Larry Fink, ‘Emperor’?

We live in an age when the Left is increasingly focused on the supposed evils of business concentration, from the “big is bad” ideology of the new antitrust enforcers at the FTC to the attempts to blame inflation on Big Grocery, Big Oil, or any of the other “bigs” allegedly exploiting the beleaguered consumer. And yet the concentration of corporate ownership positions held by a relatively small number of massive investment funds, particularly (but not only) the indexers, has drawn comparatively little criticism from the same quarters. Perhaps their managers’ role in helping create our emerging corporatist state through an ever tighter embrace of “socially responsible” investment and larcenous stakeholder capitalism has acted as a shield of sorts.

Nevertheless, the degree of that concentration has been something to see….

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Larry Fink and the Wrong Kind of Capitalism

It’s the time of year when Larry Fink, the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, comes out with his annual letter to CEOs, a letter in which he tells CEOs what he expects of them. As BlackRock marked the end of 2021 by passing the benchmark of $10 trillion under management, an impressive figure however you look at it, many CEOs will treat Fink’s thoughts with rather more respect than their shareholders or our democracy deserve — $10 trillion will do that.

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