Showing posts with label organized crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organized crime. Show all posts

Knockoff: The Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods: The True Story of the World's Fastest Growing Crime Wave Review

Knockoff: The Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods: The True Story of the World's Fastest Growing Crime Wave
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Knockoff: The Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods: The True Story of the World's Fastest Growing Crime Wave ReviewEvery week I get a few e-mails from unknown sources, offering me "Genuine Replica Rolex Watches!" It makes me wonder what a fake replica Rolex watch would be like. As often as I get such messages, it is clear indeed that there is a market for the fakes. It's just an exercise in vanity, I tell myself. No one really needs on the wrist a genuine Rolex that costs thousands of dollars, and those who try to fake it at cut rates are just showing the same vanity, only discounted. It's stupid, but harmless, I used to think. Then I read _Knockoff: The Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods_ (Kogan Page) by business journalist Tim Phillips, and the fakes turn out not to be so superficial. "The next fakes you encounter might be the pills you are about to take for your heart condition, the brake pads the mechanic just fitted to your car, or the engine parts on the aeroplane you will be boarding this afternoon." They might also be helping finance the next terrorist outrage. It is a huge business, and each chapter here treats a different aspect of it. Phillips also has suggestions for stopping the problem, but don't get your hopes up.
Counterfeits are, of course, nothing new; Phillips cites amphorae of cheap Gallic wine that got fake stoppers to make them look like quality Roman wine in 27 BCE. There are, however, several reasons that counterfeit products are booming now. Globalization has made superbrands fashionable the world over with the logos, of course, prominently on the outside. Globalization has also made for factories in distant lands to make such goods, and to make them on the cheap if they can get away with it, or make extra units during secret night shifts, units that are sold secretly. China has become the workshop of the world, and is responsible for around two-thirds of the different fakes circulating around the world. Copying well has been a tradition in China for centuries, and although there are laws against knockoffs, there is little opportunity to enforce them in a culture of corruption. Even if attitudes there were to change, there could be no crackdown; stopping counterfeiting would cause huge unemployment problems and ruin the national economy. The international counterfeit economy has boomed because criminal groups are investing in it, especially after 9/11 when international money transfer scrutiny was tightened. Another problem with modern counterfeiting is that fakes can be perfect. A digital version of an album or a movie is nothing more than a great big number, and computers are very good at copying great big numbers with perfect fidelity. Computers are also responsible for easy sales of counterfeits. eBay is an easy way to sell knockoffs globally, and legally, the eBay company isn't at risk, because not knowing that the goods are fake, it cannot be held responsible. It does have a policy against selling knockoffs, but it is such a good business model that counterfeiters can find other online trading platforms.
Phillips's case is well made and worrisome. The World Customs Organization estimates that knockoffs trade at $512 billion annually; that's 7% of world trade, and other estimates go as high as 10%. The estimates are based only on known knockoffs, and because many of the fakes are undetectable even by experts, the estimates are necessarily low. "If the knockoff economy were a business, it would be the world's biggest, twice the size of Wal-Mart, its nearest competitor," Phillips says. In each chapter, he interviews experts on a particular region or branch of the trade, and none of them seems optimistic about any big change occurring. He suggests that we take renewed appreciation of the concept of intellectual property, that there be a combined international response to this international problem, and that governments and companies be honest with the public about the size of the problem. He says, however, that the most important step will be for the buying public of the world to wake up to the consequences of supporting the knockoff market. That's not reason to be hopeful. Everyone loves a bargain, and few are really concerned where it came from.Knockoff: The Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods: The True Story of the World's Fastest Growing Crime Wave Overview

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McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (Vintage) Review

McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (Vintage)
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McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (Vintage) ReviewTo make a long story short, this book is essentially the history of the mafiacation of soverign states during the turbulent phase of the 1990s. Numerous case studies are presented which map out the ways, shapes, and forms of organized crime penetration from unstable regions and societies into the the formal structures of stable and legitimate governments.
For glaring example, the Yakuza crime syndicates gradually evolved into a parallel legal system in Japan, then foundering in their own inefficiencies, began subcontracting their day to day rough work to the Chinese Triads.
The lesson here is disturbing to the idealist mentality, because Misha Glenny is clearly pointing to the inescapable conclusion. Mafia like organizations are becoming increasingly interlinked and coordinated and resultantly imposing their values, tastes, methods, and derangements on a world order poorly equipped to monitor them, much less curtail their activities.
Many luxury items such as caviar and cocaine are now thoroughly controlled through distribution networks that seem actually more sophisticated than their legitimate corporate counterparts, while just as many counterfeit luxury items are manufactured and distributed by the same organizations.
Without belaboring the point, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the world is on the brink of a regulatory crisis phase where tax evasion, counterfeiting, human trafficing, militarized organ harvesting operations, wholesale corruption, social brutalization and cultural degeneracy are inseparably intertwined.
A grim prognosis is ever there were a grim prognosis, and yet the general public seems blissfully unaware of the plague spreading around them, while the political class seems all to happy to sweep these metastasizing social carcinomas under the rug and furiously debate the most inane of trivialities instead.
Which is either shockingly unshocking, or unshockingly shocking, while we numb out to unreality TV and the semiotics of Britney.McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (Vintage) Overview

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