I very recently moved from one part of Australia to another, and, while it was still apparent where I was before, it is much, much more apparent in the new city just how successful "Covid" was at transferring wealth from the bottom end to the top end.

Almost everything here is cashless, including fucking vending machines (so you can't get change) and public transport (which must now always be prepaid). The suburb I am in has lost the majority of its small businesses, which either sold up and flogged off their assets, or are in the process of doing so. These "vacant" sites are then being replaced by towers. Expensive, shiny, poorly-built towers, financed almost solely by Chinese money.

I also just had someone overcharge me massively for what the products she was on-selling are worth, only to say "Covid" as the justification (in reality, lack of competition in the immediate area is the real reason). She also justified "Covid" for why I can't get a fucking electrician to come fix something in my apartment (a fridge - long story)...

Covid, Covid, fucking Covid. Or if it's not that, it's "security" or "sustainability". Like my University cutting back on services, staff, facilities, and even teaching (I study and work in Science, right. They've cut field trips, because the lecturers can't be effed. Meaning one of the only really useful areas of my courses are now gone)... You now even need to apply for "special permission" to use the library after hours, which you have to "justify" by carrying the "permission" around with you on a brand new, specialised app...

I realise Australia may be a fairly extreme outlier, on certain things (never mind that the building I am staying in is owned by a Hong Kong shell company, and all the writing on signs is in Chinese. And never mind the fact that the University is utterly compliant to the Chinese, too), but still, this all feels very... Off. Most of my friends seem able to see it, too, to some extent (though some of them blame it on everything from "racism" to "teh patriarchay!" to "capitalism"), and even the local subreddits seem to be waking up to it...

So yeah, while "Agenda 2030" may not be a reality yet, I really do think that "our leaders" are 100% committed to it, as is much of the business community... It's happening, and unless people really do start to push back, I do think that's where we're headed. We shouldn't bury our heads in the sand about that fact.

/endrant