Why Corporate-Government Coziness at the G20 Is Bad News for Your Portfolio

The Scene at the G20 Nobody Wanted to Question

Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan. David Solomon from Goldman Sachs. Bill Brown from 3M. David Ricks from Eli Lilly. And a separate gathering featuring Musk, Altman, Zuckerberg, and others huddled with Howard Lutnick in what was billed as an AI informational fireside chat. The headlines treated this like a victory lap for American business.

I treated it like a warning sign.

I was asked about this on one of my regular radio appearances, and I think I caught the host off guard. Because while most commentators were gushing about what great access these executives had, my reaction was the opposite. This kind of public-private partnership at a global level is not a feature of healthy capitalism. It is a threat to it.

Do I Blame the CEOs? No. But That Does Not Make It Good.

Let me be clear about one thing. I do not fault Jamie Dimon for showing up. As the CEO of a publicly traded company, he has a fiduciary duty to his shareholders. If he skipped that summit when invited, he would not be doing his job. That part I get.

But the fact that individual executives are obligated to be there does not mean the system producing that obligation is healthy. These are two very different things, and conflating them is how bad arrangements get normalized.

The Real Problem: Crowding Out Competition

Here is what actually concerns me, and why this matters to everyday investors and business owners.

Growth in a genuine capitalist system comes from:

• Productivity gains built on real innovation
• Ingenuity, meaning someone builds a better mousetrap and earns the reward
• Open competition, where the best product or service wins on its merits

None of that happens when certain companies have a permanent seat at the table with the most powerful governments on earth. What happens instead is that cozy relationships replace competition. The company already embedded in government contracts, regulatory conversations, and presidential photo ops does not need to build a better product. It just needs to maintain the relationship.

Consider this scenario. You develop a superior widget. Better quality, better price, better in every measurable way. You put together a real business plan. You are ready to compete. But the company you are competing against is too big to fail, politically connected, and backed by either government equity stakes or regulatory preference. How do you win? You probably do not. And that is the point.

The Media Parallel Nobody Talks About

I remember watching coverage from one of the major sporting events years ago and seeing a network anchor sitting in a luxury box with politicians, laughing it up like old friends. And I thought the same thing I think now.

You cannot hold power accountable when you are sharing appetizers with power. The press is supposed to be the adversary of the powerful, not their weekend companion. The same logic applies to business and government. They are supposed to exist in tension with each other. That tension is what keeps both sides honest.

When that tension disappears, when CEOs become regular fixtures at government summits and government officials become de facto board advisors to major corporations, everyone loses except the people in the room.

What This Means for Investors

For anyone building a portfolio or planning for retirement, this matters in practical ways:

• Concentration risk increases when a handful of politically connected mega-companies dominate entire sectors
• Innovation slows because smaller competitors cannot get a fair shot, reducing the long-term growth potential of entire industries
• Regulatory capture means rules get written to benefit incumbents, not consumers or shareholders of smaller competitors
• Too big to fail is not a compliment. It is a subsidy paid for by taxpayers and by the distortion of fair markets

I have been consistent on this for years. Public-private partnerships sound reasonable in a press release. In practice, they are one of the most effective tools ever invented for locking in the powerful and locking out everyone else. The G20 summit did not change my view on that. It confirmed it.