Meet the Banks and AMFs behind Starbucks ... and Lockheed Martin et cetera ... and Mass Murder in the GAZA Strip
All in the Club, Drinking from the Oppressed People's Blood
“We are the small axe / Sharpened to cut you down/ …”
Molly Gott’s and Derek Seidman’s excellent exposé from October 26, 2023 on the Eyes on the Ties website, ‘Corporate Enablers of Israel’s War on Gaza’, (1) reveals which ‘investional investors’ are the largest—by far!—share-holders in the five largest weapons-making Corporations that are based in the United States.
Get to know this Big Five! They may have Headquarters or Offices near you! Pay them a visit …. en masse, if you will!
My ‘Boycotts Win Again!’ post for Substack on December 10 quotes Gott and Seidman extensively. (2)
It draws from their piece a list of the Big Five: ‘They are Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics.’
It quotes their citing of the Big Five’s ‘military-related revenue’ in 2022. ‘These five companies took in an astounding $196 billion in military-related revenue in 2022.’
It points through through them to the hundreds of millions in Dollars ‘earned’ by CEO of the Big Five since 2020. ‘Their five CEOs rake in huge amounts of compensation. From 2020 to 2022, these five CEOs together have taken in around $318 million in total compensation — salary, stock awards, and other forms of payment.’
The ‘Boycotts Win Again!’ post then displays which of the ‘Asset-Management Firms’ that currently control more than 12 TRILLION U.S. DOLLARS of the Earth’s finances are the largest Shareholders in the Weapons-Makers now profiting from the Bombs and Missiles and Aircraft and Artificial Intelligence (3) that deliver indiscrimate bloodshed to women and children in the Gaza Strip.
Just three of these behemoth Asset Management Firms (AMFs, say) are among the largest Shareholders of Lockheed Martin and RTX and Northrup Grumman and Boeing. This Big Three are: the Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street. Regarding General Dyanmics, and its ‘Bunker-Busting’ bombs of 4000 pounds or more, Vanguard and BlackRock again figure among the top-five Shareholders.
The Big Three’s control through percentages and amounts of nominal wealth regarding the Weapons-Makers is … well, like old-time Monopolies. You can look it up, as Casey Stengel was fond of saying.
More than 28% of Lockheed Martin … ‘worth’ more. than $35 billion.
More than 24% of RTX…. worth more than $32 billion.
Et cetera, et cetera.
Concentrations of wealth and power are, of course, most vulnerable, as every Revolution that empowers Nations’ publics has shown.
The dominance of the BIg Three AMF’s becomes of particular interest when we see that …the same Big Three hold a similarly ‘dominant position’ in Starbucks.
Derek Seidman published an earlier exposé on the Eyes on te Ties website, ‘The Starbucks Power Network is on Your Campus’, on September 7, 2023, one month before the attacks of October 7 triggered the War in the Gaza Strip we see now.
Seidman highlighted Starbucks‘ vulnerability. This past August Cornell University cancelled its serving of Starbucks ‘at its dining facilities.’ Seidman noted that ‘Cornall’s move […] signaled a potential new opening and point of leverage for the union drive: campus allies of the union could begin to build campaigns to dislodge Starbucks from their campus.’
Seidman then explored the crucial role of Banks and ‘corporate bonds’ in sustaining Starbucks. ‘Banks are a somewhat hidden actor within the Starbucks power network, but they play a crucial supporting role in the company’s day-to-day operations and its practice of showering billions in stock buybacks and dividends on investors.’ One way this works, he writes: ‘Corporations like Starbucks raise billions of dollars in cash by selling off corporate bonds. Basically, when an investor buys corporate bonds from Starbucks, it is lending Starbucks money, and Starbucks promises to pay that money back in a certain number of years, with interest added.’
We may see how both the money-raising Banks and Starbucks mutually profit from this … inside-game among the … suitably endowed investor-class.
Seidman then shows which Banks are in play. ‘So, who are the banks that are facilitating and profiting from Starbucks corporate operations?
Let’s go back to Starbucks’ recent $1.5 billion corporate bond issuance. Seventeen banks are named as underwriting Starbucks’ bonds. Four of these banks — Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo — are underwriting the greatest amounts and are listed as “representatives” of the larger group. The 13 other banks helping Starbucks bring in cash include other prominent consumer-facing banks like Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and as well as other less recognizable and non-U.S. banks.’
We may see familiar names. As I wrote in ‘Boycotts Win Again! […] ‘Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo … with Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs also making up seven among the Top 8 of Banks that profit from keeping Starbucks afloat through Traffic in Corporate Bonds.’
Names so. familiar that you may see Branches and Offices and even Headquarters of them in your community or nearby. Banks that also figure among key players in the World Economic Forum … ‘Citi and Morgan Stanley and Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are among the World Economic Forum’s 100 or so ‘Strategic Partners’
Who owns these Banks? Well, you may guess.
BlackRock, you may know, is also a WEF Strategic Partner. Also, you may know, BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, is among the 28 on the WEF’s Board of Trustees.
You may wish to note, too, that the WEF’s next Annual Winter Meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos is scheduled for January 15 to 19, 2024. (5)
You may ALREADY have seen how promptly and integrally major Partners of the WEF—or the WETEF, standing for WORLD ECONOMIC and TECHNOLOGICAL ENSLAVEMENT FORUM—have responded with ‘support’ for the subsequent two months of mass murder of civilians executed by Israeli Defense Forces’ bombardments with weapons sold by Big Five Weapons-Makers based in the U.S.
We may see Ursula von der Leyen and Roberta Metsola of the European Union—and hence, some may know, of the World Economic Forum—arrive in Tel Aviv six days after Israeli civilians were themselves surprised and murdered by weapons made in the United States and/or supplied by Benjamin Netanyahi’s Likud Party.
‘Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Union, and Roberta Metsola, President of the Union’s Parliament. visited Tel Aviv “to express our solidarity with the Israeli people after the terrible terrorist attack by Hamas," Von der Leyen wrote on the social networking site X’, as reported in EuroNews.’ (6
How, then, can we OPPOSE and SUBVERT the atrocities wreaked on families of the Gaza Strip more than two months ongoing?
Derek Seidman’s ‘Starbucks Power Network’ gives us Banks’ names—the Banks named above as partnering and profiting with Starbucks. ‘Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo … with Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs …’
We can leave these Banks. We can take our money and investments from them. We can urge family and friends to do likewise, this Holidays season of celebrating Compassion and Courage. We can make our presence felt outside and inside these Banks. We can also look to more encompassing players and Partners and—if you will—more poisoning and devouring Monsters.
Here, from Derek Seidman again.
‘ .[…] many of the biggest owners of Starbucks stock are asset management firms and banks, some whom you might recognize and even bank or invest with.
These are massive shareholders of Starbucks who help keep the company afloat by holding onto huge amounts of its stock. They have the power and access to push Starbucks to halt its union-busting, if they chose to use it. Here are the current top ten institutional shareholders of Starbucks common stock according to the business data website Whalewisdom:’ (11)
Again we see, then, the Big Three: the Vanguard Group holds a little more than 9% of Starbucks’ Stock among institutional investors. BlackRock holds nearly 7% and State Street nearly 4%. The total, nominal value of the Big Three’s Shares is a little more than $23 billion.
And we remember as regards Lockheed Martin and RTX … the same Big Three.
State Street and Vanguard and BlackRock share-holding over 28% of Lockheed Martin, worth a nominal $35 billion-plus.
Vanguard and BlackRock and State Street share-holding over 24% of RTX (Raytheon). worth a nominal $34 billion-plus.
And Vanguard and BlackRock and State Street share-holding over 20% of Starbucks, worth a nominal $23 billion-plus.
Now we see how Boycotts and solidarity matter and how their power may exponentially spread. Starbucks baristas stood with the Writers and Screen Actors Guild Strikes last Summer … Strikes that won their workers’ demands against demotion and actual de-evolution through supposed ‘Artificial Intelligence’ … as all steadfast Strikes do win.
Boycotts and Strikes by workers and students are winning double-digit and nearly $12 billion in nominal losses to Starbucks. (6) Students such as those of Aiken Hall at the University of Southern California are imagining the changes that greater Boycotts may compel.
‘Starbucks has a past of union-busting behavior. A yearlong investigation took place regarding claims of labor violations at the Nation Labor Relations Board. It was discovered that Starbucks had been illegally monitoring and punishing employees fighting for a union.
Regarding the Israel-Hamas war, people are calling for boycotts on other franchises such as Burger King, Domino’s Pizza and McDonald’s for their ties to Israel. These boycotts are in support of the tactic to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel or BDS.’
We may imagine what further people-power can do. The enormous suffering of civilians in disputed territories of Israel and Palestine on and since October reveals a Colossus of Malignant Corruption so widespread and yet so concentrated that its vulnerabilities are as multiple … as its Assets.
Assets that are both as brick-and-mortar as a CHASE Bank branch (8) and as nominal and truly ‘Artificial’ as manipulated ‘Share Prices’ on entirely segregated and apartheid Stock Markets.
We see every day these institutional drinkers from people’s sweat and blood. We know their executives’ pay. We know how vital they are to Wars that invade our lives. We know what we can do. We can leave these institutions behind—divest from them NOW—for a future free to our cooperation and genius.
We billions who work our Earth’s resources are the real power. We are ingenious. We are compassionate. Let us see what we can do!
The United Auto Workers’ Executive Board.
Amazon workers’ U.S. and International
RELATED ARTICLES
1. The Run on " 'CHASE' ": Customers Abandon a Bank that Abuses its Public Everywhere
2. Boycotts Win Again!
3. Before the Shots. Israel's Governments Have Attacked Its Citizens since " 'COVID-19' " Was Named
4. The Lahaina Massacre: Of Sirens, Water, Entrapments, and a 'Smart Island’
URLS
1. https://news.littlesis.org/2023/10/26/corporate-enablers-of-israels-war-on-gaza/
2. https://donpaul.substack.com/p/boycotts-win-again-eyes-on-the-ties
3. https://donpaul.substack.com/p/the-ai-war-on-family-homes-in-the
4. https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2024/
5. https://donpaul.substack.com/p/wef-strategic-partners-land-grab
6, https://donpaul.substack.com/p/boycotts-win-again-eyes-on-the-ties
7..https://www.mypacertimes.com/home/2023/11/3/why-are-people-calling-for-a-boycott-on-starbucks
8.
11, LittleSis.
12, Amazon workers’ U.S. and International