"Ain’t you got it yet? Mr. Bank hires two thousand men an’ I hire three. I’ve got paper to meet. Now if you can figure some way out, by Christ, I’ll take it! They got me."
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 22. Mr. Thomas is a small farmer who wants to pay Tom Joad and two other workers more money. But he reveals that he cannot because the bank has threatened to discontinue his loan if he does. Thomas is sympathetic to the plight of the migrants and goes on to lament to Tom Joad and Timothy and Wilkie Wallace: "I don’t know how you men can feed a family on what you get now."