Agreed. Investing with one of the huge investment firms such as BlackRock, Vanguard or State Street feels like investing in the erosion of democracy and the monopolization of the means of production.

The optimal strategy for them is to coerce all the companies that they invest in to only do business with each other in order to completely lock new competitors out of the market. This is very bad for consumers and society.

Vanguard literally provides for investment in every security. All of them. Every single one. I currently own interest in every equity security available to a US investor by purchasing a single ETF. How is it that Vanguard (which is owned by its funds which in turn are owned by individual investors in those funds) would benefit from coercing literally every publicly traded company from transacting with every other non-publicly business? For instance, of what benefit is it to Vanguard to prevent Sysco from selling food to restaurants that are not publicly traded? Should Apple not sell phones and laptops to any non-publicly traded business? Should Amazon stop transacting with non-publicly traded companies? How does any of that work in my interest as an owner of Vanguard?

The shenanigans are thought to be around M&A and alternatives. A company like Vanguard can use market power to juice its more profitable products by depressing prices.

> $10 tn AUM is way too much

Please elaborate. What's the right amount?

$10 trillion AUM and a market cap of $100 billion means that 99% of their investments are directly on behalf of their clients, that's what GP is emphasizing.

AUM: "Assets Under Management".

Why does that matter? Why is 10T too much? It's a big number but that money is ultimately under the control of the individual asset holders (so far as I understand it anyways).