I liked the movie Blue Steel (1934) because the villains were low life's like the government. The difference then was they were bleeding the town dry by up front robbing them in the mountain passes. Now it's back door thievery through the counterfeiting the government does.
Anyway lots of parallels. The bad guys were also the high up in society in the town and pretended to be very concerned. The plan they had was to bleed them down to where they all had to pull up stakes and leave. Of course the good/bad guy was willing to make a pittance offering of loans on their land so they could maybe make it through the winter. If they couldn't pay it back he would own all of their land. Their land supposedly had a gold vein running under it.
Anyway lots of parallels. The bad guys were also the high up in society in the town and pretended to be very concerned. The plan they had was to bleed them down to where they all had to pull up stakes and leave. Of course the good/bad guy was willing to make a pittance offering of loans on their land so they could maybe make it through the winter. If they couldn't pay it back he would own all of their land. Their land supposedly had a gold vein running under it.