A few months ago, I stopped at a gas-station to fill up. There was a lady struggling with the lock on her gas-tank. The assistant said to her: “newer cars do not have those locks any longer, because nobody steals gasoline anymore, at least not here”.

However, a series of recent events is making a lot of people wish for locks and chains again. In Belgium, as in several other countries around Europe and the rest of the world, the rise in marketprice of certain materials such as oil, copper, aluminium etc. is leading to a worrisome increase in theft. It seems that organized crime is stealing copper wire from railroad and telephone companies, cashing in on aluminium traffic signs, ‘slurping’ gasoline, etc. It is causing havoc to infrastructure as certain materials are shifting from the ‘commodities’ to the ‘valuables’ end of the spectrum again. Rather than singular events, the pattern appears like a trend in a doomscenario.

Thanks to Michael for the reminder

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 20:01 and is filed under society, trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.