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And they will flock to hear charlatans and wander off after their demise...
Billionaire BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said it “really doesn’t matter” who wins the US presidential election, because both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will be good for Wall Street. Ben Norton shows how the United States is not a democracy but rather an oligarchy, in which big corporations buy politicians and lobbyists create policies.
Topics
0:00 US election season
0:42 BlackRock CEO: it “really doesn’t matter” who wins US elections
2:20 The "Big Three" Wall Street asset managers
3:06 S&P 500 and Nasdaq bubbles
4:35 Richest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks
5:30 Princeton study: USA is oligarchy, not democracy
6:26 Billions spent buying US elections
7:54 Money buys seats in Congress (90% of the time)
8:50 Crypto industry funds Republicans & Democrats
10:51 Biden promised rich donors "nothing would fundamentally change"
11:59 Extreme wealth & income inequality in USA
15:12 US wages stagnated while productivity soared
15:42 Financialization of US economy
17:09 Inflation & cost of living crisis
18:43 House prices grow much faster than wages
20:48 Blackstone: the world's largest landlord
22:49 Private equity
24:03 Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman funds Trump
24:28 Kamala Harris & Trump woo Wall Street
25:25 Trump tax cuts make rich much richer
27:19 BlackRock makes economic policy for Biden & Harris
28:10 USA is an oligarchy
29:41 Outro
TRANSCRIPT
every four years as there's another
0:02
election in the United States there's
0:04
endless debate about which candidate is
0:07
better and the world is distracted and
0:11
billions of dollars are spent and
0:13
countless hours are wasted debating what
0:17
at the end of the day really doesn't
0:18
matter because if you look in recent
0:21
decades at us politics whether or not
0:24
the president is a Republican or a
0:26
Democrat their foreign policy is
0:29
basically always the same and much of
0:31
their economic policy is basically the
0:34
same there are some differences on
0:36
cultural issues but 95% of their
0:40
policies remain the same and if you
BlackRock CEO: it “really doesn’t matter” who wins US elections
0:42
don't believe me well you should listen
0:45
to a very Frank admission by one of the
0:47
world's most powerful people Larry
0:51
thinkink who is the billionaire CEO of
0:54
the world's largest Investment Company
0:57
Black Rock Larry think was speaking at a
1:00
conference organized by the financial
1:02
industry in October and in his speech he
1:06
said that it doesn't really matter who
1:08
the US president is because Wall Street
1:11
is going to continue to benefit and
1:14
billionaire capitalist oligarchs like
1:16
him are going to continue to get richer
1:19
and richer this is what the Billionaire
1:21
Black Rock CEO said quote I'm tired of
1:24
hearing this is the biggest election in
1:27
your lifetime the reality is over time
1:30
it does not matter and the financial
1:34
times noted that black rock has
1:37
11.5 trillion dollar in assets under
1:41
management I repeat 11.5 trillion with a
1:45
te that makes it the world's largest
1:48
Investment Company and Larry think said
1:52
at this financial industry conference
1:54
quote we work with both administrations
1:58
and are having conversations
2:00
with both candidates so this is from the
2:03
mouth of one of the most powerful
2:05
oligarchs on Wall Street the CEO of
2:08
Black Rock they are working with both
2:10
Republicans and Democrats Donald Trump
2:14
and kamla Harris and Joe Biden there are
2:17
really no differences when it comes to
2:19
Wall Street and I really need to
The "Big Three" Wall Street asset managers
2:21
emphasize how powerful these giant asset
2:24
managers on Wall Street are like Black
2:27
Rock in fact black rock is part of what
2:30
known as The Big Three asset managers
2:32
which are Black Rock Vanguard and State
2:35
Street together these three Wall Street
2:39
asset managers are the largest owner in
2:43
438 of the 500 most important American
2:48
corporations on the S&P 500 this
2:51
represents
2:53
88% of the 500 largest companies in the
2:57
United States and together they make up
2:59
up 82% of the entire market
3:02
capitalization of the S&P 500 Index and
S&P 500 and Nasdaq bubbles
3:06
if you look at the s&p500 which is the
3:09
index of the 500 biggest US companies
3:12
listed on stock exchanges you can see
3:15
why black rock is saying the president
3:17
doesn't really matter because in the
3:19
past three decades the S&P 500 has gone
3:22
up by over
3:25
665 and especially since the 2008 finan
3:29
cial crisis it's gone from around
3:33
756 to
3:37
5,728 and it's even clearer if you look
3:39
at the NASDAQ composite index which is
3:42
more heavily weighted toward big tech
3:44
companies in the US and you can see that
3:47
in the past three decades the NASDAQ has
3:50
increased by
3:52
7,2
3:55
54% in 1990 the NASDAQ index was around
4:01
436 as of 2024 it's now at over
4:06
18,000 and if you look at these charts
4:08
you can see that it doesn't really
4:10
matter who the US president is
4:12
especially since the 2008 financial
4:15
crisis which was caused by Wall Street
4:17
there has been a massive bubble inflated
4:20
in the US Stock Market and it doesn't
4:23
matter whether the president was Barack
4:26
Obama a Democrat or Donald Trump a
4:28
Republican or now Joe Biden the US
4:31
government has intentionally continued
4:33
to inflate this bubble and why is that
Richest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks
4:37
because us politicians from both parties
4:40
are funded by big billionaire capitalist
4:43
oligarchs and huge corporations these
4:45
are the largest contributors in campaign
4:48
finance and essentially us elections can
4:52
be bought and sold by the oligarchy and
4:55
as of
4:57
2023 the wealthiest 10% of Americans own
5:02
93% of stocks Business Insider noted
5:06
that this is the highest level ever
5:09
recorded 93% of stocks held by just 10%
5:13
of Americans meanwhile the bottom 50% of
5:17
Americans the bottom half of the
5:19
population hold just 1% of all stocks 1%
5:25
held by 50%
5:27
93% held by 10 % it really must be
Princeton study: USA is oligarchy, not democracy
5:31
emphasized that the United States is not
5:34
a democracy it is an oligarchy
5:37
controlled by Rich capitalist Elites
5:40
this was the conclusion of a famous
5:42
study done by academics at prinston
5:45
University and Northwestern University
5:48
they tried to do an empirical analysis
5:51
to see what impact if any average people
5:54
have on policymaking in the United
5:57
States and in a famous study in 20 4
6:00
They concluded quote multivariate
6:03
analysis indicates that economic Elites
6:06
and organized groups representing
6:08
business interests have substantial
6:11
independent impacts on US government
6:13
policy while average citizens and
6:16
mass-based interest groups have little
6:18
or no independent influence end quote
6:23
they said that this provides substantial
6:25
empirical support for theories of
Billions spent buying US elections
6:28
economic Elite ination and not theories
6:32
of majoritarian electoral
6:35
democracy in other words as British
6:38
State media the BBC put it an academic
6:41
study shows the US is not a democracy it
6:44
is an oligarchy this is especially clear
6:47
when you look at the insane amounts of
6:50
money that are spent on us elections and
6:53
how especially in recent years the
6:56
number spent on us elections has
6:58
skyrocketed these these figures are
7:00
adjusted for inflation by the way in the
7:04
2024 elections not only for president
7:07
but also for congress roughly $16
7:10
billion were spent funding the races of
7:14
different candidates in the 2020
7:18
elections for both president and
7:19
Congress it was more than $18
7:23
billion in the 2016 elections it was
7:27
more than 8 billion so in the past
7:30
decade the amount of money spent on us
7:33
elections has more than doubled but
7:36
still in in past elections we're talking
7:39
about 8.6 billion spent in 2012 7.6
7:43
billion spent in 2008 6.9 billion spent
7:47
in 2004 5.6 billion in 2000 this is the
7:51
cost of buying an election and why do
Money buys seats in Congress (90% of the time)
7:55
big corporations and oligarchs spend so
7:57
much money they're not wasting it it's
7:59
an investment because it's actually
8:01
quite easy to buy an election in the US
8:04
because again the US is not a democracy
8:06
look at the results in the past two
8:08
decades more than 90% of candidates
8:12
running for the House of Representatives
8:14
who have more funding win the election
8:17
and more than 80% of candidates running
8:20
for Senate who have more funding win the
8:23
election so in other words the US is the
8:27
best so-called democracy that money can
8:30
buy and of course the infamous 2010
8:34
Supreme Court ruling citizens united
8:36
vers the FEC opened the floodgates and
8:39
said that there is no limit that can be
8:41
placed on corporations in the amount of
8:44
money that they spend in an election so
8:46
quite literally us elections can be
8:48
bought and sold a hilarious example of
Crypto industry funds Republicans & Democrats
8:51
this is looking at the crypto industry
8:53
which has been flooding the US elections
8:56
with campaign contributions now first of
8:58
all I should point out that the crypto
9:00
industry is seen as decentralized and
9:03
some people even claim that they're
9:04
fighting Wall Street which is
9:05
hilariously naive it's nonsense in
9:07
reality Wall Street has invested very
9:10
heavily in crypto and black rock now has
9:14
the world's largest Bitcoin fund it has
9:17
a$ billion Bitcoin ETF and the
9:21
Washington Post published a very
9:22
interesting article that is titled
9:25
crypto is flooding the 2024 election
9:29
the article notes that the
9:31
cryptocurrency industry has spent more
9:33
than
9:34
$134 million trying to elect dozens of
9:38
allies to Congress from both the
9:40
Republican and the Democratic parties
9:42
and the organization behind this is
9:44
called Fair shake and then there are
9:46
multiple super Pacs and they have bought
9:50
ads for 67 different candidates and the
9:54
the funny thing is none of the ads that
9:57
they have bought actually mention crypto
9:59
as an issue but they're trying to get
10:01
certain candidates elected from both
10:03
parties who will not regulate the crypto
10:07
industry as the Washington Post notes
10:10
they hope to fill the halls of congress
10:12
with lawmakers who can help ward off
10:15
stringent Federal rules to prevent
10:17
regulation of the industry this would be
10:20
illegal in most countries because this
10:21
is bribery but it's completely legal in
10:24
the US now the Republican super pack
10:28
backed by the crypto industry is called
10:31
defend American jobs and the Democrat
10:34
super pack backed by the crypto industry
10:36
is called protect progress The
10:39
Washington Post included a very
10:41
interesting graphic with a list of some
10:43
of the different congressional
10:45
candidates who are funded by the crypto
10:47
industry and they include many
10:49
Republicans and Democrats but this just
Biden promised rich donors "nothing would fundamentally change"
10:52
shows how the US is an oligarchy not a
10:55
democracy and it reminds me of an
10:57
Infamous quote from from Joe Biden back
11:00
when he was campaigning for president in
11:03
2019 Biden was speaking to a group of
11:06
Rich donors at a fundraiser in New York
11:09
and he famously pledged that quote no
11:12
one's standard of living will change
11:15
nothing would fundamentally change end
11:17
quote if he won the election he also
11:20
promised he wouldn't demonize Rich
11:21
oligarchs because of course they were
11:23
funding his campaign so this should be
11:26
the official slogan of us politics
11:29
during us elections quote nothing would
11:31
fundamentally change that's it Joe Biden
11:34
said it and it's true if KLA Harris wins
11:37
and it's true if Donald Trump wins and
11:40
this is exactly why Larry thinkink the
11:42
billionaire oligarch CEO of Black Rock
11:45
the world's largest asset manager with
11:48
11.5 trillion do in assets said the
11:51
quiet part loud and admitted that it
11:53
really doesn't matter who wins the US
11:56
election because Wall Street will be the
11:58
true winner
Extreme wealth & income inequality in USA
12:00
and if you visualize wealth inequality
12:02
in the United States you can see how
12:05
cartoonish the inequality is the bottom
12:09
50% of households are almost not visible
12:12
on the chart in fact in
12:14
2011 just three years after the
12:17
financial crisis that was started by
12:19
Wall Street the share of wealth owned by
12:22
the bottom 50% of households in the US
12:26
what reach its low point of 0.5 4%
12:30
meanwhile in the past few decades the
12:33
wealth of not just the top 1% has
12:36
skyrocketed but the wealth of the top
12:39
0.1% has broken records according to
12:43
data from the US Central Bank the
12:45
Federal Reserve the top 10% own 2third
12:49
of total household wealth the top
12:54
0.1% owns 14% of household wealth the
12:59
top 1% owns more than 30% of household
13:03
wealth and the top 10% owns 67% of
13:09
household wealth that of course means
13:11
that the bottom 90% only owns about 33%
13:16
of household wealth and the bottom 50%
13:19
the bottom half of the population only
13:22
owns
13:24
2.6% of total household wealth so in
13:28
other words the top 50% of the US
13:31
population owns
13:34
97.4% of total household wealth and
13:39
given that massive inequality it's no
13:42
surprise that
13:44
95% of all capital income goes to the
13:48
top 50% of the US population the bottom
13:51
50% gets just 5% of total capital income
13:56
and the richest 10% of Americans get
14:00
around 60% of total capital income and
14:05
this is how you become rich in the US
14:06
you don't become rich by having high
14:09
wages you become rich by investing in
14:12
Assets in financial assets like stocks
14:15
and bonds or in real estate and then you
14:19
get the majority of your income from
14:21
Capital not from actually working and
14:24
the vast majority again 95% of that
14:28
income from capit Capital goes to the
14:30
top 50% whereas the bottom 50% of the
14:34
population has to actually work in order
14:37
to get wages but even then more and more
14:41
of income is going to the top 1% and
14:44
this is true in many Western countries
14:47
in Japan not just the United States
14:49
although the US is even worse than its
14:51
allies in Europe and the other countries
14:53
in the G7 in
14:56
1975 about 7% of of income was earned by
15:00
the top 1% and by
15:04
2015 that figure was around 17 or 18%
15:09
and it has only continued to get worse
15:11
since then but it's not because us
US wages stagnated while productivity soared
15:14
workers are lazy or they're not working
15:16
hard in fact if you look at productivity
15:20
it has skyrocketed in recent decades
15:22
especially with more and more technology
15:25
and at the same time us wages have been
15:29
stagnant since the beginning of
15:31
neoliberalism of free market
15:34
fundamentalism in the 1970s there has
15:36
been a Divergence between worker
15:39
productivity and worker compensation and
Financialization of US economy
15:43
one of the big reasons for that is
15:45
because of the financialization of the
15:47
US economy in the neoliberal era of free
15:50
market fundamentalism if you look at
15:53
data from the US government you can see
15:55
that compensation in the nonfinancial
15:58
sector
15:59
has been stagnant since the rise of
16:02
neoliberalism under Ronald Reagan in the
16:06
1980s and at the same time the
16:08
compensation in the financial sector has
16:11
more than doubled in the past 40 years
16:14
and the only other time in modern US
16:17
History where you saw this kind of
16:19
Divergence was drum roll during the
16:23
Great Depression in the
16:25
1930s and it was the progressive
16:28
policies of FDR and the New Deal and the
16:32
US government's very heavy regulation of
16:35
the financial sector that closed that
16:37
Gap in compensation between the
16:39
financial and non-financial sectors so
16:42
it's no surprise that in the neoliberal
16:44
era since Reagan and continuing under
16:47
Bill Clinton this is of course
16:48
bipartisan the deregulation of the US
16:51
financial sector and Wall Street has led
16:54
to this massive inequality and this is
16:58
why so many people in the United States
17:00
are so angry and they feel that their
17:03
lives are getting worse not getting
17:05
better because their purchasing power
17:08
has been falling in the past two decades
Inflation & cost of living crisis
17:11
the costs of living in the US have
17:14
absolutely skyrocketed and wages have
17:17
not caught up Hospital services in the
17:20
horrific privatized for-profit us
17:23
healthcare industry have increased by
17:25
more than 200% in the past two decades
17:29
College tuition and fees have increased
17:30
by about
17:32
170% child care has increased by over a
17:35
100% food and housing have also
17:37
skyrocketed now there has been a
17:40
significant decrease in the cost of
17:42
consumer goods and why is that because
17:45
much of this was created in China and
17:48
that led to deflation in consumer prices
17:52
so despite the fact that wages have been
17:54
stagnant in the US and the West overall
17:56
for decades since the rise of
17:57
neoliberalism people were still able to
18:00
buy more consumer goods and Technologies
18:04
because China could produce them so much
18:06
more cheaply but then actual living
18:09
expenses and services have gone through
18:12
the roof in the US and again a big
18:15
reason for that is because of the
18:17
financialization of the economy and
18:19
because so many of these Services these
18:23
companies have been bought up by Wall
18:25
Street by private Equity Funds that have
18:28
been buying up hospitals buying up
18:31
nursing homes buying up child carees and
18:35
of course buying up housing and then
18:37
ratcheting up the costs and charging
18:40
people higher and higher Monopoly rents
House prices grow much faster than wages
18:43
this is especially clear if you look at
18:45
the price of housing in the US it's
18:48
perfectly logical that people feel that
18:51
they can't afford a house because it's
18:53
true if you look at an index of wages
18:56
and how they've increased over the past
18:58
few decades and then you look at housing
19:01
prices there was a big Divergence in the
19:04
leadup to the 2008 financial crisis that
19:07
was the housing bubble that caused the
19:10
financial crisis largely and then after
19:13
the 2008 financial crisis that bubble
19:16
fell and briefly around 2012 the price
19:21
of housing was back at level with wages
19:24
but since then in the past 13 years or
19:27
so there has been another huge bubble
19:30
that is even larger than the bubble
19:33
before the 2008 crash and this is why
19:36
the rent is so damn high this is why
19:39
people average working people feel that
19:41
they cannot afford housing because they
19:43
cannot afford housing because housing
19:46
has become a speculative asset that is
19:49
used by the rich and there are huge
19:52
numbers of housing units in the US and
19:54
other Western countries that are empty
19:57
rich people buy up these housing units
20:00
and then they invest in them they don't
20:02
actually live in them and they expect
20:04
that over time the value of those
20:06
housing units will increase and they'll
20:09
become richer and then they can maybe
20:10
sell one in the future or of course they
20:13
can rent them out to people and charge
20:15
working people a huge part of their
20:18
wages this is exactly what's happened in
20:21
the past several decades with the rise
20:23
of
20:24
neoliberalism
20:25
45% of households in the US spend more
20:29
than 30% of all family income just
20:32
paying rent nearly onethird of us
20:35
households spend more than 40% of family
20:38
income on rent and close to one quarter
20:41
of us households spend more than half of
20:45
their family income just paying rent and
Blackstone: the world's largest landlord
20:48
increasingly they're not paying that
20:50
rent to an actual physical landlord
20:53
they're paying that rent to a Wall
20:55
Street asset manager because you know
20:57
who is the largest landlord in the US
21:00
it's Blackstone the asset manager and
21:03
private Equity Fund Blackstone owns and
21:06
manages more than 300,000 units of
21:09
rental housing in the US making it the
21:12
largest landlord in the country and in
21:15
just two years from 2021 to
21:18
2023 it added 200,000 housing units to
21:23
its portfolio buying up single family
21:26
homes and multifam rental properties at
21:30
the same time Blackstone initiated a
21:32
wave of evictions which has made the
21:35
homelessness crisis even worse and
21:39
Blackstone has spent millions of dollars
21:42
lobbying against rent control in States
21:45
like California opposing attempts by the
21:47
government to implement rent control
21:49
that would actually benefit average
21:51
working people this is how British
21:53
newspaper the guardian described
21:55
Blackstone quote Blackstone is the
21:58
largest commercial landlord in history
22:01
over the past two decades it has quietly
22:03
taken control of apartment blocks Care
22:06
Homes student housing Railway arches
22:09
film studios offices hotels Logistics
22:13
warehouses and data centers Blackstone
22:16
doesn't just own real estate it owns
22:19
everything end quote and in recent years
22:22
Blackstone has moved from commercial
22:24
real estate into residential housing and
22:28
this turned blackstone's billionaire
22:31
oligarch CEO step schwarzman into the
22:34
highest paid CEO in the US Financial
22:38
Services sector in 2022 because he saw
22:42
that they could make huge profits by
22:44
buying up housing becoming landlords and
22:47
then charging people Monopoly rents
Private equity
22:49
because this is how you actually become
22:52
a rich capitalist oligarch in a western
22:55
you know financialized capitalist
22:56
economy you don't actually invest in a
22:59
factory and create jobs and produce
23:02
something tangible to help people no no
23:03
no no no you go to Wall Street you
23:06
create an investment fund you take rich
23:09
people's money and then you invest it in
23:12
existing companies existing businesses
23:14
which is Blackstone became well known as
23:17
a private Equity Fund you buy up
23:19
existing companies you sell them for
23:21
parts you bankrupt them this is what
23:23
they did to Red Lobster this is what
23:25
they did to Toys R Us this is what they
23:27
did to many other small businesses and
23:30
veterinarian companies doctor's offices
23:33
and child care clinics and nursing homes
23:36
this is what they're doing they buy them
23:38
up they at the same time they cut
23:40
pensions they sell off real estate that
23:42
is owned by these companies and then
23:44
they rent that real estate that they
23:46
previously owned and they pay themselves
23:50
very fat paychecks and bonuses and they
23:53
pay their investors huge dividends their
23:56
Rich capitalist investors get get richer
23:58
and richer and they are cannibalizing
24:02
the economy and meanwhile they fund us
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman funds Trump
24:06
politicians because one of the biggest
24:08
donors to Donald Trump's presidential
24:12
campaign is drumroll Blackstone
24:15
billionaire CEO Stephen schwarzman he is
24:19
one of the largest donors to the
24:21
Republican party and he also funded
24:24
Donald Trump's previous presidential
24:26
campaign in 2020
Kamala Harris & Trump woo Wall Street
24:29
but to be fair of course it's not just
24:31
Donald Trump the Democrats are also
24:33
backed by Wall Street and CNN which of
24:36
course is very pro-democrat they boasted
24:39
quote how camela Harris is winning over
24:42
Wall Street and they talked about how
24:44
kamla Harris has been continuously
24:45
moving to the right abandoning any
24:48
pretense of supporting leftwing Economic
24:50
Policy she does not at all she's
24:52
supporting the same neoliberal economic
24:54
policies as the Republicans and trying
24:56
to win over Wall Street and has had some
24:59
success but Wall Street is funding the
25:01
campaigns of both kamla Harris and
25:04
Donald Trump as the New York Post
25:06
boasted and the New York Post is a
25:08
conservative media out that supports
25:09
Trump quote Top Wall Street CEO's
25:12
cooling on kamla Harris as Donald
25:14
Trump's polling numbers surge end quote
25:17
so basically the presidential candidates
25:19
are fighting over who can be a better
25:21
puppet for the billionaire capitalist
25:23
oligarchs on Wall Street now in Trump's
Trump tax cuts make rich much richer
25:26
case it's pretty easy to explain why so
25:28
many billionaires on Wall Street are
25:30
supporting him it's because he cut their
25:32
taxes when he was president previously
25:35
and he has pledged to continue cutting
25:36
their taxes a study in 2019 found that
25:41
Trump's tax cuts helped billionaires pay
25:43
less than the working class in the US
25:46
I'm reading here Donald Trump's $1.5
25:49
trillion doll in tax cuts have helped
25:51
billionaires pay a lower rate than the
25:54
working class for the first time in
25:56
history in 2018
25:58
the richest 400 families in the US paid
26:01
an average effective tax rate of
26:03
23% whereas the bottom half of American
26:06
households paid a rate of
26:09
24% meanwhile in 1960 the 400 richest
26:13
families paid 56% in taxes that was in
26:18
1960 by 1980 it fell to 40% and now
26:22
under trump it was 23% and he has
26:25
continued pledging to cut them even
26:27
further and by the way this is not even
26:29
talking about wealth tax there are very
26:32
few significant wealth taxes in the US
26:35
this is mostly looking at income and as
26:37
I stressed earlier rich people actually
26:40
super rich people Millionaires and
26:41
billionaires most of their wealth comes
26:44
from Investments not actually from wages
26:48
and if Trump wins taxes on the Super
26:50
Rich are going to fall even further a
26:53
study by The Institute on Taxation and
26:55
economic policy estimated looking at
26:58
Donald Trump's proposal that if Trump
27:00
wins taxes will be cut very
27:03
significantly for the richest 5% of the
27:05
population and they actually estimated
27:07
that the bottom 95% of the population
27:10
will have a tax increase under Trump so
27:13
this is the class war staring Us in the
27:16
face the US government is waging a class
BlackRock makes economic policy for Biden & Harris
