but they keep getting paid by Blackrock and Vanguard to keep making the slop

Almost. You think the mob does you favors when you cooperate? No, Blackrock and Vanguard are investors, they can put billions in your company or take billions out. They can do this through a thousand different outlets, because, each retirement plan is for retirees in a certain year, so they have like a hundred plans running all at once just on that. This allows them to manipulate the market with, ironically, "diversity." It actually is their strength here.

If you do what they say your stock goes up but they pimp out the value to themselves immediately. If you don't they engage a massive sell off and spike the value of your company completely. After the board revolts your out on your ass anyways.

These are mafia tactics. It's why "organized crime" doesn't exist anymore. It just went underground and into the CIA and FBI directly. Then each "clan" stakes out it's territory and everyone gets rolled up into one or the other crime family. Which is why the economy is monopolized to fuck and wages are shit.