RICH HAILEY: The Politics of Power: Are You a Citizen or a Subject? “If a man owns your house, your bank account, your job, and your health care, he owns you. Period. Just ask a coal miner from West Virginia about the company store.”

Some related thoughts here: “The more expensive housing is, the more politicians can buy votes by offering to make it more affordable (via cheap credit, lower down payment requirements, etc.); same with education. Notice a pattern? Government distortions increase costs of living, and politicians run for government on promises not to remove those distortions, but to add new distortions that will supposedly ameliorate those high costs.”