What's that crazy thing?  Well, ma'am, it's a washing machine.  And that?  A refrigerator for keeping food cold.  Oh, my.  How do they work?  They run on electricity through power lines straight into your home.  They are modern conveniences that do your chores for you.

Amid the general euphoria among those seeing such strange inventions for the first time, one of the brash, young cowboys asks discerningly, "So you sell electricity, and then you rent all the things that need electricity?"  The salesman reluctantly agrees but insists the new appliances will provide time for fun and leisure.  "But that ain't more leisurely," the young cowboy replies, "because we gotta work more to pay for all this stuff."  The salesman quickly points out that every home in New York City will soon have all these technologies and more.  The cowboy shakes his head in disgust and provides a fine lesson on economic freedom: "No, here's the thing, we buy all this stuff, we're not working for ourselves anymore.  We're working for you."

I wish every American (especially the youngest generations) would watch that scene a hundred times and think clearly about its implications.  What does it say about our way of life when most of us pay so many different kinds of recurring bills just to stay in our own homes?  Property taxes, municipal fees, state taxes, federal taxes, water, electric, natural gas — all just to get started.  Want to communicate with the outside world or enjoy some basic entertainment?  Those services will require more subscription fees that will certainly rise in price without end.  It is almost impossible to own any home free from the threat of future encumbrances.  Even a remote dweller in a forgotten cabin in the distant woods still owes the taxman — and failure to pay means some government agent will eventually knock on his hard-to-find door and seize that cabin in the government's name.  One's private home is never really one's own.

If that early-twentieth-century ranching family took a look at how our society functions today, would it conclude that we are "modern"?  Or would it decide that we are the ones who have traveled back in time to an age of serfdom and indentured servitude?

Residents of New York City pay thousands of dollars each month in rent and utilities, and most never own anything.  Those who do own an apartment or condo pay fortunes for places smaller than the living rooms of some of the smallest homes in the Midwest.  Those same New Yorkers who "own homes" still shell out condo and maintenance fees in perpetuity.  The price of "big city" electricity rises rather precipitously, and transit fees always go up.  By the time some "modern" NYC worker signs up for a basic monthly serving of "Netflix and chill," most of what a person earns each month ends up in somebody else's pocket.  In New York City and so many metropolitan areas like it, too many residents live paycheck-to-paycheck — even the "wealthy" ones.