Are Mutual Funds and ETFs an Anti-Trust Concern?

There’s a growing argument that mutual funds and ETFs might actually discourage free market capitalism. The theory? If an investor owns a biotech fund with shares in multiple competing companies, their interest shifts from favoring individual winners to hoping the entire industry succeeds. That alone might seem harmless—until you look at who holds the real power.

A significant portion of fund assets are managed by a small number of firms: BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. These financial giants not only manage trillions in assets but also vote on corporate issues for the companies their funds hold. A notable example is the SABMiller/AB InBev merger, which involved divesting assets to Molson Coors. Many of the largest shareholders across all three beverage giants were these same financial firms—meaning they had a say in approving a deal that, at face value, benefits everyone except consumers.

The danger here is that less competition often leads to higher prices and lower quality—not the hallmarks of healthy capitalism. Full disclosure: I don’t personally care for Budweiser, and part of me thinks if you’re drinking it, you’re already accepting a subpar product. But that’s beside the point.

Blockchain… But Make It Centralized?

Enter blockchain—hailed as a decentralized, trustless ledger that eliminates the need for centralized oversight. The beauty of it lies in its structure: it’s maintained by its users, for its users, without anyone having the power to unilaterally alter it.

Then Accenture enters the chat.

They recently proposed a new system that allows a central administrator to edit blockchain data. Their goal? Make blockchain more attractive to traditional financial institutions. Their prototype allows records to be amended or deleted—exactly the opposite of what makes blockchain revolutionary.

So, let’s call it what it is: a centralized ledger. And guess what? That’s been around for centuries. It’s called a… ledger. If you want someone to manage and edit your data, you don’t need blockchain. You just need someone like Accenture. Reinventing the ledger and calling it innovation isn’t innovation—it’s branding.

Wells Fargo: When Quotas Replace Common Sense

I hesitated to write about Wells Fargo again. The hearings, the clawbacks, the outrage—it all felt inevitable. But then I read something that tipped me over the edge.

To recap: Wells Fargo employees opened unauthorized accounts for customers to meet unrealistic sales quotas. We’re talking checking accounts, credit cards—the works. Employees say they did it to keep their jobs. The bank claims it didn’t condone the behavior, yet it continued to enforce the same quotas and targets. No one truly benefited—certainly not customers, and probably not the bank.

But the real kicker? In Wells Fargo’s 2010 annual report, then-CEO John Stumpf addressed the infamous quota of eight accounts per customer. When asked why eight, his response was: “It rhymed with great.” He even added, “Perhaps our new cheer should be: ‘Let’s go again, for ten!’”

This wasn’t a motivational poster in a breakroom. This was in the annual report—a document for shareholders, analysts, and regulators. If that’s the depth of thought behind a major sales strategy, it’s no wonder the entire system collapsed under its own stupidity.

At a Senate hearing, Stumpf was urged to resign for his “gutless leadership.” But honestly? That rhyme alone should’ve been enough.

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