tHe MoSt EvIL cOmPaNiEs In theWoRLD!! BlackStone vs BlackRock

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Published 2022-12-31
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Blackrock and Blackstone are finance companies that control trillions of dollars worth of assets between them. There is a good chance that some of your money is controlled by one of these companies without you even knowing about it.

Blackrock was one of the largest investors in the ill fated FTX and Blackstone has been blamed for single handily causing the housing affordability crisis.

But how do these companies actually work and are they really the most evil businesses in the world?

Well no… sorry to ruin the fun, but if you remove the ominous sounding background music and carefully selected headlines, these are just regular investment firms like any other, not bad, not terrible.

But I think the best way for you to realise this is to get a clear breakdown of how these companies operate.

So it’s time to learn How Money Works to find out how these companies make their money, and who they answer to, so that you can make up your own mind.

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#blackrock #finance #howmoneyworks

Edited By: Andrew Gonzales

Music Courtesy of: Epidemic Sound

Select Footage Courtesy of: Getty Images

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All Comments (21)
  • @PBoyle
    I got to the end and still don't know the difference between a stone and a rock. A stone is smaller, right?
  • @mrbo1996
    Imagine there is a master company controlling both BlackRock and BlackStone called BlackBoulder
  • Counterpoint: If blackrock overpays for a house in a neighborhood and the recent sale data is what real east are agents use to gauge prices. If they buy 1 home in 50% of the local areas in the country, then they are indeed directly responsible for housing becoming more expensive due to the relative price of the real estate
  • 13:32 Blackstone controlling 0.02% of the single housing homes is a very bad argument and hides how much control the company has over the market. While Blackstone may technically control 0.02% of single-family homes, they have huge control over the whole market considering how even slight changes in trends of availability, vacancy, developments, etc can drive huge changes throughout the market. The issue with 0.02% or 0.5% figure for Blackstone and institutionalized owners is: 1) It says nothing about commercial properties and non-single-family homes. 2) It deliberately hides types of housing and total control of housing ownership. If you would rephrase the question to "what percentage of single home housing Blackstone controls in terms of total dollar amount?" you would get a much higher answer as Blackstone focuses on more expensive newer upper-middle-class developments. 3) It ignores homes that are already fully owned by regular folks and realistically will never enter the market because the sale would be impractical. 4) It ignores that a huge percentage of homes are essentially useless for the purposes of market calculations, as those could be in undesirable areas, at the end of their useful lifecycle, etc. 5) It ignores how even the smallest trends in investment impact choices made by housing developers. Developers would prefer building more expensive housing out of reach for most new homebuyers, especially when there is an almost guaranteed asset management company that will buy out those regardless. The issue isn't just that the cost of housing increases, but that the type of housing being built recently (including pre-2008) is stereotypical upper-middle-class McMansions that most people will never be able to afford 6) It ignores the vacancy rate of those homes. As houses function as an investment that will rise regardless of buyers/tenants, there is less incentive to rent those homes to people. I would be interested in what's the vacancy rate in those houses especially combined with the issues above.
  • @BikeHelmetMk2
    9:55 You went right past the issue - if the holders don't vote, BlackRock gets to decide. That gives them immense power over the direction of companies. They also have control - they can shuffle companies out of the indexes, punishing their stocks greatly. This is where corporate culture comes in. Vanguard was founded to get cheap and effective investments to the masses. Bogle was a hero for the little guy. BlackStone and BlackRock were formed to work with the Elites of society and make a ton of money, and control a lot of money, to further solidify their positions. The companies grew and attracted talent respectively, with those goals in mind. Today BlackRock could very easily destroy the viability of a stock investment if they wished - just make something up about it not meeting investment criteria, and kick it out. Most fund holders would appreciate them looking out for them, not realizing that more is happening behind the scenes. 12:00 You flipped BlackRock and BlackStone. 13:40 It's more the combination of pressure to keep zoning locked down tight, while moving in and scooping up homes, that has an outsized impact. If we continue to hamstring developers and underbuild 1% per year, while allowing them to continue buying up tens of thousands of homes, eventually all the marginal supply will be owned by them.
  • @danielhale1
    I guess one of the problems is, companies are expected to do everything legal and in their power to make more money for their investors, but only over the short-term. If they crash their own market or bubble their assets, they won't be the only ones who suffer.
  • @MelfiortheOne
    It's never good when money, power and centralization is in play.
  • @HarmKaban
    The "evilness" of their intentions might be exaggerated, but the truth is that they have immense power and are certainly able to abuse it if they wanted to
  • @maumusa123
    This sounds like a promotional piece for BlackRock.
  • @EF-wy3di
    5 companies control over 20 tril in assets and have a finger on the direction of the entire economy and are required by law to prioritize profit over anything else....but nah their name is the reason why is unsophisticated folk find them scary. This video is a perfect example of how smart people are the most vulnerable to mental gymnastics.
  • @CaraMarie13
    It's not about whether they are "evil" or not. They are indeed making very similar decisions as other funds who are just out to maximize profits and that, i think, it's the issue. That it's practically all of these companies that in the name of making more money for investors are engaging in practices that are destroying and/or fundamentally changing the communities and societies around them.
  • @natjimoEU
    The problem is that these companies have lobbied the government to make pensions mandatory and controlled by a third party. Now everyone is forced to give up some of their salary to a pension fund, which ultimately ends up under the control of blackrock. People should have control of their own pension money instead of giving all this power to large corporations.
  • @zero131056
    Interesting how you didn't mention Blackrocks ESG system..
  • @KTSpeedruns
    Did the last minute of this video seriously pull the, "well, They're doing something that's much worse so we're not that bad" card? They might not have evil intentions when just trying to maximize the portfolio of all their investors, but they did incredibly unethical things in order to do it. I would say that is still very evil.
  • Index investing was created and developed by Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard. Initially he was laughed at by the then Wall Street investing giants who relished the gravy train of "fund management fees" coming in from their actively managed funds. Later on, all of them would bow down to the inevitable and launch their own index fund products. Ironically, Jack Bogle in his later years would express concern about the concentration of voting power in the financial companies stemming from their huge index fund holdings.
  • @pepepopo7100
    >Only casually mentions the huge problem of blackrock, vanguard and the like standing closest to the fed money printer and getting cheap debt... >Pretends like blackrock doesn't meddle to much in other companies through their power as shareholders while disregarding Larry's yearly ESG threat letters... It's previously been very clear that you have a liberal bias but this video is just total bull, how much are they paying ya' big guy?
  • What you described would be true if such a thing as ESG didn't exist. This is just another name for social credit score. Without it you're right, it's just another investment company, with it it's a partisan political actor.
  • @carrias1
    Idk man, when I started the baby seal clubbing society all of my members took on a fiduciary responsibility to club baby seals to death with even cuter seals. Nothing evil about doing your duty, they were just following orders after all.