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In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

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Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#161

Post by asdff »

boterock wrote: post #11

About that last sentence: "former U.S. Ambassador [...] said in April that López Obrador views the fight against drug cartels as a distraction ... So he has basically adopted an agenda of a pretty laissez-faire attitude towards them, which is pretty troubling to our government, obviously.” Not from Mexico, but from Colombia, where we also have a very hard time with drugs. The real problem with drugs has never been he…

The taxes will have to be low enough where a grey market would not thrive. In LA, I roughly estimate half the dispensaries are illegal. This is because taxes (local, state, and sales) amount to 30%. Grey market is automatically cheaper by a substantial fraction.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#162

Post by mannerheim »

ratsmack wrote: post #116

>It is a type of direct attack on officers seldom seen outside of the most gang-plagued nations of Central America and poses the most direct challenge yet to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of avoiding violence and rejecting any war on the cartels. Why would the Mexican President not want to just get rid of the cartels?

Could be working for the cartels.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#163

Post by blablablerg »

barbacoa wrote: post #103
alex_sf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it doesn't, they just transfer to other illegal activities, see: bootlegging by organized crime during prohibition. The problem the cartels will face is that there is no other business that makes as much money, and it would require a retool of the entire organization (or scale up, at a minimum) to get back to even a fraction of their power. Cartels are not some unstoppable juggernaut: they run on capital, s…

Kidnapping and extortion of wealthy avocado growers is already a lucrative business many cartels have been branching out to.

And Kidnapping of avocado growers is a billion dollar industry? How many are there to kidnap? That doesn't compare to the income generated by cocaine traffic.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#164

Post by Yoric »

juskrey wrote: post #134
Guthur wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which was always the reason I thought there was more to ISIS than the western portrait of a group of extremist ideologues. State construction and maintenance is not a trivial thing and their are not the sort of skills you stumble upon within a group of "madmen". The groups spontaneous arrival and near immediate success in this regard was a little remarkable imo, and raises interesting questions on support and backing…

More thoughtful commenters (e.g. Taleb) actually noticed early that ISIS and wahhabism in general is a deeply rooted and quite old political movement, not all-of-a-sudden religious cult and madness. Partly because of this conflation the whole narrative (heavily sponsored by oil money of course) have kept blind Western elites for very long time, especially in Europe, where they only start to understand that worship pl…

ISIS is wahabist? I thought they were salafist and Al-Qaeda is wahabist (or at least its leadership is)?

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#165

Post by asdff »

ratsmack wrote: post #116

>It is a type of direct attack on officers seldom seen outside of the most gang-plagued nations of Central America and poses the most direct challenge yet to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of avoiding violence and rejecting any war on the cartels. Why would the Mexican President not want to just get rid of the cartels?

Very very senior officials in Mexican government get busted for corruption all the time. It would not surprise me if this president was bought. Most recently, the former minister of defence who runs the entire army, the war against the cartel, and reports directly to the president, was arrested by the DEA.

https://www.lamag.com/article/mexican-military-arrest-lax/

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#166

Post by darkhorse22 »

ddingus wrote: post #144
qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supposing my pocket is picked in a cartel-governed part of Mexico, what remedies are available?

Insurance is likely your best option for an actual remedy. That kind of crime can be very difficult to deal with. Prosecution, enforcement, all of it is very expensive. Damages to the victim can be severe or minor. Best defense is to avoid being a victim and or having options should it happen anyway, and or limiting your personal risk exposure. As another said, remedies are not robust and that is true for many govern…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#167

Post by juskrey »

Yoric wrote: post #164
juskrey wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More thoughtful commenters (e.g. Taleb) actually noticed early that ISIS and wahhabism in general is a deeply rooted and quite old political movement, not all-of-a-sudden religious cult and madness. Partly because of this conflation the whole narrative (heavily sponsored by oil money of course) have kept blind Western elites for very long time, especially in Europe, where they only start to understand that worship pl…

ISIS is wahabist? I thought they were salafist and Al-Qaeda is wahabist (or at least its leadership is)?

wahabis and salafists are sets with large intersection, but for practical purposes they are the same.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#168

Post by [deleted] »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #108
vmception wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experience? Infrastructure? Level of development? You can act afraid of Mexico or just go there and have a good time and notice the difference. The only bad parts of Mexico is where the recognized government and the local cartel haven't ceded power and are in conflict. They both like a booming economy and market confidence, just a different strongman to pay from a user experience perspective.

Supposing my pocket is picked in a cartel-governed part of Mexico, what remedies are available?

[deleted]

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#169

Post by asdff »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #36
alex-wallish wrote: post #3

why do humans do this sort of thing?

Part of what's going on in Mexico is that the cartels have spread romanticized images of themselves to the point where many Mexican youngsters actually aspire to cartel life. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcocorrido

For some young people their only role models are terrible people who take advantage of their trust and get them into this life. It's a big issue in the U.S. too.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#170

Post by jero1000 »

ALittleLight wrote: post #4

If I were running things in Mexico I would legalize or decriminalize all drugs. Setup compounds to securely house the police forces. Change the policy to "balazos, muchos balazos".

Legalize drugs would not change anything, cartels here in Mexico get money from many activities, extortion, kidnapping and many businesses that from the outside look legitimate. Even compounds made to house the military have being attacked by cartels in recent years.
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