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The Problem of Twelve

When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything

Author John Coates
Read by Sean Patrick Hopkins
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Audio | Random House Audio
On sale Aug 15, 2023 | 4 Hours and 12 Minutes | 9780593796085
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The forces behind an economic crisis in the making

A “problem of twelve” arises when a small number of institutions acquire the means to exert outsized influence over the politics and economy of a nation. The Big Three index funds of Vanguard, State Street, and BlackRock control more than twenty percent of the votes of S&P 500 companies—a concentration of power that’s unprecedented in America.

Then there’s the rise of private equity funds such as the Big Four of Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle and KKR, which has amassed $2.7 trillion of assets, and are eroding the legitimacy and accountability of American capitalism, not by controlling public companies, but by taking them over entirely, and removing them from the government’s regulation.

What can be done to check this level of power? Harvard law professor John Coates argues that only politics can fight the problem of twelve.


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF that contains charts and illustrations from the book.
John Coates is a senior research fellow at the University of Cambridge. He previously worked for Goldman Sachs and ran a trading desk for Deutsche Bank in New York. In 2004 he returned to Cambridge to research the biology of financial risk-taking. His work has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Financial Times, and has been cited in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, New Scientist, Wired and TIME. Coates has appeared on CNN, CNBC, BBC, CBS Evening News and Good Morning America. He was born and raised in Canada and now lives in England with his wife and two sons. View titles by John Coates

About

The forces behind an economic crisis in the making

A “problem of twelve” arises when a small number of institutions acquire the means to exert outsized influence over the politics and economy of a nation. The Big Three index funds of Vanguard, State Street, and BlackRock control more than twenty percent of the votes of S&P 500 companies—a concentration of power that’s unprecedented in America.

Then there’s the rise of private equity funds such as the Big Four of Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle and KKR, which has amassed $2.7 trillion of assets, and are eroding the legitimacy and accountability of American capitalism, not by controlling public companies, but by taking them over entirely, and removing them from the government’s regulation.

What can be done to check this level of power? Harvard law professor John Coates argues that only politics can fight the problem of twelve.


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF that contains charts and illustrations from the book.

Author

John Coates is a senior research fellow at the University of Cambridge. He previously worked for Goldman Sachs and ran a trading desk for Deutsche Bank in New York. In 2004 he returned to Cambridge to research the biology of financial risk-taking. His work has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Financial Times, and has been cited in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, New Scientist, Wired and TIME. Coates has appeared on CNN, CNBC, BBC, CBS Evening News and Good Morning America. He was born and raised in Canada and now lives in England with his wife and two sons. View titles by John Coates

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