#assetmanagers

Why is everything so expensive now? What price life? Why are we getting poorer? First and foremost, the entire economy is set up to greatly favour owners over all other parts. Investors are owners, of course, and the company executives operate on their behalf. Shareholders are king and everyone else runs a poor second. Thus, profitability is always the prime consideration and profits have to constantly increase to satisfy the shareholders. Plus, executives manipulate the stock price through buybacks to enrich themselves wildly. This is where we get all the billionaires from. Elon Musk is a prominent illustration of this, the richest man in the world.

“The tech tycoon is believed to have added more than $US54 billion ($83.5 billion) to his net worth since the November 5 election, according to estimates from Forbes magazine.

The wealth injection came largely from a surge in the stock price of his companies Tesla and SpaceX after the re-election of Donald Trump.”

- (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-17/how-elon-musk-got-even-richer-after-donald-trump-election-win/104609228)

WTF? Why Are We Struggling To Make Ends Meet?

What price life? Why is everything so expensive? Formerly public infrastructure is now in the hands of private equity and under asset management. This means things like parking, road tolls, bridges, hospitals, telecommunication infrastructure, digital networks, airlines, banks, insurance companies, energy utilities, and other modern day essentials are privately owned. Their masters seek high returns for their investors. These things are priced to maximise profitability at our expense. Consumers and workers do not rate highly on their list of priorities anymore. Things are no longer priced fairly. The neoliberal promises of greater efficiencies leading to cheaper prices have been a lie. Privatization has not led to better services at fairer prices. No, it has enriched a few at the expense of the many. There is now some US$130 trillion under asset management. This is greater than global GDP.

Why We Are Poorer

- Investors rule the economy. - Privatization has robbed the many for the few. - The financialization of everything. - Rich companies & people don’t pay their fair share of tax. - Governments are controlled by the wealthy. - Democracy no longer works effectively. - American capitalism had been manipulated via lack of competition. - Big Tech is bleeding the system dry. The Financialization Of Everything

Why are we getting poorer? Wall St has turned every aspect of modern life into a financial product to be traded and bet upon. Housing or shelter is a basic requirement of life. Many people lack a roof over their heads because the cost of residential property has been driven up by investors. There are housing shortages everywhere and yet governments and the private sector cannot or will not build more stock. Asset managers in America are enjoying high returns from residential housing. Zombie neoliberalism has prevented governments from actually getting their hands dirty and they rely on private companies to do the actual heavy lifting. Profitability determines the speed and level of investment in this regard. You can see, once again, why everything is so expensive. Market forces do not do it better, rather they look after the players in the market.

The Rich Will Not Pay Their Fair Share Of Tax

“The Republican Party in the United States has led the way when it comes to drastically lowering the tax rates on the richest Americans. It has come down from some 90% after WW2 to be around the 30 to 40% rate in the current era. Thus, the National Debt of $36 trillion has to be directly impacted by falling tax revenues over decades contributing to the need to borrow to fund government. 36 trillion reasons to despise the GOP and its fundamental role in the economic debt crisis of the US. How can any American justify this huge decrease in taxing the rich at the expense of the country? Republicans have simultaneously been in the vanguard of consistently increasing defence spending over these same decades.”

- (https://www.midasword.com.au/36-trillion-reasons-to-despise-the-gop/)

Conservative political parties and governments have followed this lead over the decades. Promising tax cuts has always been a vote winner for wealthy and aspirational voters everywhere. More socialist leaning parties have been forced to follow suit to compete. Progressive taxation involves getting those that can more afford to pay more tax at a higher rate doing so. It was par for the course in most developed nations until the US started slashing top tax rates for wealthy donors. It is now reached absurd levels under Trump 2.0. They are cutting government welfare services to the poor to try and fit in their tax cuts for billionaires.

“Corporates not paying their fair share of tax is a real problem downunder, with a third of companies here paying no tax. Rich people and companies shifting profits to tax free shelters and hiding assets in family trusts are robbing the nation of tens of billions of dollars every year. Superannuation, which was an ALP designed scheme to provide retirement income for Australian workers, has been distorted by former Lib PM John Howard to become a bolthole for the wealthy to hide their money from the tax office. No limits were ever set on how much money you could stash in your super and there are some with hundreds of millions. It is highly suspicious that the boffins and politicians dealing with superannuation laws would not have known what setting no limits would produce. This is macro corruption.”

- (https://www.midasword.com.au/we-have-always-looked-to-america/) $$$$$ Speak Louder Than Your Vote

Most people know that governments listen more keenly to their wealthy donors than ordinary voters. Lobbyists frequent all levels of government across the globe. Big companies pay lobbyists to buy them government favours. Yes, this is legalised corruption at work. Why are we getting poorer? Money talks and the decisions made do not necessarily do us any favours, quite the reverse.

Reduced Competition Kills Real Free Market Capitalism

Why are we getting poorer? Have you noticed how many takeovers and mergers have occurred in just about every sector over the last 40 years? Competition has been drastically reduced via these concentrations of ownership in the markets. Duopolies and oligopolies mean too little competition. Capitalism does not work effectively without competition in the free market. Consumers and workers get shafted when bosses and owners control everything. Companies can set the prices, thus robbing consumers of their power. Workers have less choice about who they can work for so wages stagnate through lack of growth in relation to the cost of things.

Big Tech Oligarchy Bleeding Us Dry

The Big Tech oligarchies are an example of this. Every time Meta buys up its competitors, like Instagram, it gains greater market concentration. Google is the same. Amazon and Microsoft likewise. These behemoths are worth trillions of dollars.

“As of October 2025 Alphabet (Google) has a market cap of A$4.551 Trillion.”

- (https://companiesmarketcap.com/aud/alphabet-google/marketcap/#google_vignette)

It is hard to grasp the size of these corporate giants. There has never been anything like it. They tower over most national governments in wealth and power. Unfortunately for you and me this does not make them more generous. No, the executives who run them feel under pressure to increase profitability and dividends. It is a vicious circle spiralling toward our increasing poverty. It is killing the middle class. This rentier economy is draining our pockets and bank accounts. Big Tech imposes a subscription fee on everything. The digitalization of the economy means that you have to play their way and pay for the privilege. Now, of course AI is coming for our jobs!

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Right wing political parties have been gutting the welfare state. The middle class was created via the welfare state. Think of this next time you cast your vote.

RSH

Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of What Price Life?; The Stoic Golfer; Money Matters; and America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.

We live in a world where toll roads and paid parking make living and working expensive. You may not be aware that much of this public infrastructure is in private hands and under the aegis of asset managers. Asset managers now worth $100 trillion at last reckoning. They own airports, bridges, toll roads, stadiums, ports, parking stations, wastewater treatment plants, digital network infrastructure, hospitals, renewable energy sources, telecommunication infrastructure, gas distribution, and residential housing to name just a smattering of their vast holdings. The neoliberal privatisation of previously publicly owned assets and utilities has resulted in this goldmine for investors. It has been a huge global transfer from the many to the wealthy few.

“Total discretionary assets under management (AUM) of the 500 managers included in the ranking amounted to USD 113.7 trillion at the end of 2022, down by 13.7% from the end of 2021.”

- (https://www.thinkingaheadinstitute.org/content/uploads/2023/10/PI-500-2023-1.pdf)

Asset Managers For The Wealthy Holding Vast Global Worth

A lot of this stuff used to be owned by us, tax payers and citizens, held in trust for us by our elected governments. Not anymore folks! Now, they are the investments of a few of us and managed by this relatively new class of financial wizards. Asset managers now hold greater value that the entire GDP of the world. Asset managers now worth $100 trillion. We were told at the time, when those on the Right were finagling the sale of these public treasures, that they had been mismanaged by the state and that they would do it so much better for our benefit. This was a lie. They promised cheaper electricity, more economical banking, travel, insurance, healthcare, education, and everything else. They have not delivered on a single promise.

“But it’s not just financial instruments like stocks and bonds that asset managers hold. They are increasingly the direct owners of the “real” assets that shape our livelihoods. From housing to hospitals and water networks to wind farms, asset management firms with names like Blackstone, Brookfield and Macquarie are gobbling up the basic stuff we all depend on to exist. And with their goal of extracting big profits as ruthlessly and quickly as possible, this new “asset manager society” does not bode well for humanity.”

- (https://truthout.org/articles/asset-management-firms-are-gaining-power-over-housing-hospitals-water-and-more/)

Why Airports & Parking Are So Expensive Now?

Many of us are not parking at the airport, when dropping off or picking up friends and relatives, because it is too ridiculously expensive to do so. Some of us are avoiding toll roads, as we go about our business, because they add too much onto our weekly expenses. Driving, parking and such like are the normal tasks of our lives. What kind of world have we allowed these money men and women to foist upon us? Where a few of us grow rich from controlling necessary infrastructure and utilities whilst the majority of us pay through the nose for everything. They told us that turning these public utilities into a profit making business would do us all a favour. It has not. Actually it has cost us jobs and employment as well. So, the service is now more expensive with less of us working in these places and the efficiencies have been turned into greater profits and dividends for CEOs and shareholders. The executives and boards running these private entities are laser focused on investor returns and their own aggrandisement. Consumers and workers are way down the list of priority concerns for these companies. If you don’t believe me look at the evidence. Check out the facts and figures. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has an astronomically high share price. $168 at the time of writing this.

“The Commonwealth Bank's cash profit rose 4 per cent to a record $10.25 billion for the 2025 financial year.”

- (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-13/commonwealth-bank-posts-bumper-profit-cba-shares-fall/105646460

“CBA earnings: The only thing that puzzles us is the share price”

- https://www.morningstar.com.au/stocks/cba-earnings-only-thing-that-puzzles-us-is-share-price) Prosecuted Transgressions Of CBA

“An agreement has been reached today between AUSTRAC and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) for a $700 million penalty to resolve Federal Court proceedings relating to serious breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws.”

- (https://www.austrac.gov.au/news-and-media/media-release/austrac-and-cba-agree-700m-penalty)

“The Fair Work Ombudsman has secured a record $10.34 million in penalties against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and its subsidiary CommSec in response to the companies underpaying employees more than $16 million.”

- (https://www.fairwork.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/2024-media-releases/february-2024/20240215-cba-penalty-media-release)

“The Federal Court of Australia has ordered the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) to pay a $7 million penalty after the Court had previously declared that CBA made false or misleading representations and engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct (21-025MR). These declarations related to 12,119 occasions when CBA charged a rate of interest on business overdraft accounts substantially higher than what its customers had been advised.”

- (https://www.asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/2021-releases/21-065mr-cba-to-pay-7-million-court-penalty-for-overcharged-interest-royal-commission-case-study/) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHM0nXLNNI8

Why would a wildly successful bank engage in these kinds of practices? And these are only the most recent prosecutions that we know about. Underpaying employees, misleading customers about interest rates, and not obeying laws designed to prevent money laundering by criminals. Banks have automated their services and closed branches across the country, especially in regional areas. Thousands of jobs have been lost and physical services truncated. Banks are no longer in the securing money and assets business but are in the convenience business of facilitating deals and transfers of digital currency. They make their money by taking cuts via interest, fees and charges. The rentier economy!

Asset Managers Rule The World

In 2025, even banks are towered over by asset managers in terms of their total value of assets being managed. Asset managers now worth $100 trillion. We live in an era of asset appreciation, where the name of the game is not about building and manufacturing new assets but in garnering and increasing the worth of existing assets. The residential property market in Australia is an illustrative example of this.

“Over the past 30 years, Australian property has consistently increased in value. According to data, house prices have risen at an average annual rate of 6.4%. This steady growth is reflected in the national median house value, which has risen by 540.1% over the past 42 years. This equates to an average annual growth rate of 7.62%. For example, a property purchased in 1991 for the median price of $122,870 was worth over $795,208 in 2021. This increase shows how property values in Australia have more than six times their original value over this period.”

- (ARE Property Team, 2025)

Asset manager do not want housing crises to end, as they enjoy great returns on these assets around the world. You may have noticed that there are housing crises everywhere. The shortage of housing stock has driven up the value of these assets in the US, Canada, Europe, UK and Australia.

Asset Appreciation & The 1%

Quite simply, the almost universal belief that everything has to make money and be run profitably, above all else, has created the mess that many of us find ourselves in. It has been driven by the desire of some to profit at the expense of others. The fact is that the great majority of us are not shareholders. Yes, there are many that are via their superannuation and pension funds but, of course, they cannot access this relative wealth until they are of retirement age. In the meantime, life has become unnecessarily more expensive due to the financialization of everything. The takeover of infrastructure and public utilities by private companies has meant that daily necessities are profit driven rather than run for the benefit of the citizenry. They are now run for the benefit of a select few. Asset managers now worth $100 trillion.

Think about the price of parking at airports! The price of toll roads! These are not set at the optimum fair level, they are extractive! Designed to deliver maximum profits to shareholders. These rates do not serve the community as a whole, but a select few investors. How is that good governance!

Governments have abdicated their direct responsibilities in this regard. Thus, we get the absurd example of governments creating future funds, which are managed by these asset managers in private entities. Instead of directly buying and building the desperately needed homes they do it arm’s length from all these private players. The zombie neoliberal beliefs driving this stupidity remain entrenched among the power brokers. All these layers of private interest lack transparency. Representative democracy is beholden to moneyed interests rather than the voters who elected them. All the talk of democracy is a smoke screen when in reality we get financial deals done which do not favour the majority of citizens but rather a small coterie of wealthy individuals and corporations.

“Australia’s current median multiple according to the recently released report is 9.7x, a figure that has more than tripled since the late 1980s. Housing in Australia is now twice as expensive as the US, and still significantly above the UK’s median multiple of 5.6x. In short, Australians are paying more, borrowing more and sacrificing more to access home ownership than ever before.”

- (https://www.apimagazine.com.au/news/article/worsening-global-housing-affordability-crisis-presents-major-risks-to-australians) Life Is Not Primarily About Making Money

The primary focus upon making money is killing our sense of community. Governments should not be about profitability! That is not their job. The neoliberal distortion of this has put us in a precarious position. Housing should not be about making money! Health should not be about profitability! There are sectors, which should be controlled against the desire and greed of a few to profit at the expense of the many. Having a roof over your head, shelter, must be an exploitation by profiteers no go zone. Having enough to eat of good healthy food should likewise be excluded from the privateers and their asset managers. Public utilities like energy are much better served by government control and ownership. Efficiencies can be created without garnishing the bank accounts of the super wealthy. The transition to renewable energy is suffering because of the influence of profiteers – the market is not doing a great job of getting this done at the best price for ordinary citizens. The market has not facilitated the housing of the people as required, but rather ramped up prices via stock shortages, which benefits the asset managers and their clients. The market is not getting the job done, it is unfairly enriching the wealthy at our expense. Everything is much more expensive than it was before the neoliberal take over of governments. Wages, at the same time, have stagnated relatively, whilst the 1% have been engorged via asset appreciation value. There are more billionaires than ever before and this indicates that our wealth has been sucked into the hands of a few. Meanwhile, few of us can afford to buy a home or even afford our rents. WTF are we going to do about it!

Wake Up Folks! They Are Stealing Your Future

If we do not make the cessation of this a priority, we are all f*****! Professional politicians are in the pay of private interests. Their political parties and personal ambitions are enriched by the wealthy and the powerful. Have you ever asked yourself why multinational corporations, miners and the gas companies pay so little tax whilst generating huge returns on their operations downunder and elsewhere? How can this state of affairs be serving us, the citizenry? It is only benefiting the few who are investors in these companies. The jobs generated by these projects do not amount enough in volume to justify the financials. It is a scam! It is macro-corruption. Dirty deals done on very large amounts of money. We the little people are left in the dark as to WTF is going on. Things on this score are not getting better, they are, in fact, getting worse. Asset managers now worth $100 trillion.

“The thing about rich people is that they don’t get more chilled out the richer they become. No, in the main, the more money they get the more protective they get about it. Eventually, when they have plenty they employ professionals to manage it. In Australia, some 93 individuals who earned more than a million dollars in the 2022/23 financial year paid no tax. They managed to do this by spending many thousands of dollars on tax accountants to ensure they paid no tax. They would rather do this than pay their fair share of tax to the ATO and the people of Australia. This is reflective of the mindset of many wealthy folk.”

- (https://www.housetherapy.com.au/the-thing-about-rich-people/

Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of The Stoic Golfer; Money Matters and America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.

©HouseTherapy

At present, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the game in various industries, and asset management is certainly not left behind. As asset managers aim to incorporate ESG factors into their investment strategies, AI has gained prominence owing to its potential to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of ESG assessments. Through AI tools, asset managers can gain valuable insights into the ESG performance of companies, which helps them make more informed investment choices, facilitate regulatory compliance, and safeguard investments from potential risks.

AI in asset management

Asset managers can use AI for multiple objectives, allowing them to move beyond traditional practices and optimize decision-making.

Portfolio Management: AI algorithms can be used to scan a vast repository of data to inform asset allocation strategies and rebalance portfolios in real time.

Algorithmic Trading: AI-based trading systems can execute trades faster to help maximize short-term market opportunities.

Risk Management: Using AI predictive models, asset managers can identify and manage a diverse range of risks, such as market, credit, and operational.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM): AI-based CRM models can customize client interaction, providing curated recommendations on investments or conducting risk profiling and adjustments based on real-time data, thereby improving overall client satisfaction levels.

Fraud Detection: By analyzing the patterns of transactions, AI can help in the timely detection of fraudulent activities.

ESG Performance Analysis: AI can enhance ESG analysis by assessing a company’s performance based on a set of ESG criteria.

Benefits of AI in ESG Asset Management

The introduction of AI into asset management practices has helped reshape the industry by enhancing the decision-making process and providing valuable insights that help asset managers make data-driven and informed decisions. Additionally, AI’s role in improving risk management helps proactively detect and flag potential risks prior to an escalation, so that asset managers can address these issues preemptively.

By automating routine tasks, AI offers another significant benefit in terms of efficiency gains. The automation of mundane processes allows asset managers to focus on strategic

initiatives, improving productivity and allowing more space for innovation and creativity in asset management. For clients, AI can help asset managers create customized interactions, including tailored advice based on their risk-return profile, previous investment trajectory, and goals.

Growing adoption of AI in ESG assessments

The use of AI in the ESG space has been increasing rapidly. This is witnessed through examples such as its integration into the ESG taxonomy of the Sustainable Development Investment Asset Owner platform, a global standard that aims to help institutional investors measure and align their investments with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UNSDG), bringing together asset owners with a collective Assets Under Management (AUM) of USD 1.5 trillion.

For ESG assessments, AI has played a transformative role in the data collection and analysis process, a constant pain point for ESG analysis. AI’s ability to scan information from various sources, including financial reports, news, and social media, has been used by asset managers to explore investment opportunities. Through automation and streamlining, AI has been able to improve the reliability and availability of data, thereby enhancing ESG screening, trend analysis, and risk assessment.

Another key feature is the increasing use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools. NLP-based techniques can extract a vast pool of information from unstructured texts such as news articles and company reports to support ESG analysis. Moreover, NLP tools can detect the sentiment of texts and hence can flag controversies or negative sentiments, helping asset managers identify ESG controversies and potential risks. Inrate has successfully integrated NLP into its ESG controversy datasets, resulting in a wider database for analysis that covers over 200,000 global news sources.

Machine Learning (ML) has been another key element in improving the predictive capacity of ESG models and assessments. By applying ML algorithms to historical patterns in ESG data, it is possible to predict ESG performance. It can use trends and patterns to help analyze a company’s trajectory based on set criteria such as compliance or performance levels.

Challenges of using AI for ESG

While AI has its benefits, key challenges remain:

The efficacy of AI insights hinges solely on the quality of the data it processes. Incomplete or inaccurate data can lead to skewed ESG assessments, misrepresenting the ESG performance of companies or leading to ill-informed investment decisions. This issue is especially prevalent in emerging markets where a lack of transparency or reporting guidelines can result in data quality issues. This emphasizes the importance of validation of AI-based results by ESG experts to ensure the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the data.

Algorithmic bias poses another challenge. Models trained using unbalanced or biased datasets may reinforce these biases in their results, skewing predictions and assessments. This can mislead investors as the resultant company’s ESG performance gets misrepresented if represented solely based on AI results.

Why Choose Inrate:

1. Impact Lens

2. Flexible Data Models

3. Dedicated Client Support

4. Regulatory Alignments

About Inrate:

Europa all’avanguardia sui fondi Esg. Paradossi e anomalie. Il Vecchio continente si sta dimostrando ancora più determinato di Washington nell’interrompere ogni relazione economico-strategica con la Federazione Russa. Da diverso tempo nella comunità degli investitori globali si assiste a un decoupling, in merito alle tematiche ambientali, sociali e di governance (Esg), tra il sottoinsieme degli asset owners e managers americani e quelli europei. Il primo raggruppamento vede sempre più acuirsi le tensioni al proprio interno, in particolare sotto la spinta dei fondi pensione degli Stati del Midwest e del Sud del Paese, tra i fautori di un abbandono di tali tematiche come criteri guida delle scelte di investimento e i sostenitori, sul fronte opposto, di un approccio ancora più radicale in senso contrario. Al di qua dell’Atlantico, invece, le direttive che vengono impartite ai percettori dei flussi di investimento, in modo uniforme rispetto a tutti i settori industriali e agli investment stages, sono omogenee nell’indicare l’Esg come un elemento indefettibile della strategia oramai lungo qualsiasi orizzonte temporale.