Concentrating
Wealth and Power
Top 20 Investment Funds

Largest 205 Corporations

Key Fact
BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are the single largest shareholder in 40 percent of all listed US companies.
Source: (Haberly and Wójcik, 2016)
And their investment helps concentrate power in companies too
Out of $1.43 trillion global foreign direct investments in 2017, nearly half went into consolidating corporate power rather than new investments for the future:
Mergers and Acquisitions
$694 billion

Greenfield (New) Investments
$720 billion

Key Fact
In a survey of 390 deals worth $700 billion, 55% of private equity firms cut long-term investments, not increased them, resulting in slower growth, not faster growth.
Source: (Rasmussen, 2018)
Top four firms’ share of total revenue within their sector in the US
across 893 industries, grouped by sector*
IT, telecoms and media

Retail trade

Finance and insurance

All sectors

Key Fact
Two-thirds of all US corporate sectors have become more concentrated since 1997.
Source: (The Economist, 2016)
And the rich keep getting richer
Corporations have funneled all this money into increasing their market share to inflate share prices to record levels.
US companies’ global return on capital

Source: (The Economist, 2016)
Household ownership of US stock market

Source: (Wolff, 2017)
As stock ownership is concentrated in just a few hands, pumped up share prices mainly benefit the rich.
THE RICHEST 1% OWN 45% OF THE WORLD’S WEALTH


Source: Credit Suisse, Global Wealth Databook