How BlackRock Ended Up on Both Sides of the Bailout, Feat. Meltem Demirors

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 806 Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2020

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Senate passed $2T in Stimulus. That includes a one time $1,200 check to impacted individuals and….you guessed it, billions and billions for corporate relief. Included in that are hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate bond buying programs. The Federal Reserve has recruited asset management giant BlackRock to administer three of those programs. Here’s the kicker. As Bloomberg describes it: “under the arrangement [BlackRock] could buy some of its own funds on behalf of the central bank.” Outrage is running rampant, and to help listeners sort through it, @NLW is joined by Meltem Demirors, Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShares. In this conversation, they discuss: The government mechanics behind the “money printer go brrr” meme The unfathomable failure of US intelligence in seeing the pandemic coming The deficit of leadership across the political spectrum What Blackrock means and why “they’re not even pretending anymore” Why Twitter memes on their own can’t change the world Why bitcoin can and should be a gateway and tool for evangelizing more systemic change

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Breakdown, an everyday analysis breaking down the most important stories in Bitcoin, crypto, and beyond, with your host, NLW.
0:15.0	The Breakdown is distributed by CoinDesk.
0:20.7	Welcome back to the breakdown.
0:22.8	It is Thursday, March 26th.
0:24.8	And last night, after a day of debate and consternation and frustration and examination
0:30.8	around the $2 trillion stimulus package, it came out that BlackRock was being recruited
0:36.8	to direct part of the bond buying program.
0:39.6	So here's the quick take from Bloomberg. As part of its whatever it takes effort to reduce
0:44.2	the economic pain from the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Federal Reserve enlisted BlackRock,
0:49.1	Inc. to direct three of its bond buying programs. It's not the first time the government has
0:53.7	partnered with the asset management behemoth, which under the arrangement could buy some of its bond buying programs. It's not the first time the government has partnered with the
0:54.4	asset management behemoth, which under the arrangement could buy some of its own funds on
0:59.4	behalf of the central bank. Now, if this sounds to you to be completely insane, the conflict of interest
1:06.7	to end all conflict of interests, you are not alone. Last night, the CSO of coin shares, Meltem DeMirers, wrote,
1:14.5	they're not even pretending anymore.
1:17.5	They are paying BlackRock to bail out BlackRock,
1:20.9	and they are patting themselves on the back.
1:23.5	But hold on, it's going to take us at least four months to print your check and send you your
1:27.8	check. Now, there's an interesting phenomenon in daily podcasting during the coronavirus where at
1:33.5	least once a week you have to have a conversation that's less normal interview and more drink
1:38.2	wine and be angry. And so I pinged Melton right after this comment and she was in the same mood
1:43.1	and so we got on a
	...

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