Crime Still Refuge For Those Actual Labor Is Beneath

  Work compensated anywhere near minimum wage levels is considered too tedious and, more often than not, not rewarding enough. So just as your normal every day average criminal tries getting over with a little bit of tension, excitement, and finesse to acquire or maintain the financially secure good life, so can the down on their luck legitimate businessman. In the 1970s in the high-profile John DeLorean case, law enforcement offered to walk him through a drug deal he was obviously never equipped to carry out himself so he had to be entrapped. 
  Today’s economic downturn, just as those in the past and the others upcoming, created the same incentive for opportunistic greed. Titled Europe’s Downturn Creates Unlikely Smugglers, The New York Times’ reporters STEPHEN CASTLE and DOREEN CARVAJAL describe former legitimate businessmen struggling so they entered the cigarette smuggling business undermining the carefully calculated tax structure in place to supplement taxpayers already squeezed financing of government. Gettin’ over to get paid anyway they can. But what’s new is not the crime but how these types of events are now being reported as desperate actions by former legitimate people who’re losing their wealth to the financial tragedy rather than the harbingers of immoral destruction their headlines used to read whenever anyone defied the government. 
  Crime is not new and in fact researchers know why it happens inside and out. Desperation has been the wellspring of bad behaviour as long as the criminal enterprise system has existed. Think the desperate Mexican drug cartels kill for territory just because they’re ruthless? Or has society just not countered the need for shortcuts to greater wealth? No? Maybe not, but theoretically we tolerate rich criminality more than those without good opportunity who are thought of as the lazy poor.

  As the Times article unfolds, what’s shown is cigarette companies seem a little less offended by cigarette smuggling’s revenue manipulation of their dwindling business than the governments who’ve ironically made their case publically that they’re proudly in the business of protecting the citizenry from cigarettes. As government usually has the power to enforce their claims, a real loser cited is, Benny Gilsenan, a shopkeeper in Dublin, whose cigarette sales declined 40 percent in the past four years. He advocates higher penalties for smugglers because illegal cigarettes sell at less than half the market price. Benny did his own personal research when Ireland’s economy started to founder in 2008 and noticed the regulars were dwindling from his store, Benny’s, a 40-year fixture in the neighborhood. When he confronted a former customer, whom he could see smoking just a few hundred yards away, the man explained the math to him. Mr. Gilsenan said, “I sell a pack for 9.20 euros while they can get one for 3.20,” about $7.30 less. His sales declined 40 percent in the last four years and resulted in his laying off two employees. Since then, he and other shopkeepers have formed a group called Retailers Against Smuggling that is pressing for higher penalties for smugglers.

  The case that prompted the Times attention included containers crammed with more than 20 million illicit cigarettes smuggled by an unlikely ring that included a recruitment consultant, a scaffolding company owner and millionaire Dubai businessman in plastics recycling who’d fallen on hard times during Europe’s economic downturn. A lawyer in open court, earlier this year, said, “He borrowed money and took the wrong route,” apologizing for the gang’s ringleader, Paul O’Meara, 48, of Suffolk, England, adding he “lived the good life,” but lost it all. Then risked his reputation “as a result, really, of the financial collapse.”

  A judge in England, in May, scolded Terry Nolan, a blind man from Yorkshire, who was convicted after investigators found him stashing more than 200,000 contraband cigarettes, some behind a false wall in his garden shed. Mr. Nolan refused to reveal their source, claiming fear of reprisals. He was given a five-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to evading more than $150,000 in excise taxes. “You are 61 years old, and apart from a sentence in your youth for cannabis possession, you have remained law-abiding for the last 40 years,” Judge David Tremberg lectured him in court, issuing a curfew and a fine of about $1,000. “At a time when the public purse is at breaking point, this business robs the country of much-needed finances.” A blind guy.

  Indeed, the impact of lost tax revenues is enormous, especially since the European Union is partly financed by customs duties, 75 percent of which are passed to the bloc by its member nations. “The damage,” according to Jens Geier, a German member of the European Parliament, “is 1 billion euros missing in the E.U. budget and up to 9 billion euros missing in the member states.” He worries that the volume of smuggled cigarettes hints at serious organized crime structures behind these illicit, everyman retailers.

  In annual surveys, financed by cigarette companies, researchers in 27 European nations collect crumpled cigarette packs from the garbage. Those packs are analyzed by laboratories to determine how many are bought across the counter and how many are counterfeit. Some boxes are so meticulously produced in China, Dubai or Eastern Europe that they have bogus tax stamps for different nations. The latest results of the garbage scavenging shows black market competition has increased to record levels. Last year in Spain illicit sales soared 300 percent to more than 4.6 billion cigarettes. In the struggling region of Andalusia contraband cigarettes command 20 percent of the market.

  Smugglers in Ireland are robust competitors with legal cigarettes, reaching more than 17 percent. Over all black market cigarettes have climbed steadily for the fifth straight year, topping 10 percent of consumption or 65 billion cigarettes, according to KPMG for Philip Morris International. Smuggling has flourished where the price of a pack of cigarettes has edged past $10. “In times of economic crisis people have less disposable income and are particularly interested in cheaper products,” said Simeon Djankov, deputy prime minister and finance minister of Bulgaria where smuggled cigarettes more than doubled between 2008 and 2010.

  Prosecutors called Mr. O’Meara’s turtle toy smuggling case, a “massive international smuggling operation.” Among the seven men, sentenced earlier this year, none had previous records for smuggling, according to Paul Barton, assistant director of criminal investigations at Britain’s HM Revenue and Customs. According to investigators and court records, the turtle plot began sometime in 2009 when Mr. O’Meara was struggling with debts and began work on setting up a haulage business called Vincent Logistics, which prosecutors described as a front company. He received financial help from another member of the smuggling ring, Robert Doran, 47, a Dubai millionaire. The potential tax loss was more than $5 million for the British government. According to Mr. Barton the plot had taken around four to five months to prepare and was so well-organized plotters marketed the cigarettes with glossy brochures. In the end costing them prison sentences, ranging from two years to four and a half years.

  But as expected, despite the emergence of middle-class smugglers, investigators believe criminal organizations are behind them because it is after all their criminal territory that they’ll usually kill to maintain control over. Contraband tobacco is less lucrative than narcotics, but it is still attractive because of much shorter prison terms for those caught. And while governments fret over lost revenue, law enforcement officers are concerned about how smuggling profits are reinvested in other criminal activities. Austin Rowan, head of the unit responsible for cigarette smuggling at OLAF, the European Union’s Anti-Fraud Office, said, “A lot of people perceive this as a ‘Robin Hood’ type of fraud and that the ordinary person in the street, who has a lot less money these days, is gaining the benefit. But this trade is financing organizations that are involved in other activities including drugs smuggling.” The too profitable to shut down, Criminal Enterprise System.

7/12/2012

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Crime Still Refuge For Those Actual Labor Is Beneath

7/12/2012 ended: Austin Rowan, head of the unit responsible for cigarette smuggling at OLAF, the European Union’s Anti-Fraud Office, said, “A lot of people perceive this as a ‘Robin Hood’ type of fraud and that the ordinary person in the street, who has a lot less money these days, is gaining the benefit. But this trade is financing organizations that are involved in other activities including drugs smuggling.” The too profitable to shut down, Criminal Enterprise System.

July 19, August 8 - 21, 2017

Life's Being Knocked Around

  This past weekend's cultivated cultural catastrophe in Charlottesville, Virginia sets another benchmark for platitudes. Through condemnations that aren't acknowledging how disgraceful racism still is. It's not just the roles of the confused who're due judgement. But the witches brew of stewing resentments reaching pinnacles in niche nirvanas. Don't be anyone's sycophant is more than a slogan.  

  The subtlety's not lost. Eventually words are made to fit in the world of public relations. While the reality is the Alabama faction of the Federal Government is shoring up the incredulous Criminal Enterprise System, leaving un-faced that hypocritical racists set up the drug war for their own satisfaction. Morality is a question of ethics. 

  With all the technological and social advancements the world is aware of and with the United States capability, there's no reason the concept of poverty has to interfere with how people's chemically consumed lives relate with each other. For instance one celebrity noted for never using chemicals, has quite amply demonstrated the exaggerated capabilities of the ones already in us. By the way he's for keeping up the charade. Perhaps owing a lot to the frame of mind that's brought about such    ruthlessness patterns of control all over the world. 

  Careful. Reading to not be maneuvered into other ways to think, and remaining shrewd to defined malignancies, means convincing arguments have no point. At least the one political group could pretend to be as smart as David Brooks(@). 

  But as narrowly imaginable as the state of political culture is in the United States, Hysterical Factionalism commercializing everything, rules. Or at least enough, that such a proclivity infests the world is no excuse. Really bad that such solid power's required that there's no in-between.  None. Nada. Neach-yavo. 

  Independence's become enemy, in the theoretically most citizenly independent country in the world. Nothing's perfect. But things are supposed to naturally get better. How we've evolved this way. Not burden-ly insane. 

  Considering all the problems, flaring tempers, short fuses, how the heck were our ancestors propelled this far? Civilized despite themselves. 

     No matter. Much of what's become of us mirrors mirroring. The present National Health Policy can't be about why wasn't the system modified and made better for ... eight years because the labelling wasn't correct? A supposedly fractured Congress ineptitude-naly stands for principle. Folks. Private Enterprise fires managers for that. 
  Fact is insurance was designed and always for the relatively rich. So the system was lubricated with mis-pricing that didn't exist for a complete marketplace. Legal chicanery gypped the Medical Profession generations ago. Hard fought commercial success no doubt. Water under the bridge. But why the cluelessness to how pricing can't be fixed unless someone's punished? A vested interest unwillingness to describe our problems to ourselves. Civilization's explanation for falling short of civilized. 

  Would have been nice if Senator McCain came back from his medical break, along with his decisive vote, saying, "Of course all Americans deserve the same coverage as their representatives. Isn't that what our offices mean?"

  Good luck everybody. 

     ...

Lincoln spoke in

The Great Hall of Cooper Union on the way to the White House. 

Next for me is 40 minutes in Historic Sanford Memorial Stadium. 
Notice I've demonstrated there's nott much of a Central Florida consensus to apologize for a ruthless unethical Southern heritage. Whitewash yes. Face no. 

Some memories are exclamation points.

Please. Have a look, Mr. President.

  Now this, Mr. President. I don't know. Understanding Roy Cohn is far from a present day commercial tif you could periodically have with our next guest, whose appearance is as an ad promoting a future essay. The subtlety I'm afraid is not within your realm of appreciation. Some learn. Some can't give up what they've learned. Feels like objective's about to shatter against subjective's rocks. Something not to fear as the mirage of historical distortion was planted long ago. So now it's practically all marketing. History. Science. We've niched to death and conglomerates just replace conglomerates and everyone has their own special campaign brand for change. Even the worship of propaganda, is, once again, center stage. And so -

For Hearts Players - 

The Queen of Spades

  The original 7/12/12 Soapbox View began - Work compensated anywhere near minimum wage levels is considered too tedious and, more often than not, not rewarding enough. Shrewdly leaving trails of dispassion in its' wake. Ending with the description of the cycle of turmoil we're glued to, Criminal Enterprise System.

  Realizing I'm repeating myself doesn't help that the problem is as well. 

  ...

  Yes, Mr. President, I imagine everyone is rather tired. Kim Jong-un needs some good healthy conversation to get himself out from under. Dennis Rodman, Robert Reich, Jerry Brown or Bill Moyers, and Bob Dole should sit down with Kim Jong-un for an in-depth facilitation of something of substance for the authoritarian to get out from under North Korea's non-participatory economic burden. The palace intrigue is a mockery of what government that serves the people should be.

     Anything against suggesting Bob Dole?