Brett Christophers, 55, has spent years studying the strategies of large corporations. He began by examining big investment banks such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. But he soon noticed those names being pushed aside on the agendas of politicians and influencers by investment firms like BlackRock and Blackstone. It was not sudden: for decades they had quietly gained ground, and now control almost every aspect of a citizen’s daily life — the home they live in, the water they wash with, the road or railway they use to get to work, or the hospital they visit for an emergency. That is what Christophers, an economic geographer at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University (Sweden), has been documenting in multiple studies and, more recently, in books such as Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World and Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?.

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The Strait of Hormuz is far from what it was before Donald Trump blew everything out of the water: a maritime route that, although located in a hotspot region, allowed the free and safe passage of huge volumes of oil and gas from the Middle East. However, something has been moving in recent days, with many more tanker transits than over the previous several months. Some analysts even place crude shipments through the area around the levels seen before last spring and near those recorded during the short-lived ceasefire in June.

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