[Simon_ORourke]

Both in Palermo and in Naples, the business activities of the mafia can be categorized as extremely short-sighted profit squeezing, which I suppose is all you might expect from organizations operating mostly outside the law but with a firm grip on their respective societies (a bit like Google/Meta/Tesla I suppose).

[dfxm12]

Part of it is that the shelf life of a mob boss is not expected to be very long. You've got to get what you can, while you can.

[costco]

It seems like Sicily is an experiment in what happens when you let a few thousand people intimidate the rest of society into letting them cut in line and cheat on a grand scale. I bet the average person's cost of living and taxes are probably at least 5% higher than they otherwise would be as a result of extortion fees, cleanup costs from illegal dumping, VAT fraud, cartel/monopolistic behavior, etc.

[deputy]

[deleted]

[verisimi]

... /the government.