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Well we were doing that. Before covid induced economic damage we were experiencing record low unemployment among black and minority youth. Record low poverty le

Well we were doing that. Before covid induced economic damage we were experiencing record low unemployment among black and minority youth. Record low poverty levels, etc. In the meantime you still need crime enforcement lest you let all that earned wealth be stolen and looted by gangs. And it is not disingenuous to suggest that criminal enterprises will switch to new enterprises when old ones are no longer profitable. Hell some gangs have switched the smuggling oil of all things.

jessaustin 6y ago
Presumably this "oil smuggling" (couldn't it simply have been buying and selling?) took place before the current steep drop in the price of oil...
- twyleo123 6y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mexico-violence-oil https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mexico-v... A few morsels: > Over the next two years, Arredondo said, he would be hounded, kidnapped, pistol-whipped and stabbed so severely that surgeons removed his gall bladder. In December 2016, he fled to Canada, where he now seeks asylum from gangs that steal fuel from Salamanca and five other refineries operated by Pemex, the state-owned oil company. ... > Fuel theft is fast becoming one of Mexico’s most pressing economic and security dilemmas, sapping more than $1 billion in annual revenue from state coffers, terrorizing workers and deterring private investment in aging refineries that the government, following a 2014 energy reform, hoped instead would be thriving with foreign capital. ... > Between 2011 and 2016, the number of unauthorized taps discovered on Mexico’s fuel lines nearly quintupled, according to a recent report by the federal auditor. Repair costs surged almost tenfold, to 1.77 billion pesos ($95 million). ... > A May 2017 study, commissioned by the national energy regulator and obtained by Reuters via a freedom of information request, found that thieves, between 2009 and 2016, had tapped pipelines roughly every 1.4 kms (0.86 mi) along Pemex’s approximately 14,000 km pipeline network.

jessaustin 6y ago

Presumably this "oil smuggling" (couldn't it simply have been buying and selling?) took place before the current steep drop in the price of oil...

twyleo123 6y ago
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mexico-violence-oil https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mexico-v... A few morsels: > Over the next two years, Arredondo said, he would be hounded, kidnapped, pistol-whipped and stabbed so severely that surgeons removed his gall bladder. In December 2016, he fled to Canada, where he now seeks asylum from gangs that steal fuel from Salamanca and five other refineries operated by Pemex, the state-owned oil company. ... > Fuel theft is fast becoming one of Mexico’s most pressing economic and security dilemmas, sapping more than $1 billion in annual revenue from state coffers, terrorizing workers and deterring private investment in aging refineries that the government, following a 2014 energy reform, hoped instead would be thriving with foreign capital. ... > Between 2011 and 2016, the number of unauthorized taps discovered on Mexico’s fuel lines nearly quintupled, according to a recent report by the federal auditor. Repair costs surged almost tenfold, to 1.77 billion pesos ($95 million). ... > A May 2017 study, commissioned by the national energy regulator and obtained by Reuters via a freedom of information request, found that thieves, between 2009 and 2016, had tapped pipelines roughly every 1.4 kms (0.86 mi) along Pemex’s approximately 14,000 km pipeline network.