Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, in a small village in a distant and tiny and backward land . . . No, wait, that’s not quite right.
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, in a small village in a distant and . . . No, still not right.
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, in a large city in this very country there lived three little Piggs. Yeah, that’s it.
Well, it’s almost right. The Piggs were not necessarily little. And there were a lot more than just three. The three Piggs in this tale each represent many millions of Piggs living right here in the United States of America. We will call them Pigg1, Pigg2, and Pigg3, so as to distinguish one Pigg group from each of the other Pigg groups.
Pigg1 was just an ordinary Pigg in that he had a job (well, he did at one time) and he loved his family and he may or may not have gone to a house of worship on a regular basis. Pigg1’s goal in life is to live easy and accept any help offered from any source offering it – especially the government.
For much of his life, he and his family lived in an apartment. It seems he was unable to save enough money for a down payment for a house for his family. That was OK with him, except his wife really wanted the typical white picket fence surrounding their own little plot of land where the little (this time I mean it) Pigg1s could safely run and play. After all, that was the American dream and Mr. and Mrs. Pigg1 were nothing if they were not dreamers.
Mr. and Mrs. Pigg1 had both received a fine education in our government run education mills. By the time they had graduated they had learned how to read (as long as the words were short enough), how to do arithmetic (with a calculator), and how to ask for help in filling out employment applications, unemployment applications, and general welfare applications. They had also learned that the government is the solution to any problem they might encounter.
In addition, Mr. Pigg1 had learned to put cars up on blocks so he could fix them (maybe) and to do some general repairs of a lot of things as long as he had plenty of duct tape. The apartment manager tended to complain a lot about the car on blocks but Mr. Pigg1 ignored the complaints.
Mrs. Pigg1 had learned how to cook. She always spent the food stamps on fine convenience foods from the grocery department of the local Catchpenny store. She didn’t have to make the food go a little farther by adding fillers of bread or water (depending on the food in question) because the little Pigg1s were getting breakfast and lunch for free at school.
One day Mrs. Pigg1 heard about something called a no-doc mortgage. This had nothing to do with health care. It turned out it was a mortgage that would allow the Pigg1s to finance a house without documenting any income or assets. And why not? They deserved it. After all, Mr. Pigg1 still had a few months of unemployment coming and rumors were that the federal government was going to help the state extend that for several more months – or at least several more weeks. By that time Mr. Pigg1 would surely find employment somewhere – maybe. Also, the payments were going to be quite low on the APR mortgage as interest rates were very low. That’s because the FED kept pushing them down instead of letting the market set the rates.
Mr. and Mrs. Pigg1 agreed that this was certainly better than paying rent. So down to the local no-doc bank they went where they discovered that the government was ‘encouraging’ the banks to give these no-doc mortgages. These were also known as NINJA loans – No Income, No Job or Assets.
Soon the Pigg1s moved into a nice little straw house with a chain link fence. OK, so it wasn’t a white picket fence, still, the Pigg1s were very happy. No apartment manager to complain about the blocked car. Soon the city would take over that job.
Several paragraphs ago you probably realized that PIGG was an acronym for something. In the case of Pigg1 it stands for Pre-Indoctrinated Government Grabber.
Across the street from the Pigg1 residence lived the Pigg2 family. Mr. Pigg2 worked hard at a full time job and often held a part time job to supplement his income. He did this in spite of the fact that Mrs. Pigg2 also worked outside of the house. This was necessary because there was never enough money to make ends meet and still save for the little Pigg2s education. Pigg2’s goal in life is to work hard to honestly acquire whatever he might as long as he is actually earning it.
It was hard to know how much money would be needed for the little Pigg2s education because the tuition seemed to go up every year. The percent of increase was always more than the percent of increase to the cost of living. Mr. Pigg2 noted that it had been that way ever since the government started giving out so many scholarships and guaranteeing college loans. He realized that when more money is made available for a given industry (in this case education) the cost of the product goes up. The same thing was happening in the fields of health care and real estate.
Mr. Pigg2 had planned to buy his family a nice brick house to live in but the best he could afford was a stick house. He bought the stick house and worked in all his spare time to shore it up and make it as safe and comfortable as he could.
The federal, state and local income taxes, along with the FICA withholdings, took a large chunk of the earnings from Mr. and Mrs. Pigg2’s paychecks. Add to this the sales taxes paid on virtually every purchase, the excise taxes and other taxes and surcharges on utilities, and property taxes – well, they were left with very little for the actual needs of the family. Hard as it was, the Pigg2 family was always ready and willing to help a person or family in need and often gave to charities.
Of course the cost of gas necessary to get to and from work was very high due to the government prohibition of drilling for oil in much of our own country. Added to that high cost was state sales tax and state and federal road taxes. The Pigg2s would have loved to take public transportation – after all they were paying taxes to supplement the service – but it was just too impractical. When he was working a second job Mr. Pigg2 did not have the time for the public transportation. Also, it did not always go where he needed it to go and especially when he needed it to go there. It didn’t fit Mrs. Pigg2’s schedule or needs any better. Had it been run, unsubsidized, by a private company it might have cost more but it would have been more user responsive, thus worth more.
The acronym in Pigg2 stands for Proud, Independent, Gracious Giver. I won’t make you wait to find out what the acronym in Pigg3 stands for, it is Punitive, Intrusive, Global Government. Pigg3 lives in a brick house.
It is no surprise that Pigg3 has the best house. After all, they built it with money taken from the other Piggs. Pigg3 has no money that it does not take from the other Piggs. OK, it can print money but that is the same thing. When Pigg3 puts new money into circulation by printing it (or making computer entries) that devalues the money already out there. Money that was created by honest work. This causes prices to rise and makes the other Pigg’s money buy less. This is called inflation – the hidden tax.
Pigg3’s goal is power. All the power available. To this end, Pigg3 makes up a lot of rules. These rules are called laws and if the other Piggs don’t obey them, they are likely to end up in jail or dead. Many of the rules Pigg3 makes up are supposedly designed to help a certain set of Piggs. But whatever help they give, if any, comes at the expense of yet a different set of Piggs. Of course the rules made up by Pigg3 never apply to Pigg3, only to the other Piggs.
Now if Pigg2 sees that Pigg1 has a problem that requires a hundred dollars, he might offer Pigg1 a hundred dollars. Perhaps a loan, perhaps a gift. If Pigg1 goes to Pigg3 for the money, Pigg3 might also decide to help him out. However, Pigg3 has no money so he goes to Pigg2 and says, “Give me two hundred dollars.” Pigg3, you see, has a lot of overhead keeping up that fine brick house. After the overhead, Pigg3 has one hundred dollars left to give and Pigg1 might get it – or he might not. Pigg3’s plans don’t very often go the way they are initially proposed.
By now I suppose you are wondering where the Big Bad Wolf comes in. In this version we don’t really need the BBW. In fact, the Big Bad Wolf probably does not even exist. None the less, Pigg3 will tell the other Piggs that the BBW is coming over (from who knows where) to huff and puff and blow down their houses. So they should all volunteer for the military and go wipe out BBW in its homeland. When they get there they will be fighting and killing – but not the BBW. They will be fighting and killing other Piggs.
All over the world the Pigg3s will rejoice as the Pigg1s and the Pigg2s fight and kill other Pigg1s and Pigg2s. Pigg3 gets power from this and it helps their buddies (the war equipment manufacturers) at the same time. Those buddies help get Pigg3 re-elected in exchange for keeping the war going and buying the equipment. The expenses are paid by the other Piggs. Some of those rules, you know.
In the meantime, for the Pigg1s and Pigg2s who chose not to go overseas to fight the BBW, life will go on as usual except that Pigg3 will call all the Piggs that stayed home (to keep their families and themselves safe) “Traitors.” And they will make more rules which will make it illegal to say anything negative about Pigg3. It will be a crime which could allow Pigg3 to lock up the (so called) traitor Piggs without due legal process.
Those Pigg1s and Pigg2s who manage to avoid the ire of Pigg3 will continue living as they have until the winds come blowing and the Pigg1’s houses of straw are blown down. See, I told you we didn’t need the BBW.
The winds took away many of the sticks from the Pigg2s houses also. This weakened them but Pigg3 would not let them rebuild. Instead, Pigg3 would make Pigg2 give some of the sticks still in his house to Pigg1 so Pigg1 won’t have an inferior house. Now both Pigg1 and Pigg2 will have inferior houses that will not withstand the next winds. Pigg3 likes that because, you see, it is building more brick houses. When there is no other place for them to go, Pigg3 will round up all Pigg1s and all Pigg2s and herd them into the special brick houses. This will allow for more complete control of all Pigg1s and Pigg2s.
After all, it is all about power for Pigg3.
It kinda makes you wish for the Big Bad Wolf, doesn’t it?
Tags: Pigg, Three Little Pigs