4 ms·

That's definitely the case. They always quote street values, which is ridiculous. But 2000kg is still a lot.

by darawk 6y ago

PedroBatista 6y ago
It's not ridiculous because it's the "real" total value of the goods, which is what matters more than to know if the "owner" would receive X of Y.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  No, the real value is the wholesale value at the port. What someone might pay to be able to pick up that amount at that place, or alternatively the marginal price i.e. what it cost to get the goods to that port. Is the “real” value of a field of corn ready to harvest the cost of the seed? the market price per bushel? the retail price of the tens of thousands of boxes of corn flakes? The value of anything accumulates with every action that is done to it and every piece of capital involved. A wholesale good at port is in the middle of that process and has not had all of its end value added yet.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    They do mention it is 'street value', so it is properly qualified as far as I'm concerned.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      I think this whole conversation is missing the forest for the trees. What matters is that it was worth enough to motivate torture. Quibbling over what number to put to that is missing the point.
      - jacquesm 6y ago
        The torture probably factors in on deals worth a couple of percent of that particular one.
      - colechristensen 6y ago
        I knew this and the first thing i said was “off topic”, but i do think that quoting the street value exaggerates the effects of the bust and the pattern of communication distorting the reality in public announcements is worthy of debate. And yes, you can distort reality by telling the truth when you choose irrelevant facts for your main message. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
        catalogia 6y ago
        The number's contribution to the emotional impact of the story, far from distorting reality, is next to negligible compared to the part about torture.
        colechristensen 6y ago
        Making a story sensational is distorting reality. The whole problem with drugs and law enforcement is that it has been driven now and in the past by emotional manipulation. Much of it was originally done by stoking racist fears, "reefer madness" and all that. If we were talking with reason instead of emotion, about causes and effects, about mitigating and minimizing negative outcomes, about giving people choices and recovery and ways out and in some cases ways to do things safely... a lot of real actual progress would be made. But that doesn't make sensational headlines, it's not simple or something that people can turn into a succinct cheer. Sensational stories start to be the goal of the government's "war", success measured in how much the story can impress the population. DISTORTING REALITY.
- vkou 6y ago
  The real total value of a hand-full of sand is ~$400, because it can be refined into a 32-core Intel CPU. That is, if we completely ignore that most of that $400 comes from $400 worth of labour that needs to be put into that sand, to turn it into something people can pay money for. In that same vein, the drugs aren't (yet) worth $100,000,000, because you still need to put in millions and tens of millions of dollars of labour into them, to turn them into something people can pay money for.
  - celticninja 6y ago
    Not the same here. The seized drugs are already processed and ready for sale to the public. There is no millions of dollars of labour required to split 2000kg into smaller and smaller packages to end up with 2,000,000 x 1g amounts. This is closer to entire wafers of chips being seized, which require some work to turn into a commodity for public consumption i.e single CPUs, but that is a lot less work, and less technical too, than creating the wafers in the first place.
    - darawk 6y ago
      There are millions of dollars of additional distribution risk, though.
    - loeg 6y ago
      These are just differences in degree rather than in kind. There is labor involved in processing the bulk powder: any cutting the seller wants to perform, partitioning into street sale sizes, and of course the actual sales, which is risky and time consuming. I think you are probably right that the ratio of labor and other costs favors Intel in this comparison, but I think arguing about the specific analogy here is an unhelpful tangent. The point is: published prices that ignore all of the costs involved in making the sales is a fiction.
      - heavenlyblue 6y ago
        Um, why would cut your stuff at bulk level? It just becomes harder to transport. Cutting is mostly done by edge dealers rather than drug lords.

That's definitely the case. They always quote street values, which is ridiculous. But 2000kg is still a lot.

by darawk 6y ago

That's definitely the case. They always quote street values, which is ridiculous. But 2000kg is still a lot.

It's not ridiculous because it's the "real" total value of the goods, which is what matters more than to know if the "owner" would receive X of Y.

colechristensen 6y ago
No, the real value is the wholesale value at the port. What someone might pay to be able to pick up that amount at that place, or alternatively the marginal price i.e. what it cost to get the goods to that port. Is the “real” value of a field of corn ready to harvest the cost of the seed? the market price per bushel? the retail price of the tens of thousands of boxes of corn flakes? The value of anything accumulates with every action that is done to it and every piece of capital involved. A wholesale good at port is in the middle of that process and has not had all of its end value added yet.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  They do mention it is 'street value', so it is properly qualified as far as I'm concerned.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    I think this whole conversation is missing the forest for the trees. What matters is that it was worth enough to motivate torture. Quibbling over what number to put to that is missing the point.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      The torture probably factors in on deals worth a couple of percent of that particular one.
    - colechristensen 6y ago
      I knew this and the first thing i said was “off topic”, but i do think that quoting the street value exaggerates the effects of the bust and the pattern of communication distorting the reality in public announcements is worthy of debate. And yes, you can distort reality by telling the truth when you choose irrelevant facts for your main message. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
      - catalogia 6y ago
        The number's contribution to the emotional impact of the story, far from distorting reality, is next to negligible compared to the part about torture.
        colechristensen 6y ago
        Making a story sensational is distorting reality. The whole problem with drugs and law enforcement is that it has been driven now and in the past by emotional manipulation. Much of it was originally done by stoking racist fears, "reefer madness" and all that. If we were talking with reason instead of emotion, about causes and effects, about mitigating and minimizing negative outcomes, about giving people choices and recovery and ways out and in some cases ways to do things safely... a lot of real actual progress would be made. But that doesn't make sensational headlines, it's not simple or something that people can turn into a succinct cheer. Sensational stories start to be the goal of the government's "war", success measured in how much the story can impress the population. DISTORTING REALITY.
vkou 6y ago
The real total value of a hand-full of sand is ~$400, because it can be refined into a 32-core Intel CPU. That is, if we completely ignore that most of that $400 comes from $400 worth of labour that needs to be put into that sand, to turn it into something people can pay money for. In that same vein, the drugs aren't (yet) worth $100,000,000, because you still need to put in millions and tens of millions of dollars of labour into them, to turn them into something people can pay money for.
- celticninja 6y ago
  Not the same here. The seized drugs are already processed and ready for sale to the public. There is no millions of dollars of labour required to split 2000kg into smaller and smaller packages to end up with 2,000,000 x 1g amounts. This is closer to entire wafers of chips being seized, which require some work to turn into a commodity for public consumption i.e single CPUs, but that is a lot less work, and less technical too, than creating the wafers in the first place.
  - darawk 6y ago
    There are millions of dollars of additional distribution risk, though.
  - loeg 6y ago
    These are just differences in degree rather than in kind. There is labor involved in processing the bulk powder: any cutting the seller wants to perform, partitioning into street sale sizes, and of course the actual sales, which is risky and time consuming. I think you are probably right that the ratio of labor and other costs favors Intel in this comparison, but I think arguing about the specific analogy here is an unhelpful tangent. The point is: published prices that ignore all of the costs involved in making the sales is a fiction.
    - heavenlyblue 6y ago
      Um, why would cut your stuff at bulk level? It just becomes harder to transport. Cutting is mostly done by edge dealers rather than drug lords.