Contributed by Glen

No longer do existing teams appear, but new franchises, where older concepts like playing for your team, your local side, are deemed irrelevant

Yup, things are changing! Things that used to be essential services are now products, and sold to consumer markets!

Thus, basic the human right to shelter, became the housing market, education became an export product, the labour pool became the labour market and medical services became medical consumption.

With the emphasis on management over the long term, trumping cures and or preventative medicine. No massive profit curve in the latter!

The stock market used to be a place where the producer/manufacturer used to be able to sell stock in their enterprise to share both risk and reward. And single digit PE ratios, meant that the dividend and growth were the things that made the difference between a good investment and long odds gambling.

With gambling holding sway, once most of the natural growth had been achieved, words like acquisitions, diversification etc., replacing productivity.

And market manipulation became the main means to create very short term gains.

Gambling has also entered the holy grail of sport and brought some rather dubious results that invariably create massive windfalls for bookies. Sadly, this gives the sports betting industry a bad name unduly.

But it doesn’t stop people from checking out the latest betting odds for their favorite sport, and some will place a bet accordingly in the hopes they can win big. You may even decide to look for some great pay by phone casino sites to see which places have the best odds. And as you can deposit your money directly from your phone, it could be a popular option for everyone.

Unfortunately, the skepticism surrounding the industry still exists.

I mean, have you seen as many dropped catches in schoolboy cricket, let alone by so-called professionals? And not only allowed England back into the game but all but guaranteed a remarkable result!

And no doubt gave maximum coverage to the sponsor’s products!

I used to love cricket! Now I switch off or put on a DVD, given ethics, integrity and fun, seems to have been lost to rampant consumerism, obesity, BS, the almighty dollar and extreme capitalism!?

Think, cricket used to be the very measure of decency, sportsmanship and fair play! Now it’s just a combative spectacle in the Colosseum, replete with a conga line of injured players?