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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

#171

Post by BobbyJo »

OutOfHere wrote: post #159
BobbyJo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well of course they should be. You have been brainwashed so much that you can't even conceive of a different world. Assuming you are talking about free basic necessities: I can conceive it fine, I just also understand that conceiving doesn't mean it will work, and history has shown it won't. Me making the statement was itself conception no? I can conceive of a million different economic systems, but I also understa…

Everything I noted is entirely feasible. It is not pie in the sky. In fact, history has shown that it works. The risk is more pronounced with inaction than with action. If you have a decent imagination and a fuller appreciation for history, you would see it.

> It is not pie in the sky

Define "pie in the sky", because you have described the utopia that every eco-socialist has been chasing for 100 years...

The problem that makes it infeasible isn't the math, or the technology, it's people. Communism would work beautifully... if everyone in the world was different.

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

#172

Post by HDThoreaun »

sherburt3 wrote: post #108
bulbar wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some sectors depend on a cheap work force without any rights.

Perhaps they shouldn't

Then they wouldnt exist. Society has decided its better for them to exist off the back of undocumented labor than to not exist

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

#173

Post by TMWNN »

dpm2 wrote: post #126
TMWNN wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Feel free to come up with another country that has sent 10% of its population over 50 years to one other country, and is large enough that that means an eight-figure population transfer.

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

#174

Post by vorpalhex »

gusgus01 wrote: post #166
vorpalhex wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You give your sister $100. You find out later that she uses $50 of that money to buy heroin and inject it in herself. Do you keep giving her the $100? Absolutely not! This isn't even a real question. If you directly enable a person or group of people or country to harm themselves and others, you have a duty to stop doing it. If US remittances are directly fueling the cartel which beats, rapes, murders and even engage…

You pay taxes in the US? You are directly enabling a country to harm others. You ever buy a phone? You are directly enabling a chain of groups to harm people (in the name of creating that phone). You ever give a dollar to a homeless man? You might be directly contributing to them harming themselves (or possibly just letting them buy food/drink). Heck even your example about your sister, I think some people would argu…

You can and should be making explicit choices in that framework.

You should not buy phones connected to the mistreatment of the Uighur population - and that is doable.

If you think the US is doing more harm than good, you are allowed to move and surrender your citizenship.

And yes, that is literally why I don't support direct cash handouts to the homeless. You can feed them and house them, you can't throw money at them and expect a good outcome.

You should not cast your money as to do harm. If your money is the difference between your sister being homeless or not, then stop giving her money and pay her rent. Buy her grocery cards.

But if you directly contribute to harm, knowably, you are enabling that harm. This is not some weird novel part of ethics. It is in fact black and white.

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

#175

Post by mrguyorama »

phoghed wrote: post #50
kotaKat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. Why can't banks offer more debit cards to more people and, I don't know, stop honoring overdrafts? Transactions should decline, not overdraft, even with overdraft off . We've built lots of traps for people that have balances near-zero that keep them near zero, and one little mistake snowballs into blacklists from Telecheck, ChexSystems, and other fun companies. Meanwhile once you can keep your balance with a…

Bank of America had a class action against them because they would reorder transactions to make you overdraft. For example, when I was relatively poor and near 0 balance in like 2009 era I’d wait for my direct deposit to come so I could grocery shop and pay bills. When it deposited, the funds would become available to use even though the transaction wasn’t cleared, pretty normal so far. So say you pay 2 bills and gro…

TD Bank was slapped for the exact same process. Transactions would be reordered to ensure you incurred hundreds in overdraft fees even though you had just deposited a check.

It's a bit of reverse check kiting: The bank changing when your check clears so that you actually don't have the money you think you do.

Now, there were fine print that stated only X dollars worth of your deposit would be "Available immediately", but even that was a lie.

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

#176

Post by mdp2021 »

Nicook wrote: post #124
mdp2021 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As the edit in the post tells you, I initially interpreted «auto loans» as "car rentals" - "lending an auto".

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

#177

Post by AngryData »

midtake wrote: post #123
driverdan wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 scruti…

Plus we have seen from italian-american gangs and certain casinos that if you force them to legitimate businesses, they eventually become legal organizations. Why continue with illegal and volatile illegal business when you have a profitable legal one?

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

#178

Post by hamper653 »

AngryData wrote: post #177
midtake wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 scruti…

Plus we have seen from italian-american gangs and certain casinos that if you force them to legitimate businesses, they eventually become legal organizations. Why continue with illegal and volatile illegal business when you have a profitable legal one?

And that’s not good?

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

#179

Post by hamper653 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #174
gusgus01 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay taxes in the US? You are directly enabling a country to harm others. You ever buy a phone? You are directly enabling a chain of groups to harm people (in the name of creating that phone). You ever give a dollar to a homeless man? You might be directly contributing to them harming themselves (or possibly just letting them buy food/drink). Heck even your example about your sister, I think some people would argu…

You can and should be making explicit choices in that framework. You should not buy phones connected to the mistreatment of the Uighur population - and that is doable. If you think the US is doing more harm than good, you are allowed to move and surrender your citizenship. And yes, that is literally why I don't support direct cash handouts to the homeless. You can feed them and house them, you can't throw money at th…

> If you think the US is doing more harm than good, you are allowed to move and surrender your citizenship.

Actually, I have heard that it’s very hard, if possible at all, to surrender American citizenship. It’s a real problem for some people who had the misfortune of being born on American soil.

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

#180

Post by hamper653 »

TMWNN wrote: post #161
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fron what I can tell, immigration levels right now are about the same as they were in the late 19th century, when a lot of our great grandparents first came to the US. At that time, the scare was about the Chinese, as opposed to brown people from South of the border.

> Fron what I can tell, immigration levels right now are about the same as they were in the late 19th century, when a lot of our great grandparents first came to the US. ... and which, in turn, led to the Immigration Act of 1924, which gave the US 40 years of relief from the influx to integrate the existing population. We need another such.

What should cartel members do to successfuly integrate in the US? Buy more guns?
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