Fidelity Investments Inc., or Fidelity, is a multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, which is invested the US prison system and military-industrial complex, as well as in the Israeli state and companies with significant ties to Israel.
According to their website, Fidelity is "one of the largest asset managers in the world," providing financial investment services to over 40 million people and managing employee benefit programs for over 22,000 businesses. Fidelity claims to have $11.1 trillion in assets under its administration as well as $4.2 trillion in discretionary assets. Fidelity manages several large mutual funds and IRAs, and offers other investment products. Fidelity's mutual funds have included millions of dollars in Israel bonds, as well as investments in weapons companies and companies with significant ties to Israel. See for example: Fidelity Limited Term Government Fund and American Beacon Small Cap Value Fund C Class. See also: Entry on Fidelity Charitable.
Fidelity is also helps sustain the prison-industrial complex (PIC) through its investments. Fidelity has funded ALEC, the notorious non-profit that has pushed legislation that increased the carceral state and with it the expansion of prison labor. As The Nation reported in 2011:
ALEC helped pioneer some of the toughest sentencing laws on the books today, like mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, “three strikes” laws, and “truth in sentencing” laws. In 1995 alone, ALEC’s Truth in Sentencing Act was signed into law in twenty-five states. (Then State Rep. Scott Walker was an ALEC member when he sponsored Wisconsin’s truth-in-sentencing laws and, according to PR Watch, used its statistics to make the case for the law.) More recently, ALEC has proposed innovative “solutions” to the overcrowding it helped create, such as privatizing the parole process through “the proven success of the private bail bond industry,” as it recommended in 2007.
Contrary to the company's recent denials, Fidelity has been involved with ALEC. In 1998, Fidelity's then president David Liebrock, spoke at ALEC's annual meeting. Fidelity is also listed as a sponsor for the meeting (at "Vice Chairman" level of support). Fidelity investment portfolio has also included stocks in Geo Corporation and CoreCivic, which are some of the largest operators of private prisons, including prisons for migrants (so-called "detention facilities"). According to Prison Free Funds, Fidelity's "500 Index Fund" also includes other companies that profit from and help to sustain the PIC, including: Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Berkshire Hathaway.
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Fidelity recruits heavily from MIT Sloan School of Management.
Tufts University hosted Fidelity Investments to present to Tufts students at its 2019 and 2020 general career fairs.