Even criminals raise their prices when they form cartels
Torsten Bell
He never actually watched a gangster movie? Even, understand the idea of “turf”?
Even criminals raise their prices when they form cartels
Torsten Bell
He never actually watched a gangster movie? Even, understand the idea of “turf”?
And when they have been established long enough we call them a government. Then prices really go up.
So what?
Turf see “tax base”.
Does the writer assume that criminals don’t have a profit motive, that they are strictly not-for-profit?
The Grauniad writer did not expect the main beneficiaries of the truce to be the gangs themselves!?! Why else does he think they made the truce? A sudden attack of conscience and a desire to help their victims?
“… via the extortion payments they rely on, estimated at more than $700m (£515m) a year, or 3% of El Salvador’s GDP.”
Remarkably cheap. VAT here’s 21%. You’re paying 20 in the UK, aren’t you? And you can bet that’ll be rising soon. Compared with the sort of extortion governments can get away with, El Salvador’s gangs are rank amateurs.
BIS – its not that they’re amateurs, its that there’s a lot of competition between gangs. Its the same writ large between nations with low-tax jurisdictions putting limits on how much squeezing high-tax jurisdictions can get away with.
For some reason, too many people wish there was only one gang in the whole world.