Nature in the raw
By grandpa_lash
@grandpa_lash (5225)
Australia
October 20, 2012 12:45am CST
Sharks have pilotfish (Naucrates ductor), which feed off the shark's parasites and presumably bits of the sharks' dinner which escapes the gullet. They even clean the sharks' teeth. They are not so much parasites themselves, but could be seen as dependents.
I have begun to refer to viral capitalists as the moneysharks, cold-eyed cold-blooded predators who eat up anything that gets in their way, and there's nothing very original in that terminology, I'm sure there many people who would instantly understand who I am talking about. But what continues to astonish me is the number of humans who, even if they themselves are not particularly successful or are even unsuccessful, who can't themselves often deal with the system, but who angrily defend the moneysharks in all their justifications for the greed and shark-eat-shark behaviour they engage in, and for the policies they put forward to ensure that their feeding grounds are not disturbed by what, to continue the metaphor, could be described as the dolphins.
We see a lot of them here in the Politics section, and from now on I intend to refer to them as pilot fish. Just like their Gods, the moneysharks, they are cold-eyed and cold-blooded, typical of carnivorous fish, completely lacking in any compassion for the unfortunates, forever enthusiatically willing to blame the victims of the moneysharks for their misfortunes, always prepared to attack any measure any government attempts to create to help the poor.
For example: socialised medicine (or any form of government "interference" in the health care system is condemned in the most hateful and vehement terms. It seems that the motto of free market health care is, "If you can't pay for it, die, sucker".
I don't know that anything can ever be done about either the moneysharks or the pilot fish, but at least we dolphins can get a little of our own back by using this nomenclature to ridicule their hypocritical justifications and pontifications on subjects, like economics, that they have apparently little or no knowledge of.
Lash
1 person likes this
5 responses
@ajk111 (2495)
•
20 Oct 12
We in the UK have our own sharks in the form of the conservative party. The conservative party is largely run by fatcats who carry little for the 'dolphins' but for some strange reason have lots of pilot fish hanging on there for some pittence of a morsel. Unlike the real sharks and pilotfish, the conservative shark will snap him up and swallow him if he feels threatened for a second.
On a sideways note, the relationship between the shark/pilotfish is called a symbiotic, which is a relationship which benefits two different species.
I am pretty sure you knew that but for the benefit of others reading this i thought i would add it in.
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
21 Oct 12
It's hardly surprising, since it is conservative neo-liberal economic theory that allows the moneysharks to prosper. It is they who fund Conservative parties the world over, it is they who tend to own the public media which helps conservative causes in the main, and it they who have a degree of political power far in excess of their entitlement.
Lash
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
22 Oct 12
Actually, it just this moment occurred to me how apt my metaphor is, because conservatives en masse with their Darwinian approach to welfare remind me forcibly of a shoal of fish, who go live their lives on the basis that out of the shoal some will get eaten so that the others can escape. So much for their much loved Christian "free will" concept.
Lash
@6precious102 (4043)
• United States
23 Oct 12
Don't companies that make a lot of money provide a good or service that the consumer either wants or needs, and don't companies provide jobs for people? If these companies don't make a profit, how are they going to stay in business and provide jobs for people?
If someone worked hard throughout his school days to gain a position in a top firm and as a result of his continual hard and/or smart working skills and work ethics becomes wealthy, what makes it right for the government to take a substantial percentage of what he's earned and give to someone who dropped out of school and is either unable to find work or has to get a minimum wage job?
What makes anyone think they have the right to make someone else pay for their medical treatment?
Who is the government going to tax when the working class decides they've had it with the government taking more and more of their money and decided to stop working and join the I'm entitled to federal money class?
I don't know how it is in your country, but in the USA most people are pretty generous and more than willing to help those in need. However, some of us get really tire of paying for those who are able but unwilling to work to improve their situation.
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
23 Oct 12
I will do this in parts: Welfare fraud, which includes non-compliance with job-seeking rules to start with.
In Britain, only 1.1% of investigations result in successful prosecution, and that figure only covers those who are under suspicion, a small proportion of the whole. The equivalent figure in the US is 1.14%.
In Australia the figures can be found for the whole sample (all "customers"), and only 4 people in every 10,000 is found to have defrauded the system.
In the 1970s and 80s, before stricter controls were launched, the figure is estimated to have been much higher, but that was 30 -40 years ago, and can safely be ignored. Welfare fraud in the terms so many people on MyLot claim it to exist is an urban myth and has no substantive reality. Reality, of course, plays little part in "programmatic" thinking, so I don't imagine those MyLotters will pay the slightest attention to the debunking of their favourite myth.
I doubt that I will be able to find any meaningful figures on corporate fraud and crime, but you only have to look at your own country's budget for investigation of these things to know that the amounts involved would be ten of thousands of times more. Or read your newspapers for a week.
Lash
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
23 Oct 12
(a) Do you actually have any idea how many people actually fit your rather emotive description in relation to those who are willing to work but can't get work either because they don't have the skills, or because they are partly disabled, or because anything they are capable of doing has already been outsourced to other countries?
(b) Do you actually have any idea how much is rorted from the economy by elements among those wonderful businessmen in the way of subsidies, tax breaks, tax loopholes, and plain outright lying and stealing, or how that amount compares with the amount rorted from the welfare system?
(c) Do you have any idea how impossible it is to pay for things like health insurance, rent, clothes, food etc. when the only work you can find or are capable of doing is for wages and conditions which are approaching the levels paid in the Third World, or when you have school age children and you or even you and your partner together earn so little that child care is impossible to afford?
And that list is only scratching the surface.
Lash
Lash
@bestboy19 (5478)
• United States
22 Oct 12
What is your definition of the unfortunate? Would it be the ones who sit on their lazy butts waiting for the government to steal the fortunes of those who have worked hard to earn it?
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
22 Oct 12
I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth, I can do that perfectly well for myself. The
straw man" approach to debate is lazy, dishonest, and useless, because all I do with people who use it is pull the plug.
Lash
@bird123 (10643)
• United States
20 Oct 12
Grandpa. Have you been swimming with the sharks again?? Did they bite off your tail?? You are right about one thing. There are people in this world who do value money over people. Yes, people are getting hurt. Just like you, I have seen this. These sharks do need to be very careful. They are out numbered. I have found that if they get too greedy and push too hard that just like in the monster movie, the masses rise up and cut the monster's head off. What is the ole saying??? Pigs get slaughtered.
Hang in there Grandpa. That tail will grow back.
@grandpa_lash (5225)
• Australia
21 Oct 12
My concern is that those who are constantly exploited by the moneysharks and their pilot fish will rise against them violently. Extensive civil unrest does no good for anybody, and domestic terrorism, which I fear is a possibility in some places, seems always to target other victims rather than the architects of injustice and inequality. That's probably because it's easier to lash out indiscriminatley rather than go for the hard targets.
Lash
@natliegleb (5175)
• India
20 Oct 12
its a wonderful spectacle to watch the nature and amazing sightings for sure
