sorts of initiatives overthe last decade.
And there is a reason why thatwe will get to.
But most importantly,shareholders vote on who will
sit on the board of directors.
And they are the ones thatguide the company and hire and
(11:57):
fire the executives thatactually run the company on the
day-to-day, like the CEO, CFO,COO.
It's a lot of C names.
Those guys are called the Csuite because they're all
chiefs, you know?
So they, the C suite, are hiredand fired by the board of
directors, who we elect with ourshared voting rights.
(12:19):
And all of this is determinedby shareholder voting.
The more shares you own, themore votes you get.
You see where this is goingyet?
Because this is where we kindof crush the typical BlackRock
conspiracy theories that you'veprobably seen all over YouTube
and Reddit and wherever else.
This is where the finance brosare all screaming that BlackRock
(12:42):
doesn't actually own theshares, and that's that's kind
of correct.
But let's start by just meetingthe big three: Vanguard,
BlackRock, and State Street.
Although State Street isactually owned by BlackRock now,
so it's kind of awkward.
But anyways, these guys areinvestment management firms, and
you probably are invested withthem.
(13:04):
At least if you're old enoughand well off enough to have any
sort of retirement account orinvestment savings account or
anything like that.
Maybe if you dabble in buyingETFs or index funds or the like,
the big three mostly manageother people's money for them.
They invested across widesweeping portfolios of stocks to
just like minimize risk andmake your wealth grow slowly
(13:25):
over time without you knowlosing it all.
Vanguard pioneered this mutualfund model decades ago and then
BlackRock elevated it withpopularization of index and
exchange traded funds.
So now you buy a share of,let's say, I don't know,
BlackRock's Voltron 3000 fund orwhatever.
I just made that up.
BlackRock's Voltron 3000 fundhas a whole bunch of shares of
(13:46):
3,000 different companies allacross the markets in its
portfolio.
And you have a tiny littleslice of that portfolio and of
its profit or loss, right?
So because your risk is nowspread out across 3,000
different stocks, you're notgoing to lose it all when
Circuit City goes bankruptbecause you thought it was going
to go to the moon.
But you also won't get richwhen GameStop does go to the
(14:09):
moon.
So, you know, whatever.
They don't really want yougetting rich anyways.
So it's true though, most ofthe money that the big three
manage is not their own money.
Most of it is actually ourretirement accounts, like
trillions of dollars of ourretirement accounts.
So all the half-wits out therethat just accept what they're
(14:29):
told in business school as likegospel fact think, oh, nothing
to see here.
It's all good, bro.
BlackRock doesn't actually ownany of these companies.
They're just holding it for us.
Like, right?
Eh, sort of.
You can look this up foryourself.
It's not hard to figure outwhen you buy a share of a mutual
fund or an index fund or anexchange traded fund, all the
(14:51):
types of products that the BigFree are selling.
You sign over your votingrights to the fund managers.
To BlackRock.
Sure, they are managing yourmoney, but they are also
managing your voting power.
You are now a beneficial ownerof a share of their fund, not
the underlying shares of thecorporations they are investing
(15:11):
in on your behalf.
And so when we say thatBlackRock, Vanguard, and State
Street own 42% of all the sharesin the top 100 companies on the
market, that means that theycontrol 42% of the voting power.
Add in their buddies, and thetop 25 financial institutions
control 83% of the voting power.
(15:32):
That means they control all ofthese companies.
They pick the boards ofdirectors, they pick the
policies, they decide how thingsare going to run, when
companies will do share buybacksor dividends, all the rest of
it.
Obviously, they're not allpowerful, but by the rules of
their own game, they'vebasically got it all locked
down.
And perhaps most subtle andsinister of all, this changes
(15:57):
the nature of capitalism in afundamental way.
Because fiduciary duty is alegal term binding these
companies and their chiefofficers to act in the best
interest of their shareholders.
And honestly, this makesperfect sense.
The whole point of a publiccompany is that this company
serves our whole community orcountry or state or whatever it
is, and we can all buy into itand have a say in how it's run.
(16:20):
And in exchange for taking ourinvestment money, they have a
duty to do what's best for us,the investors.
But that's not how the worldworks today.
We are not the investors thatthey are beholden to anymore.
Now, all of these companies'fiduciary duty is to the bankers
and the fund managers and theLarry Finks of this world.
They are legally bound to dowhat is best for them, not for
(16:44):
you.
And if it's best for them tosell baby food with 177 times
the legal amount of lead in it,well, they're gonna do it.
If it's best for them to sellyou untested pharmaceutical
products, then they're gonna doit.
If they'll make more moneyfilling the food with drugs and
poisons, not only are they gonnado it, they are legally
(17:05):
obligated to.
It's their fiduciary duty, andthey can actually be fired if
they don't.
ErinGray (17:11):
Okay, so I will put his information in the show
notes.
You can go watch the full videoon YouTube.
He's highly insightful.
He has done his research.
Like I said, you do your ownresearch, you do your own
fact-finding and digging andmake your own decisions.
I just want to empower you andto educate you as to what is
(17:32):
actually happening with thestock market.
And if anything, I want tofurther reinforce that you are
your number one investment andthat your knowledge and your
skill sets and your mindset andyour wealth consciousness and
self-concept and your financialconcept and your financial
(17:52):
consciousness and your financialliteracy, those are all assets
that you own that can never betaken away from you.
So when you think about wheredo I need to put my money, where
do I need to invest, I want youto really ponder first within
me first, right?
Yourself.
The answer needs to beinvesting in yourself first,
always.
(18:13):
And then wherever else you wantit to go.
But increasing your financialliteracy, your knowledge, and
your wealth consciousness andyour self concept is numero in
a.
Okay, my friends.
I'll see you in the nextepisode.
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