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The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

theguardian.com

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Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#121

Post by Nicook »

gruez wrote: post #85
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ability to work in a particular place and ability to repay a loan are not the same thing: 1) People get loans against assets literally all the time. 2) People can live and work in different places.

>1) People get loans against assets literally all the time. Typically in these cases, there's actually a source of income. You have to pay back the loan, after all. Otherwise I struggle to imagine why anyone without income but with plenty of assets would take out a loan, and having such documentation requirements would greatly inconvenience them. All this feels like a fig leaf for allowing workers lacking work visas…

people commuting across borders just for work is legitimately very common all over the world. Although I'd assume they'd be able to easily secure a loan in at least ONE of those places.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#122

Post by sherburt3 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #120
sherburt3 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh ok you want the government to create an extrajudicial process to punish political opponents. Sounds kinda like Facism.

sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire :)

:O

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#123

Post by midtake »

driverdan wrote: post #84
vorpalhex wrote: post #40

It surprises me how much Americans don't understand how deeply the cartel is in every transaction. Yes, sending money to Grandma to pay for a car is funding the cartel who probably got paid to make the car available. Grandma may even pay small direct bribes to the cartel just to be able to live her life. Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) or we can make Mexico a safe and excelle…

What you're suggesting is that all Mexicans suffer more because some money may somehow end up in the hands of the cartel. And that, for some reason, the US should help do this. That's absurd. If you really want to eliminate the cartels make recreational drugs legal.

Positive effects aside, legalizing recreational drugs will not eliminate the cartels, but instead will reroute the distribution of their product through "legal" channels. The cartels have sufficient power that the only move left is their integration with established markets. They aren't just going to lie flat while "legitimate" corporations take their spot.

Legalizing has other benefits though, like increasing scrutiny into human- and arms-trafficking, a legitimized drug business will need to shed that part somehow and hide it.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#124

Post by Nicook »

mdp2021 wrote: post #47
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything else aside, > "people without work visas" is not the same legal category as > "they're not supposed to be here"

People with tourist visas I expect fully entitled and able to get car loans... (Edit: maybe I am misunderstanding the whole thing: is it "loaning cars" or is it "loaning the money to buy cars"?)

getting a long term loan to buy a car sounds like it would signal intention to be more than a tourist.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#125

Post by gruez »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #115
gruez wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1) People get loans against assets literally all the time. Typically in these cases, there's actually a source of income. You have to pay back the loan, after all. Otherwise I struggle to imagine why anyone without income but with plenty of assets would take out a loan, and having such documentation requirements would greatly inconvenience them. All this feels like a fig leaf for allowing workers lacking work visas…

> "Typically in these cases, there's actually a source of income." You mean that there's a demonstrated ability to repay the loan, which isn't the same thing. I say this as a person who has taken many loans in my life, including ones while not working. Anyway that's up to the lender to sort out isn't it? > "Otherwise I struggle to imagine why anyone without income but with plenty of assets would take out a loan" Just…

>Even Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has billions of dollars in outstanding loans that he could repay today if he wanted to.

If billionaires who lack work visas can't get an auto loan because of their stock borrowing schemes, that's fine by me. I don't think progressives would have much sympathy for billionaires in the first place anyways.

More to the point people who are actually engaging in this sort of stuff probably either have citizenship, or can buy citizenship so that they're not living in the country undocumented, so your counterexample doesn't work.

>Just because you struggle to imagine doesn't mean it isn't common for reasons you don't know or think about. I think this just shows either a lack of awareness about how things really work in the world more than anything else.

You know, it's pretty ironic how you interpret my lack of ability to imagine a scenario as "lack of awareness", but you can't think of an actual working example either. You do however, seem to have enough time and words to excoriate me, so why you try again and skip the insults?

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#126

Post by dpm2 »

TMWNN wrote: post #100
vorpalhex wrote: post #40

It surprises me how much Americans don't understand how deeply the cartel is in every transaction. Yes, sending money to Grandma to pay for a car is funding the cartel who probably got paid to make the car available. Grandma may even pay small direct bribes to the cartel just to be able to live her life. Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) or we can make Mexico a safe and excelle…

>Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) Indeed, it is not. But not for lack of trying. The biggest migration in history is the 10% of Mexico that has moved to the US since 1970. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1trqnn8/he... > As of 2024, 11 million Mexican-born people live in the US. https://ourworldindata.org/where-do-migrants-live-and-where-... >

Where do you get the line about the biggest migration in history from? Your link seems to just be to a one sentence Reddit comment from someone with the same username as you, and no source.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#127

Post by cowboylowrez »

thinkcontext wrote: post #17
ajross wrote: post #2

This article is repeating a transparently false framing as the truth. This wasn't a law about cartel money laundering, which doesn't happen near the border anyway. Money laundering at scale happens in the global market and always has. The clear purpose of the regulation was exactly the "side effect" detailed in the article: hurting immigrant communities that maintain ties across the border. And it worked. It does no…

Its a particularly galling policy for disproportionately hurting small businesses given the number of money laundering, sanctions avoidance, etc big fish Trump has pardoned, ended investigations and enforcement generally.

not to mention a certain financial firm cancelling trump on suspicions of HIS money laundering lol

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#128

Post by palmotea »

Ekaros wrote: post #119
palmotea wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it clearly is double-standard. Excusing it with "cultural significance" is clear example of something being double standard. And it is one of the worst reasons to have. Genital mutilation of children of both genders is also of "cultural significance" so I take those supporting allowing it are also reasonable? Or is that a different category because it is not your culture? No. Frankly, it just means you're being…

I don't think you are ready for constructive non-zealous open-minded discussion which objectively looks at whole thing without any previous biases or and wider understanding. So it is pointless to continue this discussion as you are not ready to take it honestly.

> I don't think you are ready for constructive non-zealous open-minded discussion which objectively looks at whole thing without any previous biases or and wider understanding. So it is pointless to continue this discussion as you are not ready to take it honestly.

Heh. I mean, you're the one who's been refusing to look outside your narrow focus to "look at the whole thing" and rejecting "wider understandings" (e.g. the actual cultural significance of alcohol, the well-understood negative effects of freely available opioids), but whatever. You be you, and twist things however you need to save face.

Re: The US tried to stop cartel money-laundering; devastated mom-and-pop businesses

#130

Post by Nicook »

OutOfHere wrote: post #33

Money laundering is an absurd concept. People should be free to transfer money to whoever they like, without permission. It is a fundamental purpose of money. To deny this purpose puts the validity of particular money into question. Putting up fences results in a very high rate of false positives. No wonder people use crypto as they should. If you want to go after cartels, then actually go after cartels. That's not w…

Everybody here falls for the most obvious bait.
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