Inequality Inc. How corporate power divides our world
policy-practice.oxfam.org
policy-practice.oxfam.org
I particularly found section 2.4 to cover something I've felt for a long time. The bottom line is we really need to reevaluate how the stock markets and finance work, and if they are working for society as a whole.
> This financialization of corporations, which sees enormous financial markets play an ever-increasing role in the economy, has exacerbated the focus on short-term profits over any longer-term goals. It has also directed investment away from productive uses, instead acting in the interest of extreme capital by reorientating many non-financial businesses increasingly towards financial instruments and activities.
Financialization of all human enterprises seems to be driving society towards a state where no actual productive work is done and instead companies become financial manipulation instruments. Eg Boeing outsourcing all plane manufacturing, airlines making most of their money from points schemes.
The report also covers that most equities are owned by the wealthy, something that refutes a common idea that somehow the "shareholders" benefiting from company greed are regular peoples' retirement funds.
> The super-rich are more likely to own corporations. In the USA, one of the very few countries for which there is regular data on the distribution of corporate equities, the richest 0.1% account for 19.8% of shares owned by households, the richest 1% own 44.6%, while the poorest 50% own just 1%.146 New research on 24 OECD countries found that the richest 10% of households own 85% of total capital-ownership assets – including shares in companies, mutual funds and other businesses – while the bottom 40% own just 4%.147
It also covers the phenomenon of index funds which is something I also am very interested in. The conventional wisdom for folks lucky enough to have excess money is to put it in index funds. Then you end up in a state where a fair amount of the companies in the world are effectively controlled by the wishes of a few index fund managers. It seems there must be a better way for folks to ensure their ability to retire comfortably.
> Beyond private equity, the ‘Big Three’ index fund managers – BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard – together manage some US$20 trillion in assets.218 Research suggests that this kind of market concentration reduces incentives for companies to compete and in turn deepens monopoly power.219 Together they control close to one-fifth of all investable assets in the world.220 Common ownership in so few financial firms undermines fairness across the economy.221 Further to this, Harvard research has argued that the economic power held by such index funds is so concentrated that ‘in the near future roughly twelve individuals will have practical power over the majority of U.S. public companies’, concerns that were previously echoed by the founder of Vanguard himself.
How is this any different than nvidia outsourcing semiconductor manufacturing to Samsung or TSMC? There's nothing inherently wrong with companies focusing on their core competency and getting out of low value parts of the value chain.
>airlines making most of their money from points schemes.
Is there more on this? I suspect this is just an accounting artifact. At the end of the day airlines are selling plane tickets. It's just that they're selling it for cash as well as points, which can be bought with cash. I don't see how selling points can be that much more profitable than selling tickets. Why would banks spend $2 worth of money to get points that consumers can spend to get $1 worth of flights?
>Then you end up in a state where a fair amount of the companies in the world are effectively controlled by the wishes of a few index fund managers. It seems there must be a better way for folks to ensure their ability to retire comfortably.
Passive index funds mangers have very little latitude to make decisions. They have to track the index, after all. Therefore I'm not sure what the issue is. Moreover if they decide to go rogue, thanks to "financialization" it's trivial to start another fund that acts in the interests of the shareholders.
But i took the quote "state where no actual productive work is done and instead companies become financial manipulation instruments" to mean that companies now only care about the immediate financial turnaround as opposed to building quality products (normally done out of fear of healthy competition). So because most companies are considilating/merging, the healthy competition goes away and monopolies continue to grow leaving people with fews alternatives.
Personally i dont think its so much about stocks/offshoring talent/new world order as much as it is these huge companies and billionaires saying "yes this product or service is shtty, yes it costs more than before, yes the quality will continue to go down, and yes the price will continue to go up, BUT, no gun to your head, you're free to go to the next billionaire company and try them out for the same thing... " See the telecom companies, apple, fast food, etc...
I guess the end question is how to farm a healthy mom and pop system, but typically they die because of lack of service-ability and marketing which the big corporations can easily do and have done
I can't take any of those complaints seriously. One thing is to complain on particular issues in particular countries such as - overly high taxes, or overly low taxes on rich, corruption, zoning, etc. - but complaining on "capitalism" is like saying "i don't like this world, give me another one".