Post-pandemic changes

Good Lord, any minute now the Agents will be here to get us.

click on the video in the tweet in this story, its a heat map. It is crazy
 
Roberto Saviano is a crime journalist and also the author of the Mafia TV series Gomorra
Covid as opportunity for criminal organisations.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...taking-care-of-everyones-business-in-pandemic
I can dream that this Covid is the moment to crack down on the organised crime, but with the formal economy in tatters, the informal economy, so close to so many people needing food and money, could very well emerge stronger than ever.
Another troubling worry.

Organised crime is already giving food parcels to the poor in Italy and Mexico. For the cartels and syndicates, this crisis is an opportunity
by Roberto Saviano

Pestilence presents a moment of great opportunity for many businesses.
Consider the speed at which contracts are put out to tender to meet extraordinary needs. Consider the ability to move goods and money without all the normal checks or legal and bureaucratic protocols. Plague is a boon for the commercial class.
The art of profit is based on exploiting need, and no one has perfected that dark art better than organised crime. The Covid-19 pandemic is already demonstrating this. With their usual business acumen, criminal organisations have, in recent decades, invested in a number of companies that have turned out to be very relevant to the present crisis: multi-service businesses (catering, cleaning or disinfection), industrial laundries, transport, funeral homes, waste collection, food distribution – and the health. All of these sectors have become fundamental to our survival over recent weeks, and will probably remain so for a good while.


Here another short article on the opportunities, with the plea to governments to help small companies and shops before they become a prey for the organised crime:
Rome - Watch phase two of Corona, Roberto Saviano warns in the la Repubblica newspaper. The bestselling writer and mafia expert knows that organized crime is currently organizing that phase worldwide. "What are the clans doing now? They anticipate what is to come, they smell the business, they are the best organized structures of contemporary capitalism. They are waiting for the scarcity that a global disaster of these dimensions will bring. And then they are there; on their terms, of course. "

In recent decades, the mafia has invested in all sectors that will soon be called upon in the second phase. From cleaning and disinfection companies to menses for the poor, from garbage processing to funerals, from oil to food distribution. "What do you think will happen later, if food and petrol are scarcer, if distribution falters? Who manages to bypass all prohibitions, boundaries and rules and still get everything to its destination thanks to an insanely well-branched network? She, the mafias, "said Saviano. "Not now, in the first phase, in which we only want to see the heroism and sacrifice of the combatants on the front lines, and the vigor of our state, which, incidentally, is the same one that has dismantled our public hospital structures and squeezed scientific research. '
According to Saviano, the Eastern European airports and cargo ships that until recently served for drug transport are already busy collecting the goods that will be urgently needed in the second phase. The same goes for drug shuttles from South America. At present, the international drug market has come to a standstill for a while, but there will also be an enormous need for this, after the great shock. Organized crime is hoarding and waiting. Soon they will have everything in stock.

The danger of an international emergency like this for democratic structures is immense. What organized crime once has in its clutches cannot be released. "Every grocer, every restaurant that now closes, is food for the crime, which it will soon buy at extortionate prices. Every honest entrepreneur who has to close now makes way for a criminal entrepreneur. Support anyone who can't make it through all the means out there, "Saviano reminds governments.

https://www.groene.nl/artikel/de-maffia-ruikt-de-coronawinsten
 
Last edited:
During/after WWII the Mafia (the Sicilian one) got re-entrenched after years of having been quite effectively fought by Mussolini's state apparatus -not by Mussolini being a saint, but simply because there wasn't enough room for them. It very well could end up being the same.
 
From today's news: PSA, Peugeot-Citroen-Opel-Vauxhall, has planned that also after Covid the 80,000 office workers (total employees 200,000) will work only 1.0-1.5 days per week at the office and the rest home office.
I just talked with someone about what a good ratio would be between the colleague cohesion of together in office and the advantages of home office. We came up with about one day per week together.

I saw last week that in a virtual meeting between CFO's of Big Corporate a shared estimate was that in general 25% of their work force could do permanent home office, saving travelling and company office cost.

Real estate offices will get a lasting hit.

And Climate will be happy with the reduced travelling.

It will also help people living in rural areas for higher value jobs. One day a week 2-3 hours commuting is do-able. In effect redistribution from urban to rural economy as well.
 
Last edited:
Earlier I thought that this was going to be a new Matrix thing but things are giving me more of a Phyrexian vibe now. We are right now seeing how in the name of health a lot of countries are implementing or trying to implement a health dictatorship in which everybody's mandated to install and enable tracking apps and they are also installing temperature scanners in public places, which would set a dangerous precedent for other scanners as well as be questionably effective, and this all rides on the pre-existing wave of anti-democratic, anti-republican pro(to)-totalitarian populism that sprang up these last few years.
And also in another step towards the hive-mind Microsoft has decided to robotise its news service while everybody's looking the other way.

It's a bad combination but at least people are fighting back in several places. Roll on the Green New Deal.
 
Back
Top Bottom