The Pied Piper

When I visited the library recently, I over heard a woman telling a story to a
group of young kids. The story-teller told about a town that got over ran with mice. The situation of the town was so bad that the mayor of the town sort help to rid the town of the menace. The mayor of the town announced that if anyone could get rid of all the mice, he would pay them a reward of a bag of gold. Then in came the hero to save the day; when the pipe piper offered to solve the problem and get rid of the rodents. After having successfully completed the job, the pied piper went to claim his reward, only to be told by the mayor that he got the job done too easily. So the mayor refused to pay the pipe piper the bag of gold. Instead the mayor gave the pipe piper only one single piece of gold as a reward.
 
When I heard this story it felt like I was living in pied piper’s time all over
again. It made me wonder what initially happened, or did not happen back then, to allow the situation with the mice to become so out of control? What could the mayor of the town do differently, before the situation got so much out of hand? And why did the mayor refuse to pay the pipe piper the bag of gold as promised? Was the mayor of the town insinuating that the pipe piper (the only working class man) should get paid little or next to nothing for completing a job that should have been resolved by the mayor himself initially?
 
This story seems to have a strong resemblance of the world in which we presently live. What are we doing to secure our future?
 
Penelope Ince