Once upon a time, there was a street corner which frequently got tagged with graffiti.

The owners of the store that lived on the corner would have to go out every morning and scrub and paint the graffiti off, otherwise it would hurt their sales having a run-down and unprofessional storefront.

Eventually, a team of street cleaners comes by and says they'll clean the graffiti for a modest payment.

The store owners accept, and every other morning the cleaners would come and clean the graffiti.

Eventually, the ones doing the graffiti moved on because it was costing more in spray paint and the effort to not get caught than it was worth seeing their tags only last for a couple hours.

So, then the street cleaners suddenly stopped having things to clean, and it was affecting their bottom line.

Facing a loss in profits, the street cleaners began hiring the gangs to come and spray graffiti on the street corner again, so they would have something to clean in the morning.

Finally, the store on the street corner started to go out of business, having sunk too much money in to keeping their store clean.

Then the street cleaners couldn't pay the graffiti gangs.

And the graffiti gangs rob the street cleaners and after their graffiti sat on the street corner for months without getting cleaned up, moved on to another street corner, knowing they can get paid if they target the right places.

Now...

If your goal was to buy that street corner plot of land for a low price, but the store owners wouldn't sell...

Wouldn't it behoove you to pay a graffiti gang come and mess up the corner a bit?

Then make a bit more money by owning the cleaner company to act as the middle man?

Effectively having the store owners pay for their own demise, as they pay the cleaners, who you own, and then the cleaners turn around and use that money to pay for the graffiti gangs to come tag the place.

Ah, and there's the Formula, clear for all to see.

This is the current condition of the United States of America.

Rackets running on Rackets.

But the one holding all the cards is the one who seeks to buy the land.

And buying they are.

Blackrock and Vanguard.