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"Asset forfeiture is lucrative for the DEA. According to their latest notification of seized goods, updated Monday, agents have seized well over $38 million dol

by cbsmith 12y ago

"Asset forfeiture is lucrative for the DEA. According to their latest notification of seized goods, updated Monday, agents have seized well over $38 million dollars' worth of cash and goods from people in the first few months of this year." Umm... $38 million in three months works out to about 5% of the DEA's operating budget. If your revenue is 5% of your burn rate, that's not exactly lucrative. This is money that, absent some form of corruption, benefits exactly no one, not even greedy shareholders or executives with tons of stock options. Let's be careful with our use of "lucrative".

task_queue 12y ago
When is it ever not nice to have $38m kicking around that isn't pre-allocated and can be used for whatever?
- cbsmith 12y ago
  Unlike with local seizures, it can't be used for whatever.
  - task_queue 12y ago
    Source? I don't doubt you, but I'd like to read up on it anyway as I'm having trouble finding the pertinent information with Google.
    - cbsmith 12y ago
      Yeah, I don't have one that is explicit. All I know is that many of the rules around the use of civil forfeiture funds for local law enforcement are considered unusual because of the complete lack of regulation and oversight as to how that money can be spent (in a lot of towns, aside from fear of being run of of town, there really isn't much stopping the local sheriff from spending the money on hookers and blow). On the Federal spending side, military intelligence spending is kind of the elephant in the room for "light regulation & oversight" of spending, and even that has more checks and balances than local civil forfeiture.
tsotha 12y ago
The DEA isn't a company. They already get a budget from the treasury and shouldn't be behaving like a profit-making concern. "Lucrative" is the right word.
- cbsmith 12y ago
  > The DEA isn't a company. That's exactly my point. Not being a company, the notion of what is "lucrative" for the DEA is quite different.
random_rr 12y ago
>Let's be careful with our use of "lucrative". Any business model that generates $38M/3 months ($152M/yr) could truthfully and emphatically be described as "lucrative." I don't think that's a fair argument.
- cbsmith 12y ago
  > Any business model that generates $38M/3 months ($152M/yr) could truthfully and emphatically be described as "lucrative." No, a business model that generates and $38M of profits in 3 months would likely be described as "lucrative". A business model that generates $38M of revenue with a cost of revenue that is more than an order of magnitude larger is anything but "lucrative".
jMyles 12y ago
> This is money that, absent some form of corruption, benefits exactly no one, What does this even mean? Money gets spend by humans on things that humans want. How can you say it benefits exactly no one? Clearly it benefits the humans who stole it.
- cbsmith 11y ago
  > Money gets spend by humans on things that humans want. Sometimes it gets spent on things that humans don't want. > How can you say it benefits exactly no one? I meant no one at the DEA. > Clearly it benefits the humans who stole it. Umm... it isn't stolen, and no, it doesn't "clearly" benefit the people who executed the seizure. I doubt those guys see any upside other than perhaps keeping their jobs.

by cbsmith 12y ago

task_queue 12y ago

When is it ever not nice to have $38m kicking around that isn't pre-allocated and can be used for whatever?

cbsmith 12y ago
Unlike with local seizures, it can't be used for whatever.
- task_queue 12y ago
  Source? I don't doubt you, but I'd like to read up on it anyway as I'm having trouble finding the pertinent information with Google.
  - cbsmith 12y ago
    Yeah, I don't have one that is explicit. All I know is that many of the rules around the use of civil forfeiture funds for local law enforcement are considered unusual because of the complete lack of regulation and oversight as to how that money can be spent (in a lot of towns, aside from fear of being run of of town, there really isn't much stopping the local sheriff from spending the money on hookers and blow). On the Federal spending side, military intelligence spending is kind of the elephant in the room for "light regulation & oversight" of spending, and even that has more checks and balances than local civil forfeiture.

tsotha 12y ago

The DEA isn't a company. They already get a budget from the treasury and shouldn't be behaving like a profit-making concern. "Lucrative" is the right word.

cbsmith 12y ago
> The DEA isn't a company. That's exactly my point. Not being a company, the notion of what is "lucrative" for the DEA is quite different.

random_rr 12y ago

>Let's be careful with our use of "lucrative". Any business model that generates $38M/3 months ($152M/yr) could truthfully and emphatically be described as "lucrative." I don't think that's a fair argument.

cbsmith 12y ago
> Any business model that generates $38M/3 months ($152M/yr) could truthfully and emphatically be described as "lucrative." No, a business model that generates and $38M of profits in 3 months would likely be described as "lucrative". A business model that generates $38M of revenue with a cost of revenue that is more than an order of magnitude larger is anything but "lucrative".

jMyles 12y ago

> This is money that, absent some form of corruption, benefits exactly no one, What does this even mean? Money gets spend by humans on things that humans want. How can you say it benefits exactly no one? Clearly it benefits the humans who stole it.

cbsmith 11y ago
> Money gets spend by humans on things that humans want. Sometimes it gets spent on things that humans don't want. > How can you say it benefits exactly no one? I meant no one at the DEA. > Clearly it benefits the humans who stole it. Umm... it isn't stolen, and no, it doesn't "clearly" benefit the people who executed the seizure. I doubt those guys see any upside other than perhaps keeping their jobs.