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Reminds me of this ramble https://nickbradbury.com/2014/12/11/the-programmers-dream-a-ramble/ https://nickbradbury.com/2014/12/11/the-programmers-dream-a-... .

Reminds me of this ramble https://nickbradbury.com/2014/12/11/the-programmers-dream-a-ramble/ https://nickbradbury.com/2014/12/11/the-programmers-dream-a-... . I printed it out and hung it in my livingroom, keeps me sane.

qaq 10y ago
Well one can argue that people "in charge" are not at all the people that hold the public offices so we have no clue whether or not they have a clue. If one wants a decent conspiracy theory one could start with the fact that Capital Group, Fidelity , BlackRock and Vanguard have 13 trillion under management majority of which is invested in US stock market so if they collude they would have majority of votes in a majority of US public companies.
- breischl 10y ago
  But the point of both articles is that these groups are not even unified within themselves, much less can they collude effectively, or out-maneuver the various forces that would not want them to control everything. And even if they could - what then? Managing even one company is difficult, trying to coordinate several thousand is essentially impossible. More pedantically, you're assuming those groups could take all of those assets from where the owners of those assets put them (including bonds, commodities, foreign investments, etc) and put them into the US stock market. Even if they did so they're barely above 50% of the US market cap (put at 25 trillion by World Bank). http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/CM.MKT.LCAP.CD?locations=US&name_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/CM.MKT.LCAP.CD?locations...
  - qaq 10y ago
    You are not counting effects of circular ownership citi owns 5% of Chase and Chase owns 5% of Citi and on and on you effectively don't need 50% to control the vote. Even if those 4 are off you can add next two or three with trillion +/- under management. So worst case you need 7 people to collude.
RachelF 10y ago
That is a superb quote.

qaq 10y ago

Well one can argue that people "in charge" are not at all the people that hold the public offices so we have no clue whether or not they have a clue. If one wants a decent conspiracy theory one could start with the fact that Capital Group, Fidelity , BlackRock and Vanguard have 13 trillion under management majority of which is invested in US stock market so if they collude they would have majority of votes in a majority of US public companies.

breischl 10y ago
But the point of both articles is that these groups are not even unified within themselves, much less can they collude effectively, or out-maneuver the various forces that would not want them to control everything. And even if they could - what then? Managing even one company is difficult, trying to coordinate several thousand is essentially impossible. More pedantically, you're assuming those groups could take all of those assets from where the owners of those assets put them (including bonds, commodities, foreign investments, etc) and put them into the US stock market. Even if they did so they're barely above 50% of the US market cap (put at 25 trillion by World Bank). http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/CM.MKT.LCAP.CD?locations=US&name_desc=true http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/CM.MKT.LCAP.CD?locations...
- qaq 10y ago
  You are not counting effects of circular ownership citi owns 5% of Chase and Chase owns 5% of Citi and on and on you effectively don't need 50% to control the vote. Even if those 4 are off you can add next two or three with trillion +/- under management. So worst case you need 7 people to collude.

RachelF 10y ago

That is a superb quote.