Federal debt to the Company Store

The federal debt is similar to a more complicated version of the debt people used to have to company stores.

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Sixteen Tons

Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebrake by an ol' mama lion
Cain't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

If you see me comin', better step aside
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't a-get you
Then the left one will

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

Tennessee Ernie Ford

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It’s not exactly the same, of course, but there are many similarities if you think about it and there will certainly be more if someone does the research and sorts out the details. In the old company stores the entire system was controlled by the company that hired the workers; when a worker arrived they were totally dependent on the company and they usually didn’t have enough money to buy food to get through the week until they collected their first paycheck. So what the company did is they allowed them an advance or credit that could only be spent at the company store. The prices at the company store were of course higher than they would be at other stores and the workers would wind up spending their paycheck before they even finished out the week. They would often wind up owing the company money which left them with no choice but to work even more. This essentially set up a state of virtual slavery where the company controlled all the institutions that the workers relied on for their lives. 

They didn’t call it slavery of course and they said that the workers were free to go whenever they wanted, assuming of course that they paid their debt. However they knew damn well that the workers would have no alternatives to staying and continuing to work for the company. This was a set of virtual slavery since the institutions that the public relied on were controlled solely by the owners of the company. All alternatives were eliminated one way or another. The public no longer had the opportunity to hunt or farm which many people in history have had in tribal times since they no longer had access to the education system and organization, however primitive that were available in tribal times; nor does the new system truly allow them to participate in the decision making process that controls society. They’re now dependent on the major institutions that are controlled by a select few that have been born into the ruling class and were entitled to the education necessary to control these institutions.

The modern system is very similar in many ways but there are much more institutions few if any of which the majority understand enough to control. These large institutions still control most if not all aspects of life for the public but they are much more complicated therefore the public has little or no understanding of them. This is almost certainly what many of the people in the ruling class have in mind. If the public doesn’t have the education they need to control these institutions they have no choice to rely on the experts that are presented to them from the ruling class. They choose from politicians from the ruling class under the illusion that they had a say in who is nominated and then elected in the general election. 

This is a false assumption since the candidates don’t have a chance of winning the nomination unless they are well known by the public; and the candidates can’t get their message across unless they have the support of the Mass Media which is controlled by the ruling class. This essentially means that the ruling class has veto power over which candidates gets name recognition and an opportunity to win the nomination. The ruling class for the most part doesn’t give the opportunity to hold office to anyone that is a sincere consumer advocate, workers right advocate, environmentalist, peace advocate or many other people with opinions that the ruling class disapproves. This doesn’t mean they don’t attempt to make it appear that the candidates don’t have these positions but they are usually based on hype propaganda and public relations not sincere interest in the best interest of the public.

Once the candidates with at least some approval from the ruling class gets into power they make all the major decisions about how our government is run including how money is spent and where they borrow it. They often use this position to spend money on products or services that are very in efficient or that the public doesn’t need at all. They also borrow the money from the sources of their choice under terms of their choice. Then after they make all the decisions they leave the public with all the obligations and debts. Then to add insult to injury, lately they’ve been bailing out many corporations and cutting back on services to the poor to cut the budget to cover their own corruption.

If you accept the authority of those in power then the average baby born today will inherit a twenty-three plus thousand dollar debt. Babies born into rich families may also inherit enough money to pay for that dept and receive a good college education after going to well financed primary schools. Babies born into poor families will have an opportunity to load sixteen tons day after day until they’re to old to work and they may have little or no health care available to them at that point or money to support themselves in retirement so they can “die quickly,” if their lucky as one lawmaker put it.

We’re not even supposed to consider the possibility that the war profiteers might be partially responsible for this debt.

We’re not even supposed to consider the possibility that Mass Media has provided propaganda instead of investigating the corruption that may have led to this debt.

We’re not even supposed to consider the possibility that Wall Street or the big banks are partially responsible for this debt.

We’re not even supposed to consider the possibility that subsidies that help the oil companies make massive profits while failing to protect the environment is partially responsible for this dept.

We’re not even supposed to consider the possibility that the bribes often referred to as campaign contributions might be partially responsible for this debt.

We’re not even supposed to consider the possibility that well connected corrupt individuals including Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay, as well as others that still have some of the money they stole, may have manipulated the system for profit and might be partially responsible for this debt.

We’re not even supposed to consider the possibility that corrupt health insurance laws influenced by insurance lobbyists might be partially responsible for this debt.

We’re not even supposed to consider many other things that might be partially responsible for this debt.

We’re just supposed to cut services for the poor and let the rich get off Scott free, without paying any of the money they stole from society back,  and load sixteen more tons!!!

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