Meet Mr. Global's Bagmen

Remember, if you can identify their names, they are merely orderlies and not in charge

A few days ago, while preparing a larger piece, something dawned on me: if the EU Commission has now declared itself ‘sovereign’ (in terms of their abilities to issue bills and bonds), who, exactly, are Brussels’ ‘primary dealers?

EU Commission to Issue ‘Sovereign EU-Bonds and EU-Bills’

Basically, any sovereign issuer of debt requires ‘customers’ that buy said debt obligation in exchange for interest payments. In technical terms, those ‘customers’ are called ‘primary dealers’, and here’s a (Wikipedia) definition:

A primary dealer is a firm that buys government securities [that’s a BS term: it’s gov’t debt] directly from a government, with the intention of reselling them to others, thus acting as a market maker of government securities. The government may regulate the behaviour and number of its primary dealers and impose conditions of entry. Some governments sell their securities only to primary dealers; some sell them to others as well. Governments that use primary dealers include Australia,^[1] Belgium, Brazil,^[2] Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden,^[3] the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The ECB’s Primary Dealers

There is also a listing of the EU’s ‘primary dealers’ available on the internet:

As of 9^th June 2025, the EU primary dealers are (in alphabetical order):

1. Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A. [Italy]

2. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. [Spain]

3. Banco Santander S.A. [Spain]

4. Barclays Bank Ireland Plc [Ireland]

5. BNP Paribas S.A. [France]

6. BofA Securities Europe S.A. [USA]

7. Bred Banque Populaire [France]

8. CaixaBank S.A. [Spain]

9. Cecabank S.A. [Spain]

10. Citibank Europe plc [USA]

11. Commerzbank AG [Germany]

12. Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank S.A. [France]

13. Danske Bank A/S [Denmark]

14. Deutsche Bank AG [Germany]

15. DZ Bank AG Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank [Germany]

16. Erste Group Bank AG [Austria]

17. Eurobank S.A. [Greece]

18. Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE [USA]

19. HSBC Continental Europe S.A. [UK]

20. Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. [Italy]

21. J.P. Morgan SE [USA]

22. KBC Bank N.V. [Netherlands]

23. Landesbank Baden-Württemberg [Germany]

24. Morgan Stanley Europe SE [USA]

25. National Bank of Greece S.A. [Greece]

26. Natixis S.A. [France]

27. Natwest Markets N.V. [UK/Scotland]

28. Nomura Financial Products Europe GmbH [Japan]

29. Nordea Bank Abp [Finland]

30. Piraeus Bank S.A. [Greece]

31. Raiffeisen Bank International AG [Austria]

32. Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets (Europe) GmbH

33. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB) [Sweden]

34. Societe Generale S.A. [France]

35. TD Global Finance Unlimited Company [Canada]

36. UBS Europe SE [Switzerland]

37. UniCredit SpA [Italy]

Now, that’s a quite impressive, if borderline obfuscatory listing—as the listing is alphabetically. I’ve added the nominal countries of origin of these institutions.

What, though, happens if we rank-order these financial institutions by, say, market capitalisation? Before we do so, let’s quickly define that term, too (Wikipedia):

Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders.^[2]

Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by the number of common shares outstanding.^[2][3][4]

Market capitalization is sometimes used to rank the size of companies.

For transparency’s sake, I’ve kept the original links and references—and if we use market capitalisation to rank-order the ECB’s above-listed ‘primary dealers’, we’ll get the following results:

Note that I’ve prompted Grok to do so; this is a screenshot of my query.

Please take a moment to reflect on the first six listed institutions: JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and Morgan Stanley are, arguably, the biggest of the too big to fail crowd.

Their relative size and importance literally dwarfs that of the other 31 ‘primary dealers’ on that above list: Deutsche Bank’s (ranked no. 8) market cap is given as US$ 80b, which is a measly 13-14% of JP Morgan Chase’s US$ 600b; ranks 9 (Banco Santander) and 10 (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) are listed at US$ 75b and 70b market cap, with the 11th-ranked Societe General (US$ 50b) coming in at less than ten per cent of JP Morgan Chase. Needless to say, all the other listed banks are much, much smaller; the market cap of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (some US$ 5b), Eurobank (US$ 4b), and Piraeus Bank (US$ 3.5b), for instance, are much less than one per cent of JP Morgan Chase’s market cap.

The NY Federal Reserve’s Primary Dealers

One of the core features to note are some US specifics (via the same ‘primary dealers’ entry on Wikipedia cited above):

In the United States, a primary dealer is a bank or securities broker-dealer that is permitted to trade directly with the Federal Reserve System ("the Fed").^[8] Such firms are required to make bids or offers when the Fed conducts open market operations, provide information to the Fed's open market trading desk, and to participate actively in U.S. Treasury securities auctions^[9]…

The primary dealers form a worldwide network that distributes new U.S. government debt. For example, Daiwa Securities and Mizuho Securities distribute the debt to Japanese buyers. BNP Paribas, Barclays, Deutsche Bank and NatWest Group distribute the debt to European buyers. Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup account for many American buyers. Nevertheless, most of these firms compete internationally and in all major financial centers.

The main take-away here is—the below list of ‘primary dealers’ of the NY Fed, similarly listed alphabetically:

1. ASL Capital Markets Inc.

2. Bank of Montreal, Chicago Branch

3. Bank of Nova Scotia, New York Agency

4. BNP Paribas Securities Corp.

5. Barclays Capital Inc.

6. BofA Securities, Inc.

7. Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.

8. Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

9. Daiwa Capital Markets America Inc.

10. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.

11. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC

12. HSBC Securities (USA) Inc.

13. Jefferies LLC

14. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC

15. Mizuho Securities USA LLC

16. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

17. NatWest Markets Securities Inc.

18. Nomura Securities International, Inc.

19. RBC Capital Markets, LLC

20. Santander US Capital Markets LLC

21. SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc.

22. Societe Generale, New York Branch

23. TD Securities (USA) LLC

24. UBS Securities LLC.

25. Wells Fargo Securities, LLC

We note, on the face of it, the comparatively large overlap of the same institutions with the list of the ECB’s primary dealers given above (by simply looking at the names of these institutions).

If we now perform the same rank-ordering (according to market capitalisation), this is the result we get:

Note that I’ve prompted Grok to do so; this is a screenshot of my query.

What do you note?

Isn’t it amazing (/surprise) that if one rank-orders the NY Fed’s ‘primary dealers’ by market cap—that the first six spots are identical to the ECB’s ‘primary dealers’.

As with the above-related EBC ‘primary dealers’, the NY Fed’s top-listed ‘too big to fail’ institutions are similarly exceeding the market capitalisation of the many of the banks on the lower rungs by more than an order of magnitude.

Mr. Global’s Bagmen

Here’s bunch of considerations to ponder:

• Market cap vs. enterprise value (Wikipedia) as a way of rank-ordering these institutions: these are but different ways of estimating the relative size, and if you rank-order the ‘primary dealers’ one or the other way, the resultant listing is virtually identical.

• Methodology and caveats: market cap figures are approximate, based on stock market data from early 2025; EUR-denominated market caps (e.g., for European banks like BNP Paribas) were converted to USD using 1 EUR = 1.05 USD; Several institutions (e.g., JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC) overlap with the EU’s primary dealer list, but the NY Fed list includes more U.S.-centric firms (e.g., Wells Fargo) and Canadian banks (e.g., RBC, BMO), reflecting regional priorities

In terms of ‘additional notes’ provided by my Grok prompts, here goes:

• Top Tier: J.P. Morgan and Bank of America dominate due to their massive U.S. operations and global reach. Goldman Sachs and HSBC follow, with strong investment banking and international presence.

• Mid-Tier: European banks like BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, and Santander rank lower than U.S. giants, reflecting smaller market caps or regional focus.

• Lower Tier: Japanese (Nomura, Mizuho, Daiwa) and smaller U.S. firms (Jefferies, Cantor Fitzgerald) have modest market caps, as they focus on niche markets or have limited global scale.

Basically, what this means is—both the NY Fed and the ECB are relying on the very same ‘primary dealers’. If one were to check the ‘primary dealers’ of that third major centre of Western capital, the Bank of Japan, relies on, one would essentially the same top three spots (my Grok query)—JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and HSBC—are found.

As to the overlap between these three sets of ‘primary dealers’, here’s what we find:

Note that these top ten positions all have market caps exceeding US$ 100b.

Do subtract nos. 5 (Wells Fargo), 7 (Mitsubishi), and 9 (Citigroup) because they do not appear on all three sets of ‘primary dealers’.

Still, here are some key observations (courtesy of Grok):

• Top Tier: Global U.S. and UK banks (JPMorgan, Bank of America, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Morgan Stanley) dominate due to their massive market caps and presence across all three markets. Mitsubishi UFJ, a Japanese giant, ranks high but is JGB-only.

• Mid-Tier: European banks (BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Santander, Société Générale) and Japanese banks (Sumitomo Mitsui, Mizuho) have significant but lower market caps, reflecting regional or market-specific focus.

• Lower Tier: Smaller European (e.g., Monte dei Paschi, Eurobank), Japanese (e.g., Tokai Tokyo, Okasan), and niche U.S. firms (e.g., Cantor Fitzgerald, Jefferies) have modest market caps. Non-public entities (ASL, Cecabank, Shinkin) are unranked by market cap.

• Regional Patterns: ECB includes Southern European banks (e.g., BBVA, Intesa Sanpaolo), NY Fed features North American banks (e.g., Wells Fargo, RBC), and JGB emphasizes Japanese firms (e.g., Nomura, Daiwa).

Once one does that, we now have a rank-ordered list of the current (as of 2023/25) ‘too big to fail’ financial institutions that functions as the bag men of the Collective West invisible powers-that-be.

Remember that since we know these names, they’re not the ones in charge; these are the institutions used by someone else to keep the Collective West going.

Who Owns the Top Tier?

I further prompted Grok to provide detail about the ownership of the top tier US and UK banks (JPMorgan, Bank of America, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Morgan Stanley), and here are the abbreviated results:

• Institutional Dominance: All six banks have high institutional ownership (50–85%), driven by index funds (Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street) due to their inclusion in major indices (S&P 500, FTSE 100).

• Notable Strategic Investors: Berkshire Hathaway (Bank of America), Ping An (HSBC), Qatar Investment Authority (Barclays), and Mitsubishi UFJ (Morgan Stanley) hold significant stakes, reflecting strategic or long-term investments, but none confer control.

• Retail and Insider Ownership: Retail ownership is higher for UK banks (HSBC, Barclays) due to local investor bases. Insider ownership is minimal (<2%) across all, typical for large public companies.

• Global Overlap: These banks’ presence in ECB, NY Fed, and JGB lists underscores their global reach, attracting institutional investors with diversified portfolios

Bottom Lines

There you have it in writing: as in many other cases, institutional investors Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street are the foundation of Mr. Global’s control apparatus.

The financial actors owned by them are Mr. Global’s bagmen.

Would you still wonder about the means of control by Mr. Global?

What, then, are the aims of Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street?