GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES

They're called entitlements when the poor receive them.

Recently the Italian government seized over a billion dollars of assets from the mafia. No surprise there. It's an organization in business, like any other, to accumulate assets and to make money.

What did surprise Italian authorities was one of those assets--renewable energy. Included in the government's mafia-linked haul were 43 wind and solar energy companies.

For years the US mafia was reportedly in the trash business. After all people need to do get rid of their trash. They also need energy. In some ways energy and trash are probably more interconnected today than ever. 

So besides utilitarian reasons and perhaps some altruism what's the attraction? Government subsidies. That's where the money is, a fact practically everyone knows. And for the mafia there's the apparent added goodie, money laundering.

Economists spend gobs of time and other folks' money studying so-called leading indicators. It might be much more efficient and much cheaper to just find out what the mafia is doing.

http://www.isaintel.com/2013/04/08/renewable-energy-the-mafia’s-newest-playground/