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Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

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Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#71

Post by simonsarris »

Insanity wrote: post #48
linnk87 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us even live in Mexico. Crazy, right?

I never felt unsafe in Mexico and actually enjoy it a lot more than my yearly visits to the US. Incredibly friendly people, great food and beautiful places. Regarding violence, I find that most drug related violence stays contained within the cartel-world. Whilst in the US, random shootings are.. random.. Not that I feel unsafe in the US either though, the odds are pretty good that nothing will happen in either count…

> Whilst in the US, random shootings are.. random..

What you are saying is astonishingly untrue.

https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#72

Post by wolco »

propman wrote: post #67
21 wrote: post #25

This story collapses a lot of popular narratives. That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico. That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.

Legalizing marijuana (btw I’m a huge proponent) was supposed to hurt the cartels and decrease violence but has made cartels much more violent and brutal. Instead of pushing weed across the border, they’ve been heavily pushing Meth, Heroine, and Cocaine instead. Their distribution from the north east to Chicago to LA is insane, they’ve got people hooked on these terrible drugs. Look at the stats of drug deaths from di…

If they legalized meth and cocaine that would remove the cartel from the market.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#73

Post by illumin8 »

propman wrote: post #67
21 wrote: post #25

This story collapses a lot of popular narratives. That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico. That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.

Legalizing marijuana (btw I’m a huge proponent) was supposed to hurt the cartels and decrease violence but has made cartels much more violent and brutal. Instead of pushing weed across the border, they’ve been heavily pushing Meth, Heroine, and Cocaine instead. Their distribution from the north east to Chicago to LA is insane, they’ve got people hooked on these terrible drugs. Look at the stats of drug deaths from di…

> Instead of pushing weed across the border, they’ve been heavily pushing Meth, Heroine, and Cocaine instead.

Citation needed. They've always pushed all of the above across the border, but you seem to be conflating two unrelated things: legalization in a few states with the opioid epidemic. What seems to be a far more likely driver of the opioid epidemic is the availability of cheap synthetic opiates like fentanyl that are highly concentrated, and therefore easier to smuggle.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#74

Post by allannienhuis »

beenBoutIT wrote: post #69

"The armed conflict between the cartels and Mexico’s military, which has dragged on for 12 years, now ranks as the deadliest war in the world apart from Syria." Do people still voluntarily go on holiday in Mexico?

Pretty sure the vast majority of the gang/cartel related violence doesn't take place in the tourist areas, and that the few reports we hear about where a tourist has been involved in some violence are a tiny percentage of the overall problem. I've never had the feeling that tourists in the main tourist areas in Mexico were any less safe than at home.

Certainly I'd be more afraid of my safety in many parts of most major US cities.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#75

Post by marcosdumay »

21 wrote: post #25

This story collapses a lot of popular narratives. That peoples in USA buying drugs are the drivers of violence in Mexico. That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear.

There is no doubt that a fully formed criminal organization would diversify its income if the drug money suddenly vanished.

The question is how lucrative its their new initiatives, how much of structure they are able to upkeep and how much crime there consist of "inherited" structure that is not viable with their new margins.

No organizational collapse looks good, and this is one that didn't look any good even on its best times.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#76

Post by passn »

mattmanser wrote: post #68
passn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Basically Latin America has been like the entire Middle East for the last 10 years.” This is a gross generalization. There are over 600 million people in Latin America and 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Each has had different levels of development, violence and corruption, and overall are vastly improved over the past 10-20 years. Brazil, the largest country in Latam, despite its problems has still…

In a thread about Uber drivers in Brazil scamming, there are people talking about how it's a death sentence to walk into the wrong favela. Are they wrong? That's not a normal, functioning, society, regardless of GDP.

"A death sentence" is exaggerating but just as in any city of 20m people in the developing world there will be some very dangerous areas.

Just because an enormous city has some dangerous areas does not mean it is not a "normal, functioning, society". It also doesn't mean it should be equated to the middle east, assumed to be the same as the other 32 countries on the continent.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#77

Post by marcosdumay »

nyolfen wrote: post #49
pier25 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear Nothing will make violence disappear completely. That said, legalizing drugs will most certainly reduce cartel activity. Cartels exist because they sell a product with a huge margin that people can't really buy from anywhere else. Even when selling stolen products such as gasoline their market and margin is much smaller.

it says in this article that the fuel theft is cheaper and easier, and one former cartel member says it makes as much money as drugs >their market and margin is much smaller you think there's a smaller market for gasoline than drugs?

It's not smaller, it's more constrained. Gasoline prices don't shoot up when the government organizes a big crime fighting initiative. I would bet the interviewed people are not correctly accounting for their risks.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#78

Post by poisonarena »

beenBoutIT wrote: post #69

"The armed conflict between the cartels and Mexico’s military, which has dragged on for 12 years, now ranks as the deadliest war in the world apart from Syria." Do people still voluntarily go on holiday in Mexico?

40 million tourists in 2017 10 million Q1 2018..

Just a quick google search..

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#79

Post by aylmao »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #52

Basically Latin America has been like the entire Middle East for the last 10 years. For all Steven Pinker writes about the decline of violence, this cannot be in anyway true about Latin America. The crime rate is up 10% since the early 2000’s, even after aggressive “statistical management” by the governments. After including what crimes aren’t reported, it’s probably closer to 30% or 40%. The Navy Seals have done tra…

> Basically Latin America has been like the entire Middle East for the last 10 years.

Have a look at this list (especially during/after the 50s) [1] and tell me what most countries have in common.

> Perhaps this was inevitable.

I very much disagree.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

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