Human Carrion-Eaters

Humans shudder at the thought of vultures and hyenas doing the required work that Nature has set before them; ravaging the bodies of the dead. They are performing needed work, clearing away carrion, to prevent disease, to take back into nature's recycling formula that which is required to ensure that the cycle of life and death remain a continuum, one feeding into the other.

Order is maintained, the balance of Nature is assured.

Nothing particularly dreadful about this; actually its usefulness and stark utility is an acknowledged benefit to mankind, as it is to the natural world around us. Quite different from the menace of predators hunting down their prey and destroying life. Yet still responding to nature's call, since they too are imbued with a need and they fulfill their need as nature has intended them to.

And then there is mankind, and the human tendency to ravage one another, to contest territorial ownership, to slake one's desire to attain to ownership of what clearly is not one's own. As rapacious predators there seems little doubt that mankind outstrips its animal roots in its morally-challenged determination to avail itself of what it desires, regardless of the harmful impact upon others.

From the most outrageous examples of psychopathic mass murderers, to the deleterious impact visited on peoples' aspirations to live decent human lives when others see clear benefit of profit in depriving the naive of their opportunities for advancement. It's an insidious process, where greed feeds on greed, and one wonders whether there truly is an element of the guilty feeding upon the innocent.

As a case in point, the sub-prime mortgage crisis now taking its toll, impacting on economic markets around the world. With its genesis in that most enterprising of all social systems boasting the opportunity of equality to all its citizens. Or the opportunities inherent in unbridled capitalism gone berserk, bereft of human compassion; the ideals of ethical behaviour.

Vulnerable, gullible low-wage-earning people are persuaded by suave and fast-talking mortgage brokers into home ownership they can ill afford. Others are enticed to re-mortgage existing homes to take advantage of low-interest opportunities to extend the length of mortgage repayments, to extract savings from mortgage investments in a spiralling series of re-mortgaging schemes.

In the interests of sharp business practices, in the interests of making gains where none should be had. Leaving in their wake ruined aspirations and a swelling horde of homeless. The greed of the entrepreneurs who leave no opportunity untried to entice people into over-extensions of their meagre incomes is often dependent on the greed of the vulnerable to attain the freedom of ownership they so aspire to.

Forgotten is the adage that if it is too good to be true, then prepare to pay the price if you succumb to these economically unstable blandishments to enrich yourself. Peoples' greed, to withdraw sums of ready cash in the belief that in so doing they will not imperil their investments comes home to haunt them, and they point a trembling finger of accusation at their tempters.

Houses whose owners have been forced to vacate for want of economic upkeep when the schemes they were attracted to and agreed to, fail to materialize. The once-valued homes are left to the fate of unprotected property; looted of anything remotely valuable in a black market that accepts copper tubing, aluminum siding, usable doors and windows, plumbing fixtures.

The various levels of society prey each on the other. Neighbourhoods collapse. Chaos reigns.
The economy bleats in terror of collapse.