If you're down at the prepaid cellphone end of the economy, it's hard to figure out if Joe Biden was stupid to say the Republicans want to put us in chains or if he was stupid because it took him this long to notice the chains.

Or is he so tremendously stupid that he hasn't been able to see the chains until now?

A little link around the neck. A little shiny chain around the wrist. Just little links. Shiny. Like that jewelry the Goth kids wear, but duller and just a little too tight.

A factory moves to China, and some flannel shirt guy in Missouri gets a little chain, linking him to, say, 20 years of his new job, the no health care job with the $270-a week-paycheck. He'll pass that chain down to his daughter.

No jobs where she lives, so the girl gets not just a nasal piercing while she's in high school, but a waitress chain when she gets out. Maybe a third of the minimum wage and tips buy her chain.

No chains on the young warriors. Head up, eyes right, glance bright with patriotism, who may never have to wear a chain on the left leg because they're going to leave that leg in Afghanistan.

And the old people slip their chains in nursing home, handled, in their last hours, by surprisingly gentle young nurses' aides making just $1.65 more than the minimum wage.

And the heroin addicts are chained to it when their veins are empty, but they fly free when the hypodermic needle goes home and the blood takes its poison kiss. And they chain the young guys up for the arraignment.

And great-grandpa came from Italy, where the landlords chained you to the farms, busting free and running into the hot steel mill, forging chain in fires as hot as hell.

And he never learned to speak English too well because the bosses didn't care, but his great-grandkids did — and they curse their chains in hip-hop English.

A lot of us don't work hard and dirty anymore, because the illegals do those jobs. But those of us who have a vote and English as a birthright aren't making what we made five years ago, and the chains are getting stronger.

And you're chained to the 14-hour shifts in the oil patch when there's a boom and the money goes fast on the meth you use to keep working and the boss pretends you're not using until the sad day he can't, and some other fellow takes up the chain. You lose the job, you keep the chain.

But there's hope.

Give the rich folks a little more money, and they'll buy you out of your chains. They will, really. They'll create for you a steady job with good pay and benefits and a retirement that lets you finally do all the crossword puzzles you want.

Unchain the rich folks! We've held them down too long. Give 'em one more chance with the dice. They'll win this time.

Unless they don't, though they say they meant to this last time before the game went bad and they had to choose between being poor themselves or having you be poor.

Guess which one they picked?

Rattle. Rattle.

Can you hear the chains?

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.