Saw this on Lew Rockwell. Don't really accept the premis. This is how all stocks work. If you own a share of gamestop you get 1 voat at the annual shareholders meeting; 100 shares = 100 voats. If you buy a share of a vanguard mutual fund like most people with any kind of investment account you are an owner of Vanguard. Each company has growth goals to make so the employees make bonuses. Coke employees don't make bonus if pepsi sells more. If I held shares of coke and pepsi that wouldn't mean they are no longer competitors.
If you think there is too much power take a look at how activist investors took control of game stop and started fucking with wall street.
You are horribly misinformed.
If you buy shares in a company you get voting rights.
If you invest in (or are forced to invest in because of limited options offered by your employer) mutual funds or ETFs, you forfeit your voting rights, and those rights go to the management company.
You have to jump through a hundred hoops to get a self-directed retirement account that lets you buy stock directly at most corporations, if you can get one at all. I know, I've done it. I had to prove and certify that I was financially savvy before it was even an option. For the vast majority, it's not even an option. That retirement money can only be invested in a handful of mutual funds and ETFs, and the voting/control of the underlying shares goes to the management company, not the retiree.
Blackrock and Vanguard invest a SHITLOAD of 401k, pension, and IRA money and THEY get the voting rights for the companies their funds own, not the sheep who bought their ETF or mutual fund. Trillions of dollars of other peoples' money, on top of the immense wealth their owners already possess.
Gamestop was a shitty mid cap stock. Vanguard and Blackrock have a synthetic monopoly on entire industries. The families that own Vanguard (which is privately held, you can't buy any, like central bank shares), have immense power that's extremely difficult if not possible to see, because it's obfuscated behind layer after layer of corporation owning corporation owning corporation.
Why would you say I am horribly misinformed and then basically quote me on voting rights?
Maybe because you can't refute a thing I said?
Lewrockwell?
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/bill-sardi/who-runs-the-world-blackrock-and-vanguard/
Own shares of a Vanguard fund and you are an owner of Vanguard?
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/110515/who-are-owners-vanguard-group.asp
Coke and Pepsi are competitors?
https://network-bussiness.com/2021/11/02/coke-vs-pepsi-the-cola-wars-are-back/
Activist investors fucked with wall street?
https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/what-is-a-short-squeeze-r-wallstreetbets-gme
Sorry it's hard for you to open an account. I agree it's too fucking difficult. But that's not what the original post was about.
(post is archived)