Important points:
- "BlackRock has been called 'the most powerful institution in the financial system,' 'the most powerful company in the world' and the 'secret power.'"
- "It is the world’s largest asset manager and 'shadow bank,' larger than the world’s largest bank (which is in China), with over $7 trillion in assets under direct management and another $20 trillion managed through its Aladdin risk-monitoring software."
- "Despite its size and global power, BlackRock is not even regulated as a 'Systemically Important Financial Institution' under the Dodd-Frank Act,"
- "BlackRock really made its fortunes, however, in 'exchange traded funds' (ETFs)."
- "...while ETFs are very liquid, trading on demand like stocks, the assets that make up their portfolios are not. When the market drops and investors flee, the ETFs can have trouble coming up with the funds to settle up without trading at a deep discount."
- "BlackRock got a bailout with no debate in Congress, no “penalty” interest rate of the sort imposed on states and cities borrowing in the Fed’s Municipal Liquidity Facility, no complicated paperwork or waiting in line for scarce Small Business Administration loans, no strings attached. It just quietly bailed itself out."
The article's conclusion is provocative: "If the corporate oligarchs are too big and strategically important to be broken up under the antitrust laws, rather than bailing them out they should be nationalized and put directly into the service of the public."
