If you’re not a bank lending out mortgages but want a slice of the real-estate pie, you have a few choices on how to make money. But the most popular one is getting into the world of being a for-profit landlord.

Such is the case for billionaire Jeff Bezos and others like him, who are turning to their vast wealth to gobble up single-family homes for sale in the US, to turn around and rent them out to people who make significantly less money than they do.

Are they turning your need for a house into dirty profit? Absolutely.

And there’s a reason for it. Suppose investors and landlords gobble up all reasonably priced single-family homes. In that case, it forces more people to rent if they want to stay in their area – which puts profit directly into the pockets of landlords and corporate landlords.

And it’s a trap. Because the longer you rent – at prices higher than a mortgage would cost for the same home – the less opportunity you have to save up for a down payment. And you’re not building credit while you’re renting (for the most part, there are some exceptions to this), so it’s not putting you any closer to the opportunity to own your own home and build generational wealth.

Is it just an unhappy accident whereby corporations (and bald sleazy billionaires) miss that they’re beggaring the middle-class for-profit and trapping them forever in a rent cycle?

Of course not. It’s the plan – not the side effect.

And Bezos isn’t just doing this in the world of real estate either. He’s buying up grocery stores, pharmacies, and all sorts of real estate and business ventures that he can then control access and pricing on – increasing his already extreme wealth hoard at the expense of you – the consumer.

Everyone cracks down on Elon Musk for being an evil villain, but they’re ignoring the bald not-so-friendly evil villain moving into your neighborhood right now.