5 ms·

A lot of money laundering operations is related to terrorist financing. Also, many terrorist organizations finance themselves via drug sales.

• jschwartzi 12y ago
  Why was this voted down? It strikes me as something requiring some citations or rebuttal, but not a simple downvote.
  • eplanit 12y ago
    Because it's an inconvenient fact that doesn't align with the popular bias here.
  • AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    Because even if it's true it doesn't justify the response. The answer to prohibition funneling money to mobsters is not to crack down on speakeasies, it's to legalize and regulate what people are going to do regardless so that the money goes to farmers and legitimate businesses rather than criminal enterprises.
  • mindslight 12y ago
    Because it's brain mush, and because it's old enough to be plainly seen as such by most people. Just like aluminum tubes, or telling (intellectual) children that "Al Kayda" is going to blow up their beloved shopping mall. If OP wants to take the easy route by getting his world view from common propaganda (look at some of those other comments. "checks and balances" - that rich!), that's his right (assuming he's not just part of an organized program to stifle discussion). But that doesn't mean we should respect such drivel as legitimate discourse - mass media prevails precisely through sheer attrition.
  • pdkl95 12y ago
    While it may have lacked some of the facts in the past (though that is disputable), we have known for some time now that the drug market is demand driven, and this demand is extremely inelastic. Basic microeconomics says that inelastic demand can be consistently profitable. No matter what we do[1], somebody will step up to take that profit. So we, as a country, had (and still have) a choice: who do we want managing this profitable market? Traditionally, we have chosen to fund violent gangs and cartels. We took what could have been a regulated - and taxed - market, and handed those profits to some of the worst people on the planet. So yes, there is funding going on of some bad people. That is by design - the prohibitionists even put "raising drug prices" as the purpose behind many of their attacks on the supply side ("dealers"). Yes, even in a legitimate market the regulations can fail and there are always loopholes and other problems. When the alternative is to hand piles of cash to violent gangs, even small improvements are worthwhile improvement. Really, the people who still insist on full prohibition - that is, the people that are choosing to keep sending cash to gangs - are engaging in one of the nastier type of magical thinking. They make the assumption that simply by banning something, demand will magically change. In that view - where nobody should want drugs because they are illegal - it would indeed seem like the people "selfishly ignore the law an buy drugs" are funding various "bad" organizations. You see the same kind of magical thinking in other areas, too, such as "pro-life" groups. I suspect this type of attitude is derived from a Just World Hypothesis[2]. [1] If we can't cut off the supply side of the equation in prisons, we can't do it anywhere. [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
• Zigurd 12y ago
  "A lot of money laundering operations is related to terrorist financing." Really? Aren't most terrorist/guerrilla groups proxies for nation states? Do you seriously think cops have any chance of interdicting that kind of backing?
• vorg 12y ago
  Wasn't 9/11 funded by some options trades or short selling made just before the event? Not exactly a cash business either.
• mentat 12y ago
  A lot of money laundering was done by large US banks who were not held criminally responsible.