How Blackrock Ruined Capitalism (and Harley Davidson)

[@Unknownlimitz32]

Had this video randomly recommended to me, but wow this was very well researched and presented in a professional high quality way. Well done.

[@cycletron]

Thank you very much, I really appreciate your encouragement!

[@daveh5625]

You are correct... stock investing must take this into account ... making money in the markets is 11:57 not easy... everyone thinks you sit around doing nothing and make money... is this bike channel, if so, new rider 2.5 years, 65 years old, 650 versy.... looking for a 1000sx for fall, phx AZ

[@cycletron]

I think the Versys would be a good way to go. I am also a big fan of sport bikes. I currently have a 2020 Katana and a 2023 Hayabusa. Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@user-us1hx2cx3j]

I have a 650 Verseys - you can run it on 87 octane, it gets 55 plus mpg and I tour 2 up on it with my wife. Excellent bike, very very reliable, biggest criticism would be its so sensible its a little boring! 😂

[@matthewseals8110]

Im very very happy to hear people talking about this. Powerful public private partnerships have been allowing government entities to dip into the benifits of the private sector and public entities to avoid legal issues encountered as a public entity. Government contracting, licensing, and cronyism with powerful public sector entities has made these entities into federal actors working at the behest of the US government to artificially sway the market. There are entire sectors of the US economy riddled with government contracting to make up the majority of its funding. Public dollars may not make up 50% of its overall revenue stream. These entities simply don't need the public when they have the federal money printer. Without the federal money printer the government couldn't afford to dominate them financially.

[@cycletron]

Well said and I agree. Now these firms and governments are gaining control of crypto.

[@geneclarke2205]

This is an interesting topic. I read an article by David Brooks and he was speculating on CEO's and their dilemma for shareholder value (Milton Freedom, 1960's, Free to Choose) and a moral obligation to society - something like the ESG topic. He cites the case of the American Petroleum Institute's research in the 1950's identifying pollution and city smog and the smoking gun in1977 when Exxon senior scientist James Black reported to the company's executives that there was a general scientific agreement on climate change. Brooks tries to overlay something like ESG over the decision making in 1977 and does a what if: What if Exxon, instead of a coverup, create a research team to develop a synthetic fuels industry to make carbon-neutral fuels for general transportation and produce gas and diesel for heavy operations and also focused on petro chemical based product and medical research, would Exxon's shareholder value be greater than it is today? And, in turn, the need for this energy transition would be almost unnecessary? He goes on to make the point that Freedom's focus on shareholder value without regulatory guardrails and a moral imperative build into the companies value system leads to hidden costs or the cost of negative externalities not priced into the goods that are later collected or taxed by society in general. He used the example of a coal company going bankrupt and the EPA comes in and cleans up the mess with taxpayer money while the shareholders feel no burden. Or big oil fought against Ethanol to reduce smog and the auto industry fought against catalytic converters and GE and Phillips fought against legislation to phase out incandescent light bulbs to protect shareholder value. But the external costs get pushed forward usually onto taxpayers. I believe Larry Fink is making this same argument in his version of ESG. CEO's have to balance short term shareholder value with longer term external costs (usually a lawsuit or more regulation) and seek long term opportunities. The entire concept of shareholder value and free markets has gone too far afield lead by a distorted notion of short term accounting value and quarterly stock prices vs long term investment value creation and sustained returns. It may be the long term institutional investors vs the day traders and active investors vs the retirees who just what their stable dividends. A more basic questions is; Who's shareholder value?:

[@cycletron]

Thanks Gene. That is interesting. You know I saw first hand what you are referring to about short-term corporate thinking. In the early 90's I worked at a site for a new power plant in Puerto Rico. The land for the plant was just a small parcel of what was owned by the Union Carbide Corporation for processing and storing petrochemicals. The power plant was going in the only largely non-contaminated part of the property. The soil, water and air was massively contaminated from their operations in the 50's and 60's. There was just a 3 person staff at the site and their only job was to collect ground water samples for analysis. I doubt if that site gets used for anything for the next several hundred years.

[@tomellis7949]

Thanks for exposing Black Rock and Larry Finks evil designs. Best explanation I’ve heard of this head exploding nonsense. Great vid.

[@cycletron]

Thanks very much, I really appreciate it! I have been trying to figure all this out since I didn't know at first what was behind all of this.

[@MKandKCCampbell]

Interesting! Will have to process. Clearly, things started changing 30+ years ago when large institutional investors became so large that they dominated the share buying market. The result is all that matters is profits which drive share price. The product is secondary and the worker is no longer important at all. Capitalism no longer works as intended for 99% of the population. Thanks for the very informative video.

[@cycletron]

Thank you for watching and commenting, I really appreciate it!

[@johncraftenworth7847]

THIS!! I've had enough of that Blackrock BS, someone needs to be accountable

[@frankfurther3828]

Informative Vid. This AM I woke at 5:45. Before that I was unconscious. F Jochen, F CVO's.

[@cycletron]

Thank you. Zeitz has to go from HD.

[@frankfurther3828]

@@cycletron They need to go back to building machines BY and FOR the American middle class. Rule the niche again. They chose to become so broad and diluted that they have turned into the AMF of Two-wheeled machines, and T shirts.

[@cycletron]

@@frankfurther3828 I agree with you. They have definitely lost their way.

[@tomkarnes69]

You have your finger on the heart of darkness will done

[@cycletron]

Thank you.

[@tomkarnes69]

Diversity, equity, & inclusion = conformity, inequity, & exclusion

[@thelost_woods]

Why is government even a thing still? We just let these people take our money paycheck after paycheck for no reason. State government makes sense but federal isn't needed at all.

[@cycletron]

I agree with you. Also many city governments are out of control. My local sales tax is 10 percent and they want to raise it another 0.375 percent making it among the highest sales tax locations in the country. They said they need to extra tax money to fix the roads when I thought the first 10 percent should have covered this already!

[@PaulG75]

It’s sickening.

[@cycletron]

100 percent.

[@spikey2740]

I have no complaint with cleaning up the environment, but doing so via carbon offset is absolute nonsense. If a corporation has a better record than stated environmental goals for that category of industries, good for them. But if one has a worse record, that's tough. They should have to clean up their individual act - and specifically not be able to sneak by via buying offset credits. I worked for a company whose effluent was well above allowable limits for dumping into neighboring waterways. Their solution was to greatly increase the amount of water (purchased from the neighboring city water department) to dilute the effluent enough to get under the limits, thereby altering percentages but not affecting the total pollutant discharged. They had no intention of reducing their discharge, only beating the numbers, while doing nothing to improve the environment. Which reminds me of the stunt VW pulled on their diesel engines a few years ago - do whatever it takes to fake the results.

[@cycletron]

Oh I agree with you. I think the whole carbon offset thing is a scam.

[@my.motorrad]

Some say the decline started with Jack Welch and other executives followed suit which coincided with changes with trading policies/regs of public trading companies. In terms of woke, I think a good part of the reaction is from cultural warriors on the right who see their world changing. Cultures do evolve. If you want stasis, see the taliban or Iran. That said, DEI can be simpler and egalitarian if implemented differently. It’s basic: everyone has a seat at the table and no one dictates their values as dominant as that’s not what holds us together. It’s a libertarian principle that the right has forgotten in their rush to hide their bigotry behind religion. They aren’t a uniting force, but neither is some of the tactics of the left. Basically my idea is zero tolerance for intolerance from anyone. If you believe in freedom (and truly espouse Christian principles) everyone is welcome at the table. If you want to be a useful idiot for those that want money and power by being tweaked with fears of different as a threat, that’s on you(collective). Jefferson said “But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. “ A lesson we all should revisit. Today folks are offended by things like pictures on a beer can, that’s not even publicly distributed. Who’s the snowflake?

[@cycletron]

Jack Welch was the darling of Wall Street back in the day. GE stock is doing to well today. I agree with you about society losing its collective mind by the way. It is probably going to get a lot worse as the next Federal election draws closer.

[@geneclarke2205]

Overall, well said and great points my.motorrad. You could go back to the robber barons - JP Morgan, Vanderbilt, JD Rockefeller, Carnegie, and some would include GM's Sloan and Henry Ford. Now we have the tech billionaires kids club - Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Page, Ellison. The question is if antitrust laws are to protect competition then how did the names above create companies with almost monopoly control over their markets with only occasional slaps on the wrist from regulators? There was a move long ago to move the antitrust division out of the DOJ and make it an independent agency were cases would not be subjected to approval within the federal government. But interest groups killed that quickly. So the American "free market" is free, except when its not free. Okay, I get it now.

[@F3udF1st]

We need to force corporations to do things that they don't directly profit from (like saving the planet), otherwise they won't do it. You have to be very naïve to think otherwise.

[@cycletron]

I agree that the won't change on their own. I just think the investment banking side is getting way too big at this point. I am curious to see how it will all work out.

[@dutchyjhome]

Congratulations ! Finally you've been searching for the Big Pic and you've found it. That really takes a lot of effort in research. Except the fact that you for looking for a villain, I agree with your statements . See our governments and our large companies were ignoring the grand environmental problems that we all ( so you and me as well) were allowed to cause to keep the people mobile, although the grand problem we all together were causing were already known by our governments and at the large companies. Please do not forget the power the grand Petrochemical companies (Shell, Exxon-Mobile, BP, Elf, you name it) had to force governments not to change the way of usage of petrochemical products like gas, diesel and LPG, just to name you some examples. And please do not forget the power of the Arabs had with their Arab PetroChemical Cartel and the oil-leverage to protect their interest they had all over the world, taking local governments hostage financially although even the Arabs knew that we; they, were poisoning the world. So if you must look for a villain, than look in that direction. And of course our local governments, that allowed them to be taken hostage by the petrochemical industry were weak and lazy not to look any further than just oil-products that were forced up on to them by the Oil cartels. in 1989 BMW created the first H2 BMW 750 which ran on gasoline when started and could run on H2 as a fuel in the BMW 5.0 liter V12 for the rest of the time. BMW did this to make sure that they were no longer exclusively dependent of petrochemical products alone. Well the Cartel boys did not appreciate this kind of environmental friendly initiative and so they paid BMW headquarters a visit to talk some sense in those BMW mutineer (rebels). BMW was given a choise: 1. Stop investing in H2 technology and you are allowed to continue your car making and developing activities. Or 2. Continue this BMW H2 development and the cartel will purchase BMW-cars and jump it like private equity grasshoppers plague and take the company apart and sell the company in parts to to competitors and destroy the H2 research and development part of the company. This is the kind of Oil-Cartel leverage I am talking about. So who is responsible for taking that poisonous product from the earth to begin with? the Oil companies all over the planet. and who allowed them to do so? Our governments! And since the users of this poisoned oil products became more and more demanding for even more oil products, the Oil-Cartels smiled even harder, since they saw their revenue grow even harder. These Oil Cartels (not just the Arab but also the USA) can be seen as hard drugs Oil dealers and us users of the oil products as oil-junkies. Which makes us, the end users of Oil-products just as guilty for using it, as the governments allowed us to use it in the first place since it was commonly known that burning oil would lead directly to environmental pollution. Ignoring this fact as users of oil products does not plead us free from our responsibility. So you want to point out people whom are guilty, start with yourself and all people around you, and that goes for you, me and everybody. Ask yourself: how big of a carbon foot print do I have..?

[@cycletron]

Thanks Dutchy, I am trying to learn and I clearly don't have all the answers (not that anybody can on these complex issues). I would like to know what you think will happen with all of the efforts to calculate the carbon offsets to achieve "net zero". The manufacturers are not really doing much to reduce emissions (which is hard to do since they still make and ship physical products) so who is going to pay the tab to buy these offsets? Without the offsets there is not going to be any movement towards "net CO2".

[@dutchyjhome]

@@cycletron In my humble opinion, it is complete deceitfulness that the net zero system exists at all by buying offsets from companies that have a surplus of them. All companies must absolutely resolutely stop producing dirty (the process), and stop producing dirty products. It is irrelevant whether there is a demand for dirty products. If manufacturers are forced by legislation as a manufacturer to only be allowed to produce emission-free (The process) and only to manufacture emission-free products (when in use at the consumer), it will all pay for itself, because then there is no choice. A Big Shift in emission free producing for all manufacturers !!! and an even Bigger Shift in producing emission free products is the only affordable solution.

[@cycletron]

@@dutchyjhome Thanks Dutchy!

[@impaledface7694]

We might need a man with the big stick again....

[@geneclarke2205]

To help with your research I would point to the Reuters article "Positive ESG performance improves returns globally, research shows", July 28, 2022. They make the point that you have to unpack the "E", "S", and "G" to determine investment performance. "Portfolios tilted toward companies with strong corporate governance metrics, for example, beat their benchmarks across the four regions ESG Book analyzed, with average annual outperformance as high as 2.17% in Europe." The other measures, "E, and "S" are more difficult to quantify because, "The markets are confused as to what it is, how to measure it and how to determine performance implications". The articles conclusions is; "This variability in performance shows why singular ESG ratings that blend all three elements into one score can be "meaningless" to investors. Unless you unpack a single score into the individual drivers, you will never get to the bottom of what’s driving performance." In a Yahoo Finance article, "July is 'ESG month' for GOP leaders who want to limit do-good investing", Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) said, "The G in ESG I think makes a lot of sense to me but when the E is in conflict with the S and the S is in conflict with the G, I think that's where you see ESG as a colossal failure," he said. The bottom line, says Barr, is the GOP belief that ESG as a whole is "a cancer within our capital markets." Of course, the real GOP issue is that ESG has caused investment firms to risk base fossil fuels under ESG, "...exploit ESG to discriminate against American energy companies." So basically, the GOP wants to kill ESG to protect big oil and coal and moving their anti-climate change agenda.

[@cycletron]

Thanks Gene. I will check out these articles. Ironically, my company just performed services for a new EV car battery plant that will account for over 10 percent of my company revenue this year and an even higher percentage of my profit. The world is moving to EVs in a big way and I am still trying to figure out the drivers for it. You did mention the smoke from the forest fires in Canada. I have been living in Minnesota since March and the summer temperatures are absolutely lovely, but I have developed an upper respiratory infection that has been hard to shake that I think was trigger from this smoke.

[@twotone3471]

Can't say I'm surprised by any of this, but it is an obstacle to selling Harley to a non "Woke" entity like China who doesn't buy into those policies. The owners of Harley have power to dictate how they do business, and running the company into the ground would be preferable to them than Harley focusing on silly things like hiring people who do their jobs, or customer service to it's existing customer base. Way better to market to people who don't ride, and promote the agenda that demonizes their existing customers, as it aligns with their own values and beliefs.

[@cycletron]

Yes, I think that is what is happening in that I truly believe the current HD management sees a future where they no longer make and sell motorcycles. Instead it will be a fashion or lifestyle brand for licensed apparel.

[@geneclarke2205]

Look to your Congressperson: The U.S. House of Representatives (Republicans) has officially blocked the FTC from implementing its intended reforms and regulations for car and motorcycle dealers which would prohibit bait and switch advertising - basically, the rule stated that the on-line price, the cash price, and the finance price would be the one "price" for the vehicle. All additions and extras to this price would have to be detailed and a bottom line buyers price for the vehicle clearly listed in ads and on the window invoice. The NADA lobbied Congress and said these rules would be burdensome and not in the interest of consumers. So, who is looking out for capitalism? Clearly not your Congressperson. Maybe truth in advertising and consumer protection has become "woke" and must be stopped at any cost.

[@cycletron]

I was hoping the FTC would have had their new rules adopted. It makes no sense to have an entire bureau of consumer protection if they won't take on the shady practices of these dealers. Had those rules been adopted, I was looking forward to the Harley dealers having to abide by them. The NADA certainly are a bunch of cry babies.

[@geneclarke2205]

@@cycletron You should do a video on this and title it: Motorcycle Dealers and STD's - Always Bring Protection.

[@cycletron]

@@geneclarke2205 I love the title! I already have a few ideas for the thumbnail.

[@cxa011500]

That's why Disney turned to crap.

[@masterlink_1]

Please krrp taking about this and hurry up ,,timing timing everyone needs this info asap/////

[@ΑναστάσιοςΠαπαζαχαρίου]

It's an absolute murican take to say that Europe is more compliant

[@cycletron]

I suppose it is but it is also objectively true. Unfortunately the U.S. is headed down the same path, it is just that Europe is about 30 years "ahead" of us.

[@unchartedthickets]

you might as well build a shed in the woods and send chemical warfare envelopes to CEO's. I'm now watching you for entertainment purposes. Please don't stop diving deeper. In case you lived under a rock most of your life, all global corporations have influenced markets. I could make semi militaristic videos about the Koch brothers but I've got a family to raise and a Harley to ride

[@cycletron]

Influencing the market is one thing, trying to completely hijack it is something else altogether. Some people can't get enough of regulations. Do keep watching though!

[@unchartedthickets]

@@cycletron Have you ever looked at how any first world government hijacks resources? What about Haliburton? Have you looked into the familial connections of US business moguls prior to WWI? Please read Kevin Phillips' book about the Bush family. Notice his tenure in the Nixon administration. Your pet project is a little under baked

[@Stevel_]

Ha....Biden voter here folks.

[@unchartedthickets]

@@Stevel_ definitely not a Jan 6 voter

[@Stevel_]

@@unchartedthickets oh you mean the great insurrection that supposedly happened. Lol. Okay buddy well enjoy your HD and your Bud Light.