After The Sky Falls

24. November 2008 by Satire V.

Once upon a time there was a chicken named Chicken Little.  Little and his fellow Rhode Island Reds were living on a very nice farm, where everything and everyone was free-range.  There was another smaller group of chickens on the farm, a number of Jersey Giants.  The two groups got along fine at first, and the farmer was very fair to all of them.  The chickens were free to market and sell their own eggs in the local area where prices were based on size and quality.  The farmer rented land and some small starter coops to the chickens, and the chickens bought food and materials from the nearby town.

This arrangement was working well for the Jerseys.  They worked hard, and through their planning and efforts were able to produce large, very tasty, and popular eggs.  They used their money to keep their rental coops in good condition, and saved for the future.

The Reds on the other hand, put very little effort into creating quality eggs, or in the upkeep of their rentals.  They did spend a lot of time talking about the Jerseys, and how they were eating all the good grain and leaving nothing for the Reds.  There was actually plenty of grain to go around, but the Reds couldn’t afford the best because their eggs were inferior and their income was therefore lower.

The farmer saw this, and decided that it wasn’t right for the Reds to have to struggle while the Jersey’s had so much.  He decided that it would be only fair to have the Jerseys pay more rent, and to give some of this extra to the Reds, and so he did.  This still wasn’t enough, so he also decided to tax all the farm animals on their earnings.  Since the Jersey’s could apparently afford more, he decided to tax them much more as a percentage of their income than the other animals.  The Jerseys were not happy about this, but they continued to work hard, and often even harder to make sure that they could still live well and save for the future.  Although the Reds were happy about the plan, they really didn’t seem better off than they were before.

Things went on this way for a while, and nothing really changed.  The Reds had more than before, but the hard-working Jerseys continued to work harder, save more, and live better.  The Reds continued to complain about how much more the Jerseys had and how they could never have that much themselves while the Jerseys were getting it all.  They talked about the good ol hen network, and the chicken-wire ceiling.

A capenter living next door to the farm was walking by one day, and noticed the small, crowded coops that all the chickens lived in.  He talked to some of the chickens, and decided that he could probably build better ones.  The carpenter bought supplies, developed plans, and started working on some new coops.  These coops were very nice, and cost the carpenter a lot to build.  He knew that the chickens wouldn’t be able to pay for his coops with the money they had, and so he sugested that the chickens go and see the pigs, who were very good at saving and had a lot of money.  The pigs offered fair loans to all the chickens, and set interest amounts that resulted in a reasonable payment and allowed the pigs to make some profit on the money they were risking.  Most of the Jerseys could afford the payments, but many of the Reds could not.

The farmer saw this, and thought it was unfair.  He told the pigs that they either had to make loans available for all the chickens, or he would sell them for bacon.  The pigs didn’t want to be put out of business, or to be eaten, and reluctantly agreed.  The pigs made fair offers to the Reds, but most still were not able to afford the payments.  The farmer insisted again that the pigs must find a way to get the Reds into these coops, and made a rule that forced the pigs to offer loans low enough to get the Reds into the new coops.  The only solution for the pigs was to offer loans that started with low interest rates that went up significantly later.

The Reds saw the new payments, and although they knew not so deep down inside that they really couldn’t afford to make the higher payments later, they bought anyway.  They wanted the newer places and did not want to wait to save enough money to give the pigs a downpayment.

Eventually, the payments for the loans went up and many of the Reds couldn’t afford to keep making payments.  The pigs were forced to foreclose on the loans, and try to resell the coops.  The farmer saw that some of the Reds were now without coops, and that the pigs were running out of money quickly.  He decided that there was only one solution; he had to make sure there was enough money around to ensure that the Reds could get loans.  He looked under his mattress, and there just wasn’t enough there to support the failing pigs.  There was only one thing to do in his mind, and he followed his animal farm instincts.  The farmer decided to increase the taxes even more on the Jerseys and the other animals.

The farmer propped up the pigs, and not only forced them to continue making loans to the Reds that they couldn’t pay, he demanded more of these loans be made at even lower rates.  The farmer didn’t really care how much the Jerseys were paying, he believed that they could afford it anyway.

The Reds were sort of happy.  They had the nice coops, although they couldn’t afford to maintain them.  The Jerseys were not happy, and started to move to other farms.  The pigs were not happy, but knowing that the farmer would bail them out they made even more bad loans.

The farmer started to run out of money too, and since the Jerseys were leaving he wasn’t taking as much money in.  The farm began to fail.  The animals were sold to the butcher, and the farmer was put out on the street when new owners took over.

And standing in the back of the poultry truck, looking out through the wire on the way to the Tyson factory was Chicken Little, crying finally, “the sky is falling.”

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