The Carrion Crows Of These Times

Introduction

My posts are usually just positive and not too whiney and complaining, but this is just about some things in modern life where things that ride on the back of other things have become nothing more than pernicious vultures, carrion crows or leeches, draining resources from the very things that they feed off, without seeing the final endgame that once their golden goose is dead then they will not be far behind.

The music is "Thieves In The Temple" by Prince Rogers Nelson ☔️ which is appropriate because modern life has more and more of these abhorrent creatures.

Music Streaming Services

The concept of streaming music I am fine with, but how many times do you have a streaming service rammed at you to listen to something? Companies like Spotify only see music as a way of creaming money from someone else's talent. They would be fine if no new music was ever produced because they have some huge back catalogs to draw from.

My arguments are expanded in these pieces. Streaming services do not help artists at all but expect to have music to share and pay a pittance for.

On my Amazon Kindle, I used to be able to have my own digital connection, but now it's either Spotify or Amazon Radio Channels that it pushes me toward. Luckily YouTube is not too bad and I can put up with adverts if the artist gets paid.

Music is about Music, Composers, and Performers, it is not about the medium. Yes, we need to be able to listen, but let's face it if streaming services disappeared we still have many ways to listen to music not least of all live performances.

Betting Companies

If you watch any sport you will see teams sponsored by betting companies. If you are on TV they blanket advertise, and the adverts push the "fact" that the only way to enjoy a match or event is to have money riding on it. Over the year they have introduced "virtual sports" into the things you can bet on. This implies that they don't really need real sports.

I don't generally like sports that go around in circles, except Speedway, but in anything I follow the sport is the most important thing. Like streming services if betting companies disappeared the world would not be worse and would probably be better.

This is a piece on my impressions and experiences of betting.

Health Insurance

The collective principle asserts that ... no society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of a lack of means.

— Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear, p. 100

The National Health Service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society.

— Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear, p. 81

In the UK Social Security and Health after the war were paid for by tax and national insurance. However, the Conservative and Right Wing Labour have been doing their best to destroy this excellent ideal.

Health treatment is not free, but now insurance companies are, with the help of politicians, trying to make cash from people who are sick. So the government is driving us toward an American model, while still taking our national insurance payments, and telling us we are freeloaders.

These health insurance companies and their government cronies are nothing but leeches and vultures.

Politicians

Politicians are meant to run the country, keep the economy on track and ensure that the population has opportunities and access to help and care.

The problem is that the good ones seldom get to govern. In the UK we have a government that has presided over a growth in foodbanks so that two million people rely on them. They have crashed the economy by taking us out of Europe so the rich would not have to declare the money held in offshore accounts, and we have had two Prime Ministers prosecuted, which used to be an expected resignation.

You have to wonder why someone with a seven hundred million pound fortune is a Prime Minister.

Many politicians see their job as just pin money, and an opportunity to do what corporations tell them to do.

Many people say "Ah, but what they are doing is legal", but it is the politicians who are making the rules.

So I see most politicians as in the position to line their pockets and bully people who don't have power. They are another breed of leech.