During the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Special Meeting on Global Collaboration, Growth and Energy Development that took place from April 27 to 29 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he spoke before a panel on "Investing Amid Global Fracture" and pointed out how depopulated nations would have a better chance for preparing for issues that could arise from artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to boost productivity and elevate their living standards.
"I can argue in the developed countries the big winners are countries that have shrinking populations," said Fink. "We always used to think the shrinking population is a cause for negative growth, but in my conversations with the leadership of these large, developed countries that have xenophobic immigration policies, they don’t allow anybody to come in, shrinking demographics – these countries will rapidly develop robotics and AI and technology.
He also predicted that the paradigm of negative population growth is going to be changing and added: "And if the promise, and it's going to happen, if the promise of all of that transforms productivity, which most of us think it will, we’ll be able to elevate the standard of living of countries, the standard of living of individuals, even with shrinking populations."
The world's largest investment manager, with $10 trillion of world assets under its wing, also said that there is a great divide between the "middle-class developing countries that have a foundation and education" and developing countries with booming populations but little education would be evident. For growing populations in the developing world, particularly in Africa, education will be key, according to the BlackRock CEO.
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"For those countries that have rising populations, the answer will be education – for those countries that do not have a foundation of rule of law or education, that's where the divide's going to get more and more extreme," he added.
To some critics, the messages conveyed by WEF are contradicting. In InfoWars' Alex Jones show, he pointed out how Fink's speech on automation, AI and better quality of life collides with WEF's Great Reset agenda where: "you would own nothing and you be happy."
"You would live in a 200-square-foot apartment eating bug protein," Jones argued. "Fink's lying to you. He's got 15 private jets and giant palaces everywhere. But you can’t have anything. Incredible."
VIDEO: Larry Fink Suggests Substituting Humans For Machines At WEF Summit pic.twitter.com/mDITdnmdlC
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) May 2, 2024
Fink, expressing his controversial statements, costs his company quite a handful. Last year, BlackRock increased spending for his private security more than threefold after he received criticisms for his commitment to investing in companies that promote controversial environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies. (Related: BlackRock’s Larry Fink defends ESG standards for corporate America, stresses the need to "force behaviors" in 2017 video.)
Blackrock filed a proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April, showing it spent $563,513 to "upgrade the home security systems" at the mogul's residences last year. The company also spent $216,837 on bodyguards to protect him as reported by Financial Times.
Meanwhile, there have been state investment funds that have been pulled out from the company due to his controversial policies. These included around $13.3 billion in assets in protest of its funding companies to focus on ESG. The Texas Permanent School Fund was the latest to pull money out of BlackRock, saying that it would remove $8.5 billion from the company, the largest removal to date by a Republican-led pension fund. West Virginia, Florida, Missouri and other GOP-led states have also joined the backlash against the firm.
Amid the backlash, Fink lashed out at his political critics claiming that they "continuously lie." "We have done a better job now of telling our story so that people can make decisions based on facts, not on lies and not on misinformation or politicization by others," Fink said during a first-quarter earnings call. "Unfortunately, there are still others out there ... who continuously lie about these issues."
Without dropping names of U.S. politicians, he somewhat indirectly referred to continued attacks from politicians on the Republican side of the aisle both in Washington and in conservative states like Texas. Republicans have continued to try and make Fink and his firm into the preeminent example of what they charge is "woke investing" as the 2024 election season continues to heat up.
He claimed the attacks aren't working, citing an increase in U.S. investments in his company. He reported that there has been $1.9 trillion in total net inflows from U.S. investors into BlackRock over the last five years and nearly $300 billion in new U.S. investor money that appeared on the company's books just in the last year. "I do believe that with the vast majority of our clients, our long-term fiduciary approach and performance are resonating," Fink further stated.
Head over to Globalism.news for more news on how globalists are moving to promote wokeness, automation and depopulation.
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