Retailers Prepare For Civil Unrest; Boarded-Up Stores Seen From SoHo To Beverly Hills
Posted on 03/31/2020 4:51:02 AM PDT by blam
Signs of social unrest in major Western cities could be developing over the next few weeks, and as we previously warned last Friday, a global depression with high unemployment could unleash a “social bomb” in European countries and or North America. At the moment, Italy is the most high-risk country in the West to experience a potential breakdown in society. The country is suffering from an explosion in COVID-19 cases and deaths, a collapsed hospital system, an economic depression, and high unemployment. Sounds a lot like Venezuela… Italy has called up the military in recent weeks to enforce lockdowns across the country. There have also been reports of organized gangs operating in the Southern part of the country that are using social media to plot raids on businesses, reported Bloomberg. It’s a race against time for Italian officials to prevent social unrest:
“We need to act fast, more than fast,” Mayor Leoluca Orlando of Palermo, a city of Southern Italy, told daily La Stampa. “Distress could turn into violence.”
Lockdowns in the country have entered the fourth week, Health Minister Roberto Speranza said in a statement on Monday recommending that the government must extend the countrywide lockdown through Easter. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has been injecting stimulus into the economy to prevent a complete economic crash, and the next round could hit as early as mid-April, worth $33 billion. Italy is the epicenter of COVID-19 in Europe. As of Monday afternoon, 101,739 confirmed cases had been reported, with 11,591 deaths. The growth rates in deaths in Northern Italy is still on an exponential curve.
“Discomfort and malaise are growing, and we are recording worrying reports of protest and anger that is being exploited by criminals who want to destabilize the system,” said Orlando.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at altnews.org ...
Retailers Prepare For Civil Unrest; Boarded-Up Stores Seen From SoHo To Beverly Hills
Does Italy have Muslim “no-go” areas like the rest of Western Europe? I don’t remember ever hearing about them.
Maybe they don’t need economic stimulus. Maybe they need to get back to work and let the virus burn through the country’s population. There is simply no way you can shut down an economy for an entire year. We live in an age of technology-driven economic surplus, meaning no one will starve. But it’s also an age of technology-driven expectations. The hoi polloi will not put up with living like the people of a century ago in order to achieve a goal whose feasibility is merely a matter of conjecture rather than certainty.
Italy is ahead of the curve. In a bad way. Coming soon to America.
I really expect that the young are fed up with this and ready to revolt. I suspect our nation will follow suit if this quarantine goes on for another month. I don’t blame them. In a way it will be refreshing to see if they take back their Freedom.
I suspect that they are conflating two problems.
I have wondered about COVID-19 in Italy. It clearly got started in the North because of a lot of travel between China and fashion cities like Milan. So the North was hit hard. As far as I know, Southern cities like Naples and Palermo do not have really significant infection rates. Which I think is surprising. Sure, they don’t have visits from Chinese Fashion people, but perhaps they have visits from Italians who have been up North? But transmission to the South seems fairly minor.
But the article says the South is ready to explode. Over the virus? No. Over economics.
Are the economic troubles truly tied to the pandemic? Or is Italy just a thoroughly badly run country?
Link to actual article instead of some lame site fronting for zerohedge content:
It looks like those stores are prepping for a hurricane.
Palermo is the Capital of Sicily. That’s mafia country. Nothing will happen there that they’re not ok with.
A relative in New York City told me yesterday that they are boarding up windows in some of the stores there.
Yup. Unless Trump ends the lockdown and gets Americans back to work ASAP.
In DeBlasio’s NYC it was the Wild West before any of this started. If the riff raff decide to riot and loot who’s going to stop them? Since the punks realize they’re not going be arrested, I’m surprised they haven’t taken to the streets already. Would the cops be expected to wade into a thousand potentially infected rioters? Is the National Guard mobilized and in place in democrat shit holes like Chicago and NYC?
I keep seeing and hearing about the “explosion” of Corona virus. They like that word but it clearly doesn’t mean what they seem to think it means.
Yep, there is a lot of stuff laying around unwatched. The usual suspects will start “appropriating it” when the thought enters their mind.
What is that saying? “Those who forget their history are destined to relive it.”
Thing is - we only have to look back 2 to 3 weeks to other parts of the world to see how things might happen here.
January 24th (the day after Wuhan was locked down) I started preparing as I saw how it MIGHT turn out here.
And I thought I was pretty prepared - but the extended family isn’t, so some of my stuff I’m giving to them. Although in doing so I did find another large bin with ammo — so they can have some and still plenty for me.
Just got a notice from the dog food supplier - they can’t ship out the monthly amount due to shortages. Thankfully we have about 5 months worth on hand.
+1
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