Until now, twenty-first-century US presidential administrations have been crawling with former Goldman Sachs executives. But now a new day is dawning! Joe Biden has banished them and replaced them with cabinet picks linked to the asset management juggernaut BlackRock. Something has fundamentally changed.

In all seriousness, while installing finance executives in key cabinet positions is nothing new, the prominence of BlackRock compared to older, more established financial institutions, is a sign of the times. The company, founded in 1988 by Larry Fink, who had previously pioneered toxic mortgage-backed securities of the type that sank the economy twenty years later, is situated on a financial frontier.

BlackRock is the largest asset management company in the world, with nearly $8 trillion worth of assets under its control. It owns a stake of 5 percent or more in nearly 98 percent of firms in the S&P 500 index, including Apple, Microsoft, J. P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo — the list goes on. Owning 5 percent of a company’s shares is enough to give any shareholder major influence.