Addressing the Blackrock/Vanguard Situation 

That pesky pattern seeking brain, trying to operate in vastly complex systems.

It's like a saying I heard a while ago: "Everything is a conspiracy when you don't know how anything works."

It's just the natural extension of the fact that the rich truly have more power than the rest

That won’t get you on the jo Rogan show or views

its not a conspiracy , they openly tell u what u think and want u can and cant do . dho

Still better than literally no fear of government regulation which is what conservatives want. If there is literally no pressure they don't even have to pretend.

internal policies that prevent and offset emissions are a lot easier to implement and more effective than things like the EPA trying to clean up after entities that just externalize their environmental footprint and lobby for the idea that they didn’t cause it or it doesn’t exist. litigation takes the place of mitigation, and then when the mitigation and cleanup measures finally come, they tend to be more expensive- not only financially, but materially, because the ecological damage is already done by the time courts hold companies liable and allow them to proceed. The domain-specific operational changes are cheaper, they’re just harder to manage and enforce because there aren’t any one size fits all solutions, and the best way to mitigate the effects of your operations depends on how you operate. that problem presents itself whether you’re Blackrock or the federal government, and i’m not sure that the way to handle this is to try to codify every possible contingency so that it can be enshrined in law, because that kind of rigidity historically just allows companies to argue in court that antiquated laws simply shouldn’t apply to them.

Which is ironic that it's Republicans that are complaining about it since they're the ones who wants a "small government", ie less governmental regulations.

to be clear i’m also not sure the Blackrock approach is better because it seems patently absurd to me to try to develop a single instrumental framework for measuring how green every company is, that just seems like you’re _begging_ for proprietors to try to maximize those metrics without actually offsetting the material cost of what they’re doing I don’t know what the hell the point of these stupid numbers is supposed to be if they’re unitless and can’t be compared across industries or even across competitors in the same sector but somehow i doubt that any regulator serious about modernizing this kind of thing is going to care what Blackrock says it’s doing beyond Blackrock claiming that it’s been defrauded by people misrepresenting how sustainable they are

@@flight_risk I think you are talking past my point to another issue altogether. I mean, good defense of your perspective, but my one and only point is that ESG is a fig leaf for deeper systemic issues.

Why'd they rebrand it as DEI regulations

​@@alwayshere6956People are pushing back, but divide and conquer tactics would enable them to dismiss critics as "evil racists / sexists." If I have a problem with companies that are going green, but not with diversity, now they've cut the dissenting voices down by probably half.

@@Excalibur2 Carbon emissions are a lie

@@alwayshere6956 They didn't. DEI has a completely different focus from ESG. DEI is about respecting people, ESG is about respecting the environment. The only real overlap is that ruining the environment tends to harm poor people the most, and minorities are disproportionately represented among the poor. Different programs, different goals. Fox News may be equally hateful of both minorities and the planet, but that doesn't mean everything they hate is all one singular ideology. "Woke" is just a bogeyman word used to scare you, it doesn't actually mean anything (to be more specific: It has a meaning, but Fox and similar propagandists have intentionally stripped it of its original meaning so that they can apply it to anything they want you to fear and hate without questioning).

@@altrag ESG stands for economic SOCIAL governmence. I'm not sure just how God damn uneducated you think people are. If you are paying any mind to the world economic forum, if you're paying any mind to the Uniparty, then you're vastly unconcerned with what mainstream media has to say, be it CNN or Fox news. They are trying to make out the vaccines as a bioweapon when in reality the covid was a bioweapon. FAANG tech companies are complicit in government censorship, Twitter/X is hardly out of the forest yet.

This factor out the factor of founders rigging the voting rights 😂

Buddy, Blackrock literally convinced Disney, a family focus company, to go pro-lgbt and lose money. How can you still think they don't hold any power?

Pulverized, lol

This happens all the time in the market, especially if you're an efficient market theorist. Look at any stock explosion or implosion AMC/GME/BBY/literally thousands of examples and they're moved by a small minority of actors which the masses mindlessly follow. Don't discredit the amount of power that 5% is when everyone else is fractions of that.

Just say you didn’t watch the video.

Didn’t you listen? There is nothing to worry about, everything is fine

Yeah, I'm kind of surprised that this topic isn't even covered in this video. The housing market is absolutely hosed...

You're probably thinking of BlackSTONE, not BlackROCK. These are two distinct and separate entities, despite the fact that they have similar names.

@@yaitskov1 and who says black stone isnt owned by BlackRock

Welcome to capitalism

Their case is really just diversifying making sure they have multiple faucets since at some point their markets become stagnant for there is a limit as to how much consumers would consume their products.

@@chrisc5991 true, but there is a criticism on how only a few companies own everything. Would be interesting to see how true that is

" like coca-cola, unilever etc" - those trade names should be capitalized... just sayin', unless you have a hidden agenda. ;)

@@raylopez99 hah, i didnt, but good point

It would be interesting to see how they present the illusion of choice. Is it a smart marketing strategy to have more brand names with the same parent? I will often try new products from brands I don't recognize and when they're indistinguishable I am just as likely to choose one over the other. In that case, the company with the most brands wins because of a higher random chance.

for sure

Most people can’t do/handle nuance. Some people are counting on that deficiency

There are no nuances, fiat owning socialists have us all under their thumbs consuming products that are ruining society.

💯

@@chowsquid I feel like Patrick Bet David is counting on that deficiency.

There is no nuance, ESG induces capital loss to the shareholder which is the liability of the fiduciary of those indices (vanguard/blackrock). Plain Bagel is a proponent of ETFs and indices, which as it turns out are not as passive an investment as previously purported.

You’re correct, I think he got paid to make this video.

He is just another Canadian. Very sheepish. Goes along with what he is told, etc.

Thank god you were able to say it so eloquently

Direct lending is only for private companies though? All others are owned via equity, not debt - and any fixed income security also has to report the same metrics equity securities do, too

Also, no such thing as ESG values, only non-financial investment materiality. The news has brainwashed everyone into thinking it’s the same as values-based investing, which is something completely different

Just wait till Crypto Season starts again.

@@johnsmithe4656 True - I'll fan the flames quietly until then 🤣

Bingo

Yep.

Yup. A complicated issue that's completely overblown in areas it doesn't need to be and overlooked in areas where the issues usually originate. It's all the media game though. Anything that resembles fixing requires effort and persistence, it's not fun and exciting it's audits and compliance checks as usual lol

Especially given that they assume the political persuasion of the people money they have been entrusted with

@@Sam-ir2te Good point

There’s a real issue of using their vote to get a company to take an action that another Blackrock holding can exploit. Say retailers dump their real estate holdings for liquidity for shareholders and then an Blackrock company buys up that real estate and rents it back to the retailer. Moving as much money as possible back to the 1%. That’s what I think is likely their real Machiavellian machination.

It's not an issue whatsoever

There is no nuance, ESG induces capital loss to the shareholder which is the liability of the fiduciary of those indices (vanguard/blackrock). Plain Bagel is a proponent of ETFs and indices, which as it turns out are not as passive an investment as previously purported.

A long bagel is just a baguette

@@lephtovermeetthis is the hottest take 😂 😂😂

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Q6pu9Ixqqxo.html

​@@ThePlainBagelBlackrock's clients don't seem to have a say on its meddling of a land that's known for being Europe's "breadbasket" which is coincidentally in a WAR. 🤔

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Burning hell hole *under construction* He addressed the ownership, the voting, the agenda and its power and potential yet you hear it over and over again.

Wait until they start pointing out the obvious to which so many are oblivious.

@@thebarkingsnail pointing at the obvious usually gets you flagged for hate speech...

@@assortedsubscriptions4012 Or… maybe what you think is ‘obvious’ is actually just factually incorrect hate speech.

@@Threecharacterhandle the ADL has labeled you a "good goy" - wear it with pride!

This video: “Blackrock clearly isn’t trying to force ESG” CEO of Blackrock: “We’re forcing ESG”

He is in the industry, of course he have to defend the big bosses.

Fink is a jew too.

This dude struck me as a spineless bootlicker, then I thought otherwise, and _then_ he dropped this...

Yes im talking about Tesla and I know they were added May 1st 2023 but why did it take so long? How many times was ESG publicly called out on this before they added it? How minuscule is their position compared to what they do? Why are oil and cigarette companies still in ESG?

@@clam_baked Also what right do they have essentially extorting CEOs for certain "behaviors" with our 401k Pension money. I dont see this being addressed. The problem is they have easy passive low margin ETFs because they are so big. These companies need to be broken up. This is EXACTLY what anti trust laws are for.

Cigarettes is fucking bs but oil could be allowed because of the amount of money they have meant they could transition to other form of energies. We actually already see efforts of them diversifying toward renewables. They potentially have more impact for more sustainable energy than some poor companies that try to grandstand without any capabilities

ESG is the epitome of green-wash virtue signalling.

unfortunately yes, that is how most companies use it.@@ninakore

Even if they did, the real money’s in right leaning conspiracies. Juicy lies sale !!

Funny how she acts like it's some secret bit of info when you'd know how kuch reach Blackrock has if you just trolled through Wikipedia pages for suffering major businesses and looked at "owners", "investors", or "shareholders".

@@arthas640 well the thing it is secret knowledge for tik tok user because well they don't do anything other than scrolling the whole day.

The messaging is bad, but the political risks are not huge and this is very different than SVB.

@@chelseachelseafcsuperfan7220 You're wasting your time to trying to convince anyone here. These people are weak. They don't want to believe evil exists because if they accepted that evil exists, then naturally they'd get that feeling that they have to do something about it, right? Well the problem is that they're incapable of doing anything, they're completely useless. So they'd just feel super guilty about it. So instead of feeling that guilt, because that would be SO painful, they just deny reality.

@@chelseachelseafcsuperfan7220You’re a genuine moron.

@@tinymike318 or maybe you are brainwashed.

@@shaunsensei6948 Nah you’re upset because I hit a nerve.

The proposition that a company with tiny shares (most of which are passive investments on behalf of their clients) in a bunch of companies can somehow concentrate those hodgepodge of shares into decisive influence - all simultaneously and without being watered down by the millions of other factors and shareowners- to influence the economy or world is ludicrous. You're assuming that somehow Blackrock is this illuminati legion of doom that has the intelligence and administrative power greater than any AI or government in human history, rather than thinking that maybe, just maybe, the people telling you they rule the world are full of sh*t and are taking advantage of your gullibility for views

The G is related to corporate governance not actual political government lol. And the S is usually related to health & safety standards, labor standards, community impact, etc. they’re not going to force your kids to be gay or tell the government to ban straight men like so many people think the SG is related to lol.

So every company just went full nuts and started acting trans for no reason?

@@caseyvidrine3189when conversation in contemporary culture explodes and makes topics unavoidable, companies have to pick a side, and they’ll always pick the side that makes them look more virtuous.

No, they did that because their ESG score is what lending is based off of. They’re forced to pick the freak show side because if they don’t, they can’t get financing. That’s why they’re powerful.

⁠@@caseyvidrine3189what exactly does “acting trans” even mean? Are you even old enough to work at these types of companies? I happen to have a white collar job in consulting, and people don’t “act trans”. A simple acknowledgment that trans people exist and should be treated as human beings isn’t some radical idea. You know how much that effects my day to day work? Exactly zero percent. The lot of you need to grow up, it’s exhausting.

just enough for you to taste it all, but not so much it's all that you taste

Nobody, and everybody. ESG is probably better seen as a statement of general intent rather than a hard and fast set of rules that someone's going to follow. And, of course, to make things even fuzzier, not everyone making that statement of intent actually intends to do what they say they will. :P A lot of people see the whole 'you decide what ESG means, there are not hard and fast rules' thing as a bug (and in the sense that it allows for greenwashing, it absolutely is a problem), but I think on the whole, it's a feature. The finance industry as a whole seems to be very, very good at twisting the rules so that they can follow them by the letter while ignoring what those rules were intended to accomplish. On something like this, where actual legislation would give little to no benefit, it might be better to take away their ability to point to rules and say 'See? We're following them!'.

Like he said, for most of their assets under management, they have to track an index so they don't have control, and they only hold a minority stake in most of the companies they invest in so they don't have that much voting power, and they have recently started passing their voting power on to their investors.

If you bother to look into the percentages of which they own companies, it is often 5% or less. Not to mention this assumes 1:1 voting rights, which often isn’t the case as often the founders of the company deliberately stack the voting rights towards themselves far over the percentage of which they own the company. Not his fault you are financially illiterate. your favourite Fox News, owned by the Murdoch family, have 39.4% of the voting power despite owning only 14% of the shares 🤫🤣

If you want a master class in voting power obfuscation, look up the Lee family’s control of Samsung. Absolute art if it wasn’t so dystopian and late stage capitalism. How robot Zucc has rigged it for himself is pretty funny too if it wasn’t so dystopian either. Blackrock and Vanguard don’t control shit.

Good, let's go socialist and nacionalize everything then!

​​@@lubu2960"got a bad cut on my leg, better chop the whole thing off instead of using a bandage!"

@@lubu2960 what are you, 13?

Yup

they dont own your share ownership in the companies tho.... people just like conspiracy. if blackrock goes bankrupt tomorrow you still got your shares. we live in a populist world.

@@ricardodelacrvz1400 all that money in assets? You don't think that translates to massive influence? Warren buffet was on an interview on cnbc and said he wasn't a fan of taco bell, their parent company yum brands fell 3% a few seconds later.

Lol oh no they are controlling small RU-vidrs now…

What makes you think they were forced? They're backing the winning side.

@@itscrispy4469 Of course they are. 800k subscribers isn't small and pushing propaganda through television isn't effective anymore.

@@domsanchez148or maybe he’s telling the truth and you guys suck at seeing how boring reality is

im in your walls @@domsanchez148

BLACKROCK

It's not great coverage. Just because a video is long and filled with financial jargon doesn't mean it is nuanced. Considering that the premise of this video is the handwaving away of Blackrock's influence in the world, side-stepping their role in in the bond markets is lying by omission. During the housing bubble crash of 2007 the Federal Reserve was panicking and turned to Fink (a lowly hedge fund manager with a measly 7 trillion dollar fund at the time) to create the Maiden Lane investment vehicles which resulted in defunct Wall St giants like AIG and Bear Stearns' assets being effectively placed under the control of Fink and co. Fast forward to the 2020 crash. The Fed is in panic mode again because the corporate bond market was on the verge of collapse as no one was willing to buy up the debt of zombie corporations (Exxon Mobil, Boeing, Delta etc). If this bond market was allowed to fail these corporations would would not be able to fund themselves except by issuing more stock which would further devalue equities and create a death spiral. Fink once again saved the day by buying up this worthless debt and in turn the Fed would buy his ETF to subsidize him. So Blackrock is now effectively receiving newly "printed" US dollars buying his ETF making them so integral to the US financial system that Bloomberg called them the "Fourth Branch of the US Government". This doesn't even get into the Blackrock's Aladdin system and how it's used by practically every single major financial institution and their fund managers. It's also incredibly dishonest to misrepresent Blackrock's role in directing these companies to enact their political bidding. They may not have direct control over day to day operations but their controlling interest of 88% of S&P companies directly led to the mass implementation of their "woke" DEI policies. They single-handedly institutionalized blatant anti-white discrimination in their hiring practices. The result? Since 2020, 94% of new hires at S&P firms went to non-whites according to Bloomberg. Bagelboy is conveniently ignoring the numerous public statements Fink and his co-conspirators at Blackrock have made regarding their goals in disenfranchising whites in corporate America. He must be historically illiterate as well if he doesn't understand why Fink and his tribe might be motivated to do this.

Yea silly lol...

Indeed

What the heck is going on…? I’m losing my mind. The point is *not* ESG, are you people high?? The point is that wealth is insanely concentrated in the hands of a handful of individuals!!! It literally doesn’t matter what their investment philosophy is, they have an absurd and unprecedented amount of power! The systemic societal risk due to the potential for bad decision-making by unelected bureaucrats and corporate executives *is the problem.* The throne is built, it hardly matters what conspiracy-of-the-month portfolio they operate.

Hasn't the EU had enough of falling behind the global growth curve yet?

​@@IFRYRCEis growth everything? Where has that gotten all the countries to have most recently topped the growth charts? Many have come crashing down or are teetering on crisis for neglecting other priorities in the name of growth statistics.

ESG is financial wokism. Won’t solve anything but will put unaccountable entities in control of how companies are run

"I will believe the CEO when he says something that aligns with my narrative"

Why would you trust the CEO of an investment firm bragging about how much influence his firm has? He is very obviously playing this up to appeal to potential investors in his own company by going "hey look if you give your money to me I'll get the companies to do what you want".

@@hedgehog3180 when they lay their plans bare like that, its hard to not take it seriously. Anything else they say though take with a grain of salt.

Because thats not what people want. It runs directly against the majority, which does not in fact want forced diversity and inclusion pumped into the comapnies theyve invested in​@hedgehog3180

@@kagakai7729 You are quite literally rejecting "coming from the horse's mouth" because you don't want to believe it LOL

As an aspiring CPA and CFE, Richard is one of two financial RU-vidrs that I pay serious attention to (the other being Patrick Boyle). A very, very smart man!

Here is something to think about. This guy works for a company that black rock most likely has stake in . This guy if black rock offered him a position he will take it . There s no way he will speak the truth. For example ESG is bullshit. Telsa has lower ESG score than all the oil companies. Explain that logic .lmao😂

There isn't any certainty when money manage can go bankrupt in a snap 🫰

So you don't hold a CFA....."CFA candidate" is such a cringe label to give yourself lol

@@DevinRitroskyTechnicaly he's correct. I'm an actual investment licensed Financial Advisor and CFA candidate is what it's litteraly called when you are in a professional designation program. It's not some cringe name he decided to call himself contrary to what you just said.

@@Lazaven using "CFA candidate" is just saying you have the credibility of a student. There are many CFA candidates, few CFA holders.

did you really watch the whole video lol?

@@TheInfectous Yes. So you can tell me what I've missed.

@@TheInfectous逃げんなや

Yup. Vanguard is the largest shareholder in BlackRock.

Not fraud, but I have questioned if having an obligation to buy from a certain basket of stocks has created a feedback loop that pumps a certain basket of stock.

Note that he boils down the entirety of ESG to ‘environmentalism’ and ‘sustainability.’ Almost like he’s trying to sneak past the rest of it.

@@blaneb8879 ‘environmentalism’ and ‘sustainability’, the ones where actual short-term sacrifices have to be made for long-term sustainability, rather than paying for some diversity hires or czars and sensitivity training, which is really just a way out without taking actual responsibility for sustainability.

Nail on the head.

ethical labour practices is almost always the first thing mentioned when talking about the S in esg

@@_blueeyes lol, have you seen ESG prospectuses?

I'd say most don't assume it's "accurate", but better than no attempt. Also remember the Environment is only one letter in ESG.

Why do you losers love losing money? Who gives a shit about the "whoke" agenda ,inclusivity is clearly profitable lol. inb4 'but what about target and bud light!!!1!" my brother in christ you boycotted one of their brands and just chose to skyrocket the other

There are companies who commit multi-billion dollar frauds over many years, with "highly qualified and competent" board and committee members. Boards are questionable as protectors of investors who dont sit in the board.

True, but the real powers lies within the capitalism system itself.

Who controls the world then? Food for thought. Don't marry any source. Don't trust anyone. Collect and compare.

It's how you know it's bullshit

Own all the shares in the holdings and micromanage them yourself then…Oh don’t want to? Then don’t complain.

But how do small landlords do that? I'm not denying the possibility that they have a role, but I also can't picture a mechanism by which they could limit the housing supply themselves.

There might be factors in local governments related to zoning that limit what developer companies can build. If the prices of land plots are going up too, then this further increases the pressure on what developers will build relative to decreasing profitability. Add to this the way the creeping Fed rate increases are changing lending patterns among banks for the terms they give businesses and consumers. There are probably more secondary and tertiary factors that I haven't thought of that seem to increase the ... influence(?) of small landlords

This is a relatively tricky thing to fully disentangle since the demand for housing is somewhat inelastic. Most would rather make significant sacrifices vs being homeless so they must rent regardless of the cost or try to buy. Combine with the narrative of "giving away your money" with rent or that "home ownership is the path to generational wealth" and you have relatively strong demand regardless of prices. At that point, even small changes to supply or corporate demand can have massive impacts on pricing. Even if corporate ownership or foreign ownership is a small percentage, the impact on pricing can be significant

I wouldn't try to just pass the blame to small landlords either. The average home owner also wants their home to appreciate because it is seen as an investment so they will vote for things to help keep their home value up.

@@SamAronowthey go to local city board meetings and complain about development changing the character of the neighborhood or worry about parking and all sorts of NIMBY nonsense.

What's plain bagel's ethnicity? Anyone able to find out?

Sadly, you probably really believe that.

The issue there is many of those companies jumped on the "ESG bandwagon"* by themselves, they didn't need a letter from Blackrock or Vanguard to act in that area. And yes, they have a lot of influence, but that's derived from their customer base 🤷🏽‍♂️ * I support ESG efforts in general, but I'm also a critic about many shady issues in that area, but often not the responsibility of the companies implementing the changes but the ecosystem of companies/organisations around them.

What do you mean? He picked the 2-3 names that are being touted as the companies that "own" the largest amount of shares on the stock market, picked a company where they own the average amount of shares in, and explained how shares worked in terms of influence and voting. If a company that owns like 40-45% of the shares of another company is picked, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the video that is addressing the current "fears" about two or three companies owning 88% of the stock market?

yeah conspiratorial. cool term

It's a silly conspiracy theory until 20 years later it turns out to be true.

Yes, but even the actively managed funds are hard to use as leverage. An actively managed fund will often times invest in a sector of the economy, like for example tech, or healthcare, etc. The same fund manager will usually have both an actively managed and a passively managed fund in the same sector competing against each other. So in this example your actively managed tech fund should theoretically have a higher rate of return because the fund manager is buying and selling assets frequently to try to beat the market, but it will also have a higher operating cost because you need analysts to anticipate the market and more staff to execute trades, etc. and therefore the actively managed fund has a higher expense ratio that is passed on to the client who invested in it. If you try to use your actively managed fund as leverage, its rate of return will drop because you are not investing to maximize returns and now the passively managed fund that has a lower operating cost will also outperform your actively managed fund and investors will just switch to the passive fund for higher returns and lower costs. As money flows out of the active fund you lose your leverage. All the tech company being targeted would have to do to resist the actively managed fund manipulation is wait, and the leverage against them would evaporate as investors went into the passively managed fund. Basically, it's really hard to use other people's money as leverage especially when you're legally obligated not to. The biggest problem with these fund managers is that they currently retain most of the share voting rights, but if they pass those rights on to the individual investors instead, then there really won't be much leverage at all.

Hmm very good points. If the policies Blackrock's CEO is (in his own words) forcing on these companies, don't work at the end of the day, then investors will just switch to passive funds. Well, unless the cost of managing the active funds are in some part minimized by the Blackrock itself and their size. I would like to know, are you in any way concerned about the ESG score? Or do you think that none of it could feasibly be a problem?

@@Chronically_ChiII I’m very concerned with ESG score. I think even before getting into the societal problems it is causing (and will cause in the future), it’s creating all kinds of market inefficiencies. It’s literally made companies act in their own WORST interests, so shareholders and more importantly consumers are hurt. All economic theory and modeling goes out the window if you suddenly have companies acting against their profit maximizing decisions. And I don’t want to understate what I think the societal impacts will be - long term I think this is more damaging.

@@Chronically_ChiII Blackrock's CEO's obsession with ESG is a problem, but not because he can somehow leverage the money his company manages to push that agenda. It's a problem because he is personally wealthy and influential and he will utilize his personal wealth and influence to further this ridiculous agenda. ESG is a problem not because of companies like Blackrock, but because of groups like the World Economic Forum who share this ESG goal and install plants in governments around the world to further the ESG agenda, among other insane policies, and I have no doubt the Blackrock CEO helps fund or influence people to make that happen on a personal level with the wealth he has made from his company. Basically this dude is a bad dude and a problem, but his influence is less widespread than people think and done through other means, although that doesn't make him harmless by any stretch of the imagination. The only problem that Blackrock the company is directly responsible for is the creation of these stupid ESG funds which are mutual funds or ETFs that are created specifically to push ESG and trick gullible people into thinking they are investing in things that will save the world. Those funds are actual political pet projects sold as investments to unsuspecting people.

Vanguard (and I believe Blackrock) are working on proxy voting choice.

🎯

Oh, you sweet summer child. This has NOTHING to do with actually fixing any social or environmental issues, this is a profit center and political correctness run amuck, pure and simple. They won't actually be fixing anything, they will just be jumping through hoops to get a check box, and once we know the criteria, then figuring out how to scam it will be the first thing these companies do. Also, having a certain sex part or skin color on a board does NOTHING to improve 'governance', its purely for show, in fact, it might even make governance worse for shareholders, if the board are a bunch of diversity hire yes men and women, just there to get a check for very little actual work, who also might not know what to do in a crisis.

Same. ESG has become a political talking point. And most of those talking about it don't know what they're talking about, or in some cases, are blatantly lying. It would be good to dispel the smoke and mirrors and learn more about this dynamic.

Dupont is going to get top marks and tout their ESG score all while continuing to pollute the ever loving shit out of wherever they're based. ESG is nothing more than the next buzzword political tool that government "regulators" and public corp execs will use to pull the wool over our eyes. The current level of regulation has been so abused that we're at a point where the little guy can no longer ever hope to compete, and the big guys will always be "too big to fail." This is proto-fascist economics

​@johnsmithe4656 except it has been a net negative outside of a few very edge cases....

Alright, you do get charitable later.

the leverage is massive

why do you think blackrock is not creating their own index ? Maybe trying to answer this question will lead to better understanding.

You have an informed opinion on 10,000 different stocks and have read each proposal?

You as the customer with the funds hold them responsible for returns - you can withdraw your money at any time via selling the ETF shares you own.

@@derek8315 No, I can vote on proposals I'm interested in, and abstain on others and let more active shareholders make the decisions. There's no reason to give significant voting power to random fund managers who don't actually own any stock, and their only job is to follow given index - voting shouldn't be a part of it.

@@ChineseKiwi Right, but vast majority of ETF clients don't care about how their fund votes, and just want to have their investment follow given index. If the same people owned shares directly it's safe assumption they wouldn't vote at all, and let more involved shareholders make decisions, so ETFs should do that as well.

And yet the entire reason you invest with them is because they are supposed to manage it for you, i.e. be active, but all that entails is dumping it into an index and hitting the snooze button which anyone can do.

The whole thing is a farce. A couple of years ago, they were slammed for not being activist enough and now they're being slammed for being too activist.

@@sor3999 that's not why I invest in Vanguard; I like their passive approach.

@@sor3999 not for index investing

@@sor3999 It sounds somewhat like a waste money that could be better used for a smaller cheaper asset management firm

Until critical thinking becomes normalized, there will always be someone with massive influence over people’s opinions. Better a corporation than a cult of some imaginary sky daddy, which is what’s been the case in most societies for most of human history.

It would be actually good if they tried to deviate public discourse in nazi Germany and also in MAGA America. Some discourse is just bad.