Our Lives in Their Portfolios

All hail the new masters of Capitalism: How asset managers acquired the worldSince the global financial crisis, banks have taken a backseat. The new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone and BlackRock. And they don’t just own financial assets.As the owners of more and more of the basic physical “stuff” that allows society to function on a daily basis, asset managers shape the lives of each and every one of us in profound ways. The roads on which we drive; the pipes that supply our drinking water; the farmland that provides our food; energy systems for electricity and heat; hospitals, schools, and even the homes in which many of us live – all now swell asset managers’ bulging investment portfolios.In this eye-opening follow-up to Rentier Capitalism, Brett Christophers peels back the veil on “asset manager society”. Asset managers, he shows, are not like other owners of housing and other essential infrastructure. They exist purely to make money for themselves and the investors that back them.And they make money by buying and selling life-sustaining assets at a dizzying pace. In the process, they reap vast, unconscionable rewards. Meanwhile, everyone else pays the consequences.