Prometheus, poor chap, was condemned to have his liver eaten every day by a vulture and, strangely enough, Hercules who killed the vulture, took the vulture for his sacred bird. I found a lovely and fascinating story on the vulture god, and I have taken the liberty to quote the full story:

"Mamaiuran, an Amazon Indian tribe that lives along the banks of the Xingu River in Brazil, named their Sun god as Kuat. According to a Mamaiuran legend, at the beginning of time it was continuously night and the Indian tribes were forced to live in perpetual fear of attack from wild animals. Light could not reach the Mamaiurans because the wings of birds blocked the sky. Kuat and his brother Iae decided to steal some light from the vulture god, Urubutsin, king of the birds. The two brothers hid themselves in a corpse, and waited until the birds approached. As soon as Urubutsin landed on the corpse to eat the maggots, Kuat grasped the vulture god's legs. Unable to get away and deserted by his followers, Urubutsin was obliged to agree that he would share daylight with the two brothers. To make the light last for long time, it was established that day should alternate with night. As a result, Kuat became associated with the Sun and Iae with the Moon." http://tinyurl.com/2g4m6g

But for some reason, the Abrahamic religions went off the vulture solidly, with quotes such as "Some vultures came down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away." -  Genesis 15:11"; "These are the birds you must never eat because they are detestable for you: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey…" - Leviticus 11:13; "My chosen people have become as disgusting to me as a vulture. And indeed, they are surrounded by vultures. Bring on the wild beasts to pick their corpses clean!" - Jeremiah 12:9; and "Lord, where will this happen?" the disciples asked. Jesus replied, "Just as the gathering of vultures shows there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near." - Luke 17:37".

In Islam, we have "[49.12] O you who believe! Avoid most of suspicion, for surely suspicion in some cases is a sin, and do not spy nor let some of you backbite others. Does one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? But you abhor it; and be careful of (your duty to) Allah, surely Allah is Oft-returning (to mercy), Merciful. (eating the flesh relating to the vulture's habit of eating carrion) and Book 007, Number 2717: A'isha, the wife of the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him). said: I heard Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Four are the vicious (birds, beasts and reptiles) which should be killed in the state of Ihram or otherwise: kite (and vulture), crow, rat, and the voracious dog I (one of the narrators, 'Ubaid- ullah b. Miqsam) said to Qasim (the other narrator who beard it from 'A'isha): What about the snake? lie said: Let it be killed with disgrace.

Be that as it may, vultures are now considered to be bad. Vultures are now associated with lawyers who chase after ambulances, or journalists who infest gory accident sites to take photographs and write gory stories or culture vultures (a name of a column in the Guardian newspaper) about people who swoop down on any cultural activities, but have doubtful experience or expertise in arts. So, vultures have got a bum rush , as I mentioned in the beginning, so do the vulture funds.

I am not impressed by this idea of shoveling money into the African countries by the ton. First, we give them money, then we give them goods, then we give some more loans, some more aid, some more preferential treatment on trade, then we don't do anything about their kleptocratic and bare-faced theft of taxpayers' monies. Then, after decades of corruption and theft, the Africans don't have anything.

So, the tub-thumping, useful idiots ask for debt relief. Whines of, how can we improve the lot of our people when we are forced to pay so much in interest and principal debt payments? Awww, poor you! OK, guess what? Forget about all the debt and the interest.

Better still, now you can ask for more loans and steal some more. Take the case of Zambia itself. The previous thief who was in charge for ten years, Grand Poo Bah Frederick Chiluba was convicted of stealing $46 million. Why the heck do you want to fund a country headed by such thieves? And why would anybody object to holding the country and its leadership responsible for the scarce resources that we give to them?

No, the idea behind borrowing money is to invest in productive and useful assets. If the idea behind borrowing money is to steal it, then that is stupid. It is like me borrowing money to spend it on holidays, gambling and purchasing drinks. Silly reasons! So what do you end up with? You end up with a bunch of idiots, both on the receiving side as well as the paying side. I don't know about you, but I absolutely hate being treated like an idiot and throwing good money after bad. I work hard for my money, as you do.  Would you like your money to be given to a person who uses the money to go on holiday? And then to add insult to injury, says that he cannot return the money, so SOMEBODY ELSE, out of the goodness of THEIR heart, say, that's all right, you don't have to return the money to him. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and twice over.

The vulture funds impose discipline on these borrowers, these kleptocratic morons. The debt that they have bought up was written off. There was no chance of getting that money back. They bought up the debt and are making sure that the countries repay the money. Perhaps, that will teach them. Just like vultures make sure there is no disease in the country, by eating up dead carrion, these vulture funds help in cleaning up debt and removing moral hazards. So, do not tell them off, my friends, they are helping you and me in protecting our taxes, which is obviously not something that our governments are doing very well. Nobody says no to our taxes helping the deserving poor and being spent for deserving causes, but nobody likes our money to be wasted. Thank god for vultures then.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!"