Given the disgraceful Sun front page and middle spread urging war on Syria, and the all-out propaganda on Sky News, it is important to understand why Murdoch is pushing so hard for war. I therefore reproduce my article from February 2013. It is important to note that the links are to industry publications: this is very genuine, hard information.
Israel Grants Oil Rights in Syria to Murdoch and Rothschild
Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy. Major shareholders of Genie Energy – which also has interests in shale gas in the United States and shale oil in Israel – include Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild. This from a 2010 Genie Energy press release
Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented, “Genie’s success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets. Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable.”
“I am grateful to Howard Jonas and IDT for the opportunity to invest in this important initiative,” Lord Rothschild said. “Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary achievements speak for themselves and we are very pleased he has agreed to be our partner. Genie Energy is making good technological progress to tap the world’s substantial oil shale deposits which could transform the future prospects of Israel, the Middle East and our allies around the world.”
For Israel to seek to exploit mineral reserves in the occupied Golan Heights is plainly illegal in international law. Japan was succesfully sued by Singapore before the International Court of Justice for exploitation of Singapore’s oil resources during the second world war. The argument has been made in international law that an occupying power is entitled to opeate oil wells which were previously functioning and operated by the sovereign power, in whose position the occupying power now stands. But there is absolutely no disagreement in the authorities and case law that the drilling of new wells – let alone fracking – by an occupying power is illegal.
Israel tried to make the same move twenty years ago but was forced to back down after a strong reaction from the Syrian government, which gained diplomatic support from the United States. Israel is now seeking to take advantage of the weakened Syrian state; this move perhaps casts a new light on recent Israeli bombings in Syria.
In a rational world, the involvement of Rothschild and Murdoch in this international criminal activity would show them not to be fit and proper persons to hold major commercial interests elsewhere, and action would be taken. Naturally, nothing of the kind will happen.
Jkick (11.21am, 8 sept) – sorry I’ve only just seen your reply to my message.
1. The Vanguard Group doesn’t actually own any shares – they’re owned by the mutual funds which Vanguard manages on behalf of customers. For example, in the case of JP Morgan, look at the next table down on the Yahoo page (“Top Mutual Fund Holders”) and you’ll see how much each fund owns — Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (1.77% of all JP Morgan shares), Vanguard 500 Index Fund (1.13%), Vanguard Institutional Index Fund-Institutional Index Fund (1.06%) etc.
A fund which owns only 1.77% of a company’s shares probably can’t exercise much influence over that company.
2. When you say “In fact its Vanguards second largest holding. 8th on th list is Goldman Sachs:” – you’re referring to only one of Vanguard’s 240 funds – “Vanguard Financials ETF” (see the name at the top of the page you linked to).
(This fund isn’t one of the 10 “Top Mutual Fund Holders” listed on the Yahoo page so its holding of JP Morgan shares must be less than 0.57% of all JP Morgan shares).
I don’t disagree with you that some of the companies which Vanguard funds have invested in are horrendous. But, when compared with the real movers and shakers in US and global finance/economics/politics (such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan), Vanguard really is relatively clean. Life is short – save your energy for use against the really bad guys.
Jkick (cont’d) – All the Vanguard funds together control 5.7% of JP Morgan’s shares, but even this probably doesn’t give it much influence over the company.
Andrew 10 Sep, 2015 – 10:12 pm
Appologies not needed. I am grateful for your input, it helps further my knowledge and understanding of cartels and monopolies.
Rather like cricket, if you don’t know the rules you find the game a little hard to follow.
For example, Ive found there are rules from regulatory bodies to stop cartels operating. However,as you point out, Vanguard inc gets round these rules by having many different named funds investing in companies, as opposed to a singular one.
Again, as you point out, the shareowners own a company.
However, when read into further, while folk who invest in Vanguard inc can have a say in Vanguard matters, they cannot have a say on the running of companies Vanguard invest in. That privalege, I assume, goes down to the board members of Vanguard Inc, or maybe, unofficially, the big players behind Vanguard inc.
Regarding JP Morgan, they are among the biggest banks: Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.
It would appear the top ten institutional and/or stock shareholders of the banks are of the same:
State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, FMR (Fidelity), Paulson, JP Morgan, T. Rowe, Capital World Investors, AXA, Bank of NY, Mellon.
Check for yourself.
For example:
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) -NYSE Watchlist
Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 211,430,731 $14,326,546,755
State Street Corporation 156,245,914 $10,587,223,445
FMR, LLC 133,191,434 $9,025,051,834
Capital World Investors 104,660,753 $7,091,812,832
BlackRock Trust Company, N.A. 98,186,458 $6,653,114,590
Wellington Company, LLP 66,514,085 $4,506,994,532
Price (T.Rowe) Associates Inc 61,226,069 $4,148,678,557
Massachusetts Financial Co. 59,829,842 $4,054,070,213
Northern Trust Corporation 55,294,295 $3,746,741,539
Bank of New York Mellon Corporation 48,807,664 $3,307,207,410
% 5.70 4.21 3.59 2.82 2.65 1.79 1.65 1.61 1.49 1.32 = 26.83%
These ten institutional and/or stock shareholders are the nucleus of the four companies that are present in all cases: Vanguard, Fidelity, BlackRock and State Street.
Check out carefully the balance of shares, it turns out that in reality all these companies are controlled by Vanguard inc.
All of these partners or “competitors” Fidelity, BlackRock and State Street belong to Vanguard Group. This now gives it 26.83% control over JP Morgan’s shares, which probrably would give it some influence over the company.
For example,influencing which company / institution JP Morgan gives funding to and which company /institution not to give funding to.
This in turn would give it some leverage on other companies it owns shares in, if they wanted funding to expand that company say.
You talk of bad guys, here’s another example of Vanguard influence.
Monsanto
The official owners of Monsanto are: William U. Parfet, owning, 284,642 shares of the company, Hugh Grant – 253715, Robert T. Fraley- 95212, Brett D. Begemann – 103523 and David F. Snively to 62072 shares. Total all individuals – the owners of the corporation Monsanto have 799,164 shares.
However, the first in the list of institutional shareholders is Vanguard Group, Inc. with 31201773 shares, that is around 39 or more times greater than the leading “owners” of the company in total.
Again it splits its holdings up among different named funds:
Monsanto – mutual funds: Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund – 8118741, Vanguard / Primecap Fund – 6663460, Vanguard Institutional Index Fund – 5226511 and Vanguard 500 Index Fund – 517 086.
Fidelity again has interests ,(Fidelity Grows Company Fund with 4072871 shares), working closely with Vanguard inc.
As mentioned in a earlier post, there are many influencial Governmental personal with interests in VanGuard inc, therefore it’s not behond the imagination to assume companies like Monsanto getting benficial help through Governmental legislation, agencies (e.g EPA, FDA), media outlets and scientific establishments in maintaining profit.
Maintaining profit at the expense of free enterprise. However, that’s another debate.