Yeggles

Rewatching The Game Changers on @netflix, with a through new frame of 'watching 3 years of market corruption, manipulation, and malpractice', and UFC Fighter James Wilks (@lightningwilks) said something that resonated with me: “With overwhelming scientific evidence connecting animal foods to many of the most common deadly diseases, I discovered that the meat, diary, and eggs industries have engaged in a covert response; funding studies that deny this evidence while burying their involvement in the fine print. One of the hired guns paid to conduct these studies is Exponent, Inc. A company whose research was used by the tobacco industry to deny the connection between second-hand smoke and cancer. For more than 50 years, Exponent has generated studies that challenged the health risks of everything from asbestos, arsenic, and mercury, to animal foods.” --- I thought to myself, "Hey. This sounds a lot like what big money does with 'main stream media' with a short and distort in the stock market and capital markets" Naturally, I started digging. <devioussmirk.gif> --- So, who is Eᵡponent, anyway? According to their website, "In an era of radically-accelerating change, Eᵡponent is the only premium engineering and scientific consulting firm with the depth and breadth of expertise to solve your most profoundly unique, unprecedented, and urgent challenges". --- What do they do? Again, according to their website, Eᵡponent's corporate mission is: "To create an unrivaled environment of engineering and scientific expertise, collaboration, and opportunity for exceptional people to produce breakthrough insights and objective solutions for our clients' vital challenges". Eᵡponent also states that their vision is to: "...solve the most formidable scientific and engineering challenges to create a safer, healthier, sustainable world." --- To paraphrase... Eᵡponent creates [scientific] expertise that creates opportunities for their clients by solving [scientific] challenges for a safer and healthier world. .....sounds to me like "we help our clients find creative ways to make money using science". But let's see if there's anything to support that. --- Let's look at some of Eᵡponent (EXPO) owners... 1. BlackRock owns 6,014,847 shares of EXPO 2. Vanguard owns 5,007,031 shares, along with an additional 2,888,199 shares of EXPO through two funds 3. State Street owns 1,690,776 shares of EXPO ..along with some others I am unfamiliar with. Let's dive in, shall we? 4. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investments owns 4,277,177 shares of EXPO. Upon further investigation, we see that Kayne Anderson Rudnick--a Los Angeles investment firm--is owned by Kayne Anderson Rudnick and Virtus Investment, according to 13G filings from HeadHunter Group PLC. You'll never guess who the two largest owners of Virtus Investment are?!?! • BlackRock, who owns 14%, or 13.99% to be specific of Virtus Investment, and • Vanguard, who owns 12.35% of Virtus Investment ...you get the point! --- Who are BlackRock and Vanguard, and why does this matter? An 2022 Reuters article titled 'Fact Check-Video claiming BlackRock and Vanguard ‘own all the biggest corporations in the world’ is missing context' states: "While it is true that both investment firms hold significant shares in many of the world’s leading companies and can therefore wield voting rights, shares are ultimately owned by Blackrock and Vanguard’s clients" - Real quick on voting rights... Investopedia informs us that voting rights afford shareholders the ability to use their votes to influence "...matters of corporate policy, including decisions on the makeup of the board of directors, issuing new securities, initiating corporate actions like mergers or acquisitions, approving dividends, and making substantial changes in the corporation's operations". - The fact that Reuters was compelled enough--likely by BlackRock and Vanguard--to publish that article, says enough for me. But let's press on. - According to Google, BlackRock has $8.59 trillion in assets under management, while Vanguard has $7.2 trillion in assets under management. I bet that kind of buying brings with it a lot of influence. - A 2020 CNN Business article discussing the 3 largest asset managers--BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street--stated: "The rapid growth of the Big Three fund managers, driven in part by rise of dirt-cheap ETFs, gives them enormous sway over financial markets and the priorities of Corporate America" --- In the case of BlackRock, "The asset manager also employs both a former Federal Reserve vice chairman and a former head of the Swiss National Bank. BlackRock is so powerful that the federal government has asked for its help during each of the past two recessions. In March, the Fed tapped BlackRock to manage a first-of-its kind vehicle to buy corporate debt, including junk bonds". --- Looking back further, we see a 2017 Financial Post article titled With $20 trillion between them, Blackrock and Vanguard could own almost everything by 2028 that begins with: "Imagine a world in which two asset managers call the shots, in which their wealth exceeds current U.S. GDP and where almost every hedge fund, government and retiree is a customer. It’s closer than you think. BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard Group — already the world’s largest money managers — are less than a decade from managing a total of US$20 trillion, according to Bloomberg News calculations." "It's closer than you think". And that was in 2017. --- All of that to say that, despite the best attempts of BlackRock and Vanguard to spin the narrative of "we don't own anything, our investors do" and "we don't own everything", the truth is that BlackRock and Vanguard likely have full autonomy to wield those investor dollars in whatever way they please to, in fact, "own all the biggest corporations in the world". --- I have also discussed BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street previously, further evidencing their reach, span of control, and uncanny ability to make money everywhere. • Bloomberg Law tells us that “…the likes of BlackRock, State Street, CALPERS, & the Kuwait Investment Authority… provide the vast majority of securities used to take bearish positions" xitter.cf/McSqueezyTheCow/… • BlackRock, through its ownership and influence with Blackstone has been one of many big money organizations buying up swaths of real estate--both residential and commercial--and artificially inflating the housing market and adding to the creation of another bubble xitter.cf/McSqueezyTheCow/… • Blackstone, which means BlackRock, acquired Ancestry • BlackRock, Vanguard, as well as hedge funds like #Citadel have significant stakes--often with voting rights--in pharmaceutical manufacturers like Sarepta. It is also worth noting that these asset managers and hedge funds profit handsomely from an FDA process where drugs can be fast-tracked to the market, often without proper trials, testing, and proof of efficacy. xitter.cf/McSqueezyTheCow/… Fun Fact: A May 2023 Bloomberg article quoted Diana Zuckerman, President of the National Center for Health Research, a nonprofit think tank: “Sarepta is a poster child for an absolutely outrageous and inexcusable lack of any kind of oversight or enforcement” So.. Just so you know this is not just Squeezy on a witch hunt against asset managers. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are in cahoots with the likes of a drug manufacturer labeled as a poster child for outrageous and inexcusable lack of oversight and enforcement --- TLDR: Let's make it all make sense, now... Eᵡponent is a company that creates expertise that creates opportunities for their clients by solving challenges for a safer and healthier world. #Netflix lets us know that Eᵡponent is a "hired gun" of meat, diary, and eggs [lobbyists] that funded research studies that denied evidence connecting food to disease "while burying their involvement in the fine print", and that Eᵡponent's "research was used by the tobacco industry to deny the connection between second-hand smoke and cancer" BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street have significant stakes in Eᵡponent. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are also involved in the "easy button" trillion dollar pharmaceutical game, the over-inflating the real estate market by buying up blocks of property game, the shorting the economy, by way of lending out large amounts of stock game, and many other things. --- TLDR²: Eᵡponent's ability to conduct research and provide evidence to push agendas like "mEaT iSnT cOnNeCtEd tO dIsEaSeS, gUys", and countering scientific facts that would promote the overall health of the global population is made possible by big money like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. Ironically enough, these asset managers who fund research countering science for financial benefit, turn right around and benefit from the quick to market big #pharma marketplace. These asset managers also buy up huge amounts of property so you cant afford to buy a home, and/or can't find a home to rent. And if it's not bad enough, these same asset managers buy up millions of shares of stock--off-exchange, as to not allow the stock's price action to reflect the purchases--so they can turn around and lend those shares to short sellers, whose goal is to drive company stock prices into the ground, bankrupting them, and adding to unemployment.. which brings with it implications that can tie right back into them making money from big pharma. I can go on, but I will digress here. --- #Food #FDA #BigPharma #Research #Drugs #BlackRock #Vanguard #StateStreet #HedgeFunds #Citadel #RealEstate #StockMarket #ShortAndDistort #TwitterNews Eᵡponent - About: exponent.com/company-about Fintel - Exponent, Inc (EXPO) Stock Price, Institutional Holders, and Ownership: fintel.io/so/us/expo Fintel - Kayne Anderson Rudnick: fintel.io/so/us/hhr/kayne-an… CNN Business - Virtus Investment Partners Inc: money.cnn.com/quote/sharehol… December 31, 2022 Schedule 13G: investors.23andme.com/static… April 20, 2022 Reuters article: reuters.com/article/factchec… March 6, 2021 Bloomberg Law article: news.bloomberglaw.com/securi… December 4, 2020 Blackstone Press Release: blackstone.com/news/press/bl… February 29, 2020 HeadHunter Group PLC Schedule 13G: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/… December 31, 2020 HeadHunter Group PLC Schedule 13G: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/… November 24, 2020 CNN Business article: cnn.com/2020/11/24/business/… February 29, 2020 HeadHunter Group PLC Schedule 13G: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/… December 4, 2017 Financial Post article: financialpost.com/investing/… Investopedia -Voting Rights : investopedia.com/terms/v/vot…