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

As BlackRock gets appointed to oversee bailouts to companies including BlackRock, how do we make an insane moment lead to good?

For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher, RadioPublica, IHeartRadio or RSS.

The U.S. Senate passed $2 trillion 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 U.S. 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

For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher, RadioPublica, IHeartRadio or RSS.