Industry elder statesman John Bogle did not refrain from speaking his version of truth to power at a national gathering of investors, condemning the financial industry's grip on corporate America while taking other unpopular stands in a wide-ranging keynote discussion.

"The mutual fund industry owns 35% of the stock in America," Vanguard founder and the fund firm's former CEO told Morningstar's Don Phillips, in a conversation hosted by the fund research firm at its annual convention in Chicago.

"But it's actually much more than that because the big firms run institutional money as well. So it's probably 50 percent of stock. So we control corporate America," Bogle said, adding that such power leads to abuse.

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