Our Lives in Their Portfolios

English language

Published July 7, 2023 by Verso Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-83976-898-9

(1 review)

All hail the new masters of Capitalism: How asset managers acquired the world

Banks have taken a backseat since the global financial crisis over a decade ago. Today, our new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone and BlackRock. And they don't just own financial assets.

The roads we drive on; 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.

As the owners of more and more of the basic building blocks of everyday life, asset managers shape the lives of each and every one of us in profound and disturbing ways. In this eye-opening follow-up to Rentier Capitalism, Brett Christophers peels back the veil on ""asset manager society.""

Asset managers, he shows, are unlike traditional owners of housing and other …

All hail the new masters of Capitalism: How asset managers acquired the world

Banks have taken a backseat since the global financial crisis over a decade ago. Today, our new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone and BlackRock. And they don't just own financial assets.

The roads we drive on; 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.

As the owners of more and more of the basic building blocks of everyday life, asset managers shape the lives of each and every one of us in profound and disturbing ways. In this eye-opening follow-up to Rentier Capitalism, Brett Christophers peels back the veil on ""asset manager society.""

Asset managers, he shows, are unlike traditional owners of housing and other essential infrastructure. Buying and selling these life-supporting assets at a dizzying pace, the crux of their business model is not long-term investment and careful custodianship but making quick profits for themselves and the investors that back them.

In asset manager society, the natural and built environments that sustain us become one more vehicle for siphoning money from the many to the few.

2 editions

pdotb reviewed Our Lives in Their Portfolios by Brett Christophers

Another excellent, though enraging, book

5 stars

As with his previous book, "Rentier Capitalism", Christophers reveals a side of capitalism that's largely in the shadows. A stunning fact from the concluding paragraphs is that asset managers own something like 40% of the world economy. While we can see the stock market and, to a lesser extent, the bond market, there's a whole financial world out there that we're much less aware of, but that has a really significant effect on our daily lives. In particular, as governments have outsourced the ownership of infrastructure, and asset managers have bought up housing, democracy is eroded as control is taken over by these leviathans.

If you want a taste of what the book is about, I encourage you to watch the author's interview with Aaron Bastani on Novara Media's YouTube channel -- that's what inspired me to read it.

Oh, and I'd conclude that I'm beyond excited to hear that …

As with his previous book, "Rentier Capitalism", Christophers reveals a side of capitalism that's largely in the shadows. A stunning fact from the concluding paragraphs is that asset managers own something like 40% of the world economy. While we can see the stock market and, to a lesser extent, the bond market, there's a whole financial world out there that we're much less aware of, but that has a really significant effect on our daily lives. In particular, as governments have outsourced the ownership of infrastructure, and asset managers have bought up housing, democracy is eroded as control is taken over by these leviathans.

If you want a taste of what the book is about, I encourage you to watch the author's interview with Aaron Bastani on Novara Media's YouTube channel -- that's what inspired me to read it.

Oh, and I'd conclude that I'm beyond excited to hear that his next book, on the economics of renewables, is coming out with Verso in February :)