defacto7
defacto7's JournalHere's some info on the owners of us all.
It's a couple of years old and I know there have been some shifts but the basic forces are the same. Can anyone concur with some of these conclusions I gleaned back in 2011?
Bank of America:
State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, FMR (Fidelity), Paulson, JP Morgan, T. Rowe, Capital World Investors, AXA, Bank of NY, Mellon.
JP Morgan:
State Street Corp, Vanguard Group, FMR, BlackRock, T. Rowe, AXA, Capital World Investor, Capital Research Global Investor, Northern Trust Corp. and Bank of Mellon.
Citigroup:
State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, Paulson, FMR, Capital World Investor, JP Morgan, Northern Trust Corporation, Fairhome Capital Mgmt and Bank of NY Mellon.
Wells Fargo:
Berkshire Hathaway, FMR, State Street, Vanguard Group, Capital World Investors, BlackRock, Wellington Mgmt, AXA, T. Rowe and Davis Selected Advisers.
There appears to be 4 entities present in all these banks:
State Street Corporation
Vanguard Group
BlackRock
FMR (Fidelity)
I'll call them the "big four".
The next 4 corporations are next in line in size...
Goldman Sachs:
"The big four", Wellington, Capital World Investors, AXA, Massachusetts Financial Service and T. Rowe.
Morgan Stanley:
"The big four", Mitsubishi UFJ, Franklin Resources, AXA, T. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon e Jennison Associates. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon and Jennison Associates.
Bank of NY Mellon:
Davis Selected, Massachusetts Financial Services, Capital Research Global Investor, Dodge, Cox, Southeastern Asset Mgmt. and ... "The big four".
State Street Corporation (one of the "big four"
:
Massachusetts Financial Services, Capital Research Global Investor, Barrow Hanley, GE, Putnam Investment and ... The "big four" (shareholders themselves!).
BlackRock (another of the "big four"
:
PNC, Barclays e CIC [...]
The eight largest U.S. financial companies (JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, U.S. Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon and Morgan Stanley) are 100% controlled by ten shareholders and we have four companies always present in all decisions: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity.
The Federal Reserve is comprised of 12 banks, represented by a board of seven people, which comprises representatives of the "big four", which in turn are present in all other entities. So it seems the Federal Reserve is controlled by four large private companies: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity. These companies control U.S. monetary policy (and world) without any control or "democratic" choice.
These are some of the companies controlled by this "big four" group:
Alcoa Inc. - Altria Group Inc. - American International Group Inc. - AT&T Inc. - Boeing Co. - Caterpillar Inc. - Coca-Cola Co. - DuPont & Co. - Exxon Mobil Corp. - General Electric Co. - General Motors Corporation - Hewlett-Packard Co. - Home Depot Inc. - Honeywell International Inc. - Intel Corp. - International Business Machines Corp - Johnson & Johnson - JP Morgan Chase & Co. - McDonald's Corp. - Merck & Co. Inc. - Microsoft Corp. - 3M Co. - Pfizer Inc. - Procter & Gamble Co. - United Technologies Corp. - Verizon Communications Inc. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. - Time Warner - Walt Disney - Viacom - Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. - CBS Corporation - NBC Universal
The same "big four" control the majority of European companies counted on the stock exchange.
I would say there is a major control mechanism here or the whole world just really trusts these 4 companies.
I hear you...
I have liked technology for the exercise of the mechanics and understanding the principals. Most people like the surface instrument and what the Internet and its managers can supply them without the faintest knowledge of what it's about, what it can do for them, or what it can do to them. I have little interest in being a slave to the din of stupidity and the rush of being drawn into a crowd of sheep. I'd rather make stew than be stew.
Don't get me wrong. I think the Internet has been a great influence for education and human connectivity across the world. It has the potential to give the world a view of itself like never before. But it has also added to the evolution of greed and devolution of social behavior. I'm not sure we were ready for it when it came along because of our primitive social and economic structures. With more human stability its potential would have been exponential.
I miss many things about the 60s and 70s, the simple mechanics, the ability to understand any structure and to be able to mold it at will and actually own it. Now we own nothing, understand nothing and most people don't seem to care because they love their technology with an empty mind.
True Grit... or fail.
My wife just returned from a yearly all day teachers meeting where they discuss methods and approach for the upcoming year. One of the key speakers mentioned that according to some new studies, American students have lost their "grit". The speaker said that the most important challenge for this and future generations of students concerning college acceptance and job opportunity will not be intelligence, availability of funds, or even talent... it will be "grit" I.E. perseverance, tenacity, stick-to-it-iveness, the ability to stay on course undaunted. Although intelligence plays a part, it is not the determinant of success, job opportunity or even higher education. The factor that will determine success will be perseverance.
The question and challenge posed to the teachers was, "How do you teach grit?" How do you show students that staying on course and having self-derived determination at a task, any task, every task, is their best approach to their future?
To me, this seems in itself a daunting task for teachers since the modern middle class American child has learned little more than "anything and everything you do is perfect in every way!" and "Mommy and daddy will fix it for you." Add that to a culture of advertisement and entertainment that enforces the misconception that the world "owes" you everything you desire and owes it to you immediately without effort, and you end up with a diminishing return on the future of our children and America.
I'm not forgetting that there are many disadvantaged children that don't have helicopter parents and after-school accolades. But the message from society and the media only offers the same fixation on wealth and fame, food and games; life may be angry, empty of empathy, and hopeless for them. It seems the disadvantages may be even more of a challenge... or are they?
It brings me to a paradox of privilege and need. The child of no need, no challenge and who is ego enriched may have a disadvantage in future competition compared to the child who sees life as a basic struggle. Those struggles do not translate to a meager life; on the contrary they may be and advantage. Of course without home, food and medical security it is hard to imagine the traverse would be possible. It takes social systems that create an environment which will provide those necessities and allow every child to have opportunity. If we have those basic needs met, their may be no limit for the presently disadvantaged child with determination... grit. They may accomplish goals that have only been available to the privileged. It has happened before.
The future of our children may pivot on a lost art within human character, the need to persevere to completion. It's not dependent on wealth or position or even high intelligence but finding the satisfaction of creating something well and the understanding that a self-determined will to accomplish a task is an infinitely greater character trait than an inflated image of ability.
May we have teachers, care givers and parents with enough grit to teach their 21st century students and children the lost art of perseverance.
The human mind has always tried to see
symmetry in chaos. Yes, there are a lot of things happening all at the same time and I have a list that's not even covered in these comments. But it's an illusion. There is no more likelihood that we will be hit by an asteroid now then there was 5000 years ago nor will there be in another 5000 years. The possibility is there and it's not a small one, but nothing has changed. Same with about any astronomical anomaly. OK, we've had a couple of major asteroid flybys and one big hit recently, the earths poles are shifting slightly, plus... we have the biggest comet event in 2000 years about to happen, we are crossing the galactic plane and the sun's magnetic field is about to flip all of which are due right around the end of December... add to that the Mayan calendar thingy... What does it mean? Statistically NOTHING. Nada. Zilch. It's all just stuff that makes us see things that aren't there.
Climate change? Now there is something that we have to think about. We know that story and we know what to do about it, but we are not doing it because we are all more attracted to the unknowns that we can't do anything about or that are statistically unchanged. But the thing we can change is just too... dull.
Yep, an asteroid 20 miles wide could swing around the totally without warning and obliterate us all in the next 5 minutes without warning. But the one thing we can do something about.... the one thing that could bring the planet together.... boring, slow, no entertainment factor, no buzz, no religious revelations or sightings of a deity in the clouds to imagine.
We had better get out heads on strait as a civilization and start thinking about what is real and stop with the adrenalin rush nonsense.
I had a recurring dream over a few month period
some 20 years ago. It always started as I walked into a large church reminiscent of a protestant fundi church much like I attended as a child. But as I walked into the sanctuary the people were all dead, as a matter of fact they were piled up waist deep throughout including the isle. I continued walking into the sanctuary and with every consecutive recurrence of the dream I ventured farther up the isle climbing on the dead corpses and walking over them. I was never scared nor did I wake up like in a nightmare but I was very disturbed and hated being there. I noticed some were half dead just laying there looking up at me. Finally after many recurrences I got all the way to the platform where the ministers were dead as well. I turned around and looked at the bodies in the audience and said with a very calm but deeply moved heart, "I do not need to be here". The dream ended and I have not had it since.
Over time, I think my psyche was struggling with a deep seated unsettled issue that played out in this dream. It was my past, growing up in a religious environment, attending churches like this as a child, struggling with the religious teaching that never satisfied my curiosity about reality.... and that it was no longer necessary to be confronted with it. It was the point where it was finally put to rest. The past was dead and I no longer needed to connect to the contradictory religious teachings of my past childhood. I was finally free of it.
When someone really, really, really needs to have a belief system to survive,
and their entire paradigm is found teetering on facts, there's no doubt that denial, strawmen, dismissal, and blame will be their only salvation.
You can't expect a scientific approach to reason to come from a person who can't stop drinking the booze. The addiction isn't like physical addiction, it's their entire being/self/ego that's at stake. Until they can begin to break the habit or addiction to the sum of their fears and see that there is life (and death) after truth, they can't budge and must find a way out.
I see it another way... If we were once steeped in religion, and we were able to come to the realization of our mortality and still find freedom from fear's lie, we atheists were very lucky.
I can really go along with this point of view.
Truth is hard medicine sometimes but we have to face the reality that everything has already changed and either we are able to see it and remould our lives and policies to the necessities that this change invokes or we prolong the process of stagnation, or maybe worse, we empower the destroyers and hoarders.
The American Dream is not a sacred emblem of worship, it was an idea that had it's time and under a better humanity it may have been able to work longer. But when that dream lost it's sense of the oneness of humankind, it slowly evolved to become each man for himself and with that came it's own demise.
The vices of humankind are deep in the root of our brain. Hunger and sex and the will to survive are very close to the drive of greed. It is no wonder to me that greed made it's way through the ranks of power to become the 20th/21st century sum of all vice. If not checked we all have the greed drive working against us through the sensuality of survival which is a corrupted form of survival. Sex sells, whether the sale is logical or not. Hunger sells and we can be provoked to eat what we are given when there is nothing. Greed sells, because it is the pretty shiny thing twinkling and compelling.
We need to break the bondage of greed and cultivate the oneness of humankind again by discerning the difference between the twinkle and reality.
I am behind the idea 100%
But there is a time to be in people's face and a time to go the subtle route. There are also times to be cautious. Wars and battles are not always won by overt actions. On the contrary, most things in life are accomplished by thoughtful decisions and respect of other people. I don't mean respect for their beliefs necessarily but respect for the persons themselves and what they are able to grasp.
I put atheism in a totally different category simply due to its absence of a "thing". Religion is in your face because of its addition of a "thing". Because religion has to add something they wish to think it has to be defended and even promoted to exist. Atheism does not need to defend or promote because you can't defend or promote nothing.
As an atheist, I promote those things that advance humanity and life; those things do not require atheism but only require a human being. That being said, I would rather promote the causes and qualities that atheism allows me to understand, not atheism as a thing... because it's not a thing.
Thanks for the run everyone. It's time to move on.
I have come to appreciate many of the posters here and I have also seen the face of ugliness. This truly is a microcosm of America which includes all the differences and forms of humanity in every code. I do appreciate this but I just don't fit into a microcosm of anything so it's time to hit the road. Looking through my posts won't reveal much as this has been coming for some time.
I am a believer in rules and regulations as long as they promote the better good and don't stifle common interests and dissemination of information. The rules here don't seem to promote this end and actually undermine that outcome in many ways. In the rough and tumble, good information is lost, bad information is promoted, some people are advanced due to linguistic popularity and others are wished into purgatory for the socially incorrect and basically the site descends into a condition I call "forum grooming" which separates the ins from the outs even among the politically like minded. Can this be made better? I doubt it. But step by step, if the administrators promote a laxation of controls on information and pull the reigns on social extremism as well as insider trolls it may help. I really don't know the answer. But I don't wish to be brushed off only to be allowed a voice under the constraint of a socially correct agenda or dismissed just for sheer nonsense; that's wasted effort. When rules become the enforcement of rules for the sake of rules we have stagnation. Human systems are complicated and require nuance... grace, if you will, that make systems work for people, not people for systems. On DU, there's little I can do to help as an "out", I just have to put up with it like so many others.
I would like to make a conjecture that there may be a few individuals who have access to either administrative or sub-administrative permissions who use them for passing personal information to others who do not have those permissions or that use those privileges for less than acceptable control of participants. That may include the jury system. It's only an observation.
Be well. And thank you again for the ride. No hard feelings whatsoever because any issues I have with DU are minuscule compared to the excellent contributions of a few of you who have added greatly to my experience. In the words of a highly respected and profound DU persona, "... until the inevitable return..."
I am, Defacto7
Profile Information
Name: Defacto7Gender: Do not display
Hometown: Portland, OR
Home country: not sure anymore
Current location: depends on which proxy I'm using
Member since: Wed Aug 1, 2012, 01:44 AM
Number of posts: 13,485
