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"New Normal" Mungerisms: From Jews & Gold To Bankers & Heroin
The bespectacled Robin to Buffet's Batman is at it again. After casting disparaging remarks about the hard-money fanatics of the world with his "only old jews like gold" comment last year, in a brief interview on CNBC today, Charlie Munger explained how "bankers should not be trusted" adding that "they are like heroin addicts." He was reflecting on the debacle that occurred in Cypriot banks of course - but his perspective is likely useful for a broader remit of investment professionals with endless fungible free money as their backstop. So that's the pair; hard- and soft-money partakers be damned. The irony of his firm reporting dramatically better-than-expected profits on the back of a surge in insurance-selling (not at all like CDS) is not lost on us.
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CDS is different than insurance because it is both issuer and counterparty risk. Hence the awesomeness of the returns.
Munger-bunga...
hell, I thought that old coot died!
He did. It's weekend at Buffet's........ Just ask Becky Quick to reanimate the corpse.
I just mungered in my pants when I saw his photo! Oh lordy, and it's sticky now.
And all this time I thought Mr. Magoo had been taken off the air years ago.
What do people expect from this fucking lawyer. Truth? Integrity? Insight?
Fuck this steaming pile of pompous, disingenuous, horse shit. Fuck off Munger, you fucking law school piece of useless, parasitic garbage.
Check his clothes....you know he's got some gold sewn into the linings.
how'd you like that guy to be babysitting your kids?
Wonder if CNBC will chip in to have Warren and Charlie sent to a taxidermist and Disney for animation once they finally kick the bucket? That way they can still do these dumb ass, propagandist interviews with the bimbo of the day long into the future.
You say that as if it has not already happened.
Good one!
What the fuck does that have to do with anything you stupid shit
You seem bitter.
You seem to be another dickless wimp, perfectly willing to accept a culture dominated by charletans and non-contributing mouthpieces who's only goal is to keep you and other milktoast like you the greatest possible distance from their criminally accumulated and protected hoard.
Yawn
Yeah , but the man you mock has made billions and you're here diddling on zh.
Eat shit and die you fucking moron. I'll take my life any day over his sorry, ugly, evil ass. I know a fucking prick like Munger when I see one.
You don't know shit as shown by your comment you ignorant fuck.
And anyone defending Charlie Munger is a first clas douchebag.
and you're just passing through, I'm guessing?
What kind of a stupid fucking asshole are you?
Be carefule Godisanhftbot, you going to piss of the psychotic dip-shits of the ZH comment section. It's hilarious that call people like Charlie Munger "an idiot" while they wallow in their own shit badmouthing rich people on internet message boards. ZH has some great articles, but 90% of the people who comment on these boards reguarly are paranoid schizo's too stupid to understand modern finance
Looks more like the love child of Mr. Magoo and a Sleestak.
Ok, I know you all have seen this one.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=munger
Happy mouthpiece much needed back-scratching routine. What's not to like? Looking for light or lamp-trimming service? No needs there.
Driving Miss daisy Chain
selling CDS. So easy, a caveman could do it.
Exactly. DPCs were a great idea right up until they weren't. Think Madman Mundt, writ large.
"I'll show you the life of the mind!"
if you didnt watch the video, you'd swear that was buffett himself. They sound alike.
really, i hadn't noticed
I'm 36. When I am 88 and on my deathbed I am going to beg my kid to take this roach munger out before I go.
I thought Munger was dead...?
No, wait, that was Soros.
Crap, no, wait- that was a mis-print by Rueters. Or was it?
Shit, these old fuckers all need to go AWAY, already.
when Munger finally drops do you think this he will want to have his gold stitched into his burial outfit?
Yeah, but Buffet will send in his "personal bodyguard" to strip it out.
maybe he'll get "Romanoved" and all of his gold will tumble from his pockets to reveal his hypocrisy.
Ok then part with some of that money you old weasel and hire some agents to stop them because they'll be coming after you before long.
The old-timers must be setting if he can't even remember how many billions of dollars he has invested in people he doesn't even trust, or how many tens of thousands of bankers Berkshire investments employ today.
Last year's antisemitism and comically screwing up the date of the Anschluss was way early stage in comparison to today's brain fart, where is a good death panel to cut off his meds when you need one?
These people just need to die.
Jews?
Uncle Fester is a skilled propagandist.
You like tapes or CDS?
CDS? I bet you'd like to to CDS nuts in your mouth.
"gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939 but civilized people don't buy gold - they invest in productive businesses."
Wow...let that one sink in for a minute. The nazis were "civilized " by extension of thought.
Solyndra was "productive" but uncompetitive, state sponsored and amounted to waste of manpower, resources & capital. Doesn't get more fascist than that. They also threw away brand new solar panels & material once they failed at being competitive to hide their assets in foreclosure for good measure.
Likewise, rail transport is "competitive" as long as the federal regulators keeps a pipeline from being built to transport what Canada is selling openly to the world. Sounds familiar.
I wonder what this fascists take on bitcoin is ;-)
The bankers are watching bitcoin with great interest. Right now, it's an end run around their scheme. Taken over and tweaked (centralized), it is their scheme: global digital currency.
I think so too CF. They've always desired a "no compete" currency.
If everyone was in bits...and the lights went out...its the equivalent of finding the bank door chained with tanks in the parking lot.
Without the manpower ;-)
yes when the 'lights go out' you think currency is the only worry?
the compartmentalization attacks on bitcoin are endless
If you are waiting for the holy day of the lights going out you can just join the amish now and enjoy a decent life away from all of this ok?
when the lights come back on bit comes back on too...I just do not get this when the lights go out bit
It was more of a jab at Munger's business thought process and his sense of overall morality but...
When (or if) the lights go out I will not be concerned with currency, I'll have the kind that depends on absolutely nothing but its existance. When (or if) the lights go out there will also NOT BE electronic credit(s)...which is, exactly my point.
I will have real, tangible currency, something that can be touched, evaluated, appraised of its value at the point in time its needed for exchange. Bitster's will have a device with a dead battery or an unreadable flash drive telling the incredulous one holding something of value to the bitster, their gadget has some unmeasurable, unseen, value.
Again, its not money because it relies on something besides itself. Its a conduit for money. But knock yourself out mining the ether...I'm just saying what it is not.
'Its not money because it relies on something besides itself.'?
I wasnt aware the definition of money had been amended while I was sleeping. BTC however does not rely on anything aprt from itself - you just need some code to identify real BTC - the same as you may need a chemical test to identify real silver or gold.
The 'chemical test' for BTC however, is built in.
BTC is money - it is going to take a while for many people to figure that out obviously - I dont like the idea of virtual money any more than any other gold bug, but I am not so set in my ways that I have become incapable of thinking.
BTC is money - whether I like it or not, and whether you like it or not - our opinion is not relevant - something is, or is not.
Oh stop it.
"BTC however does not rely on anything aprt from itself - you just need some code to identify real BTC - the same as you may need a chemical test to identify real silver or gold."
So, if I'm standing in the middle of the Sahara (or in the jungles of Borneo) trying to make a simple transaction with one of the locals, which one of us needs to supply proof of value for value again? Where is the locals connection to "virtual money" somewhere around Timbuktu or Kuching? Am I to expect him to have a bitcoin account all set up & ready to go with his own device to complete & confirm the transaction?
Outside of the coin(s) being clearly stamped and identifiable worldwide as money, why do I need chemicals when a simple magnet will suffice?
As I've said again and again, the short term value of bitcoin is anonymous exchange among those connected. The long term hazard of it is the same thing AND identifying it as money.
Its a conduit for money.
How bankers wanna take over Bitcoin? Right, they can try to buy up all coins.
They buy bitcoins and loan them out to you. Exactly the same way they do with every other currency which ever existed, including gold and silver.
There is a little fly in that ointment my friend, because if they loan you BTC - then they must part with BTC - which makes fractional reserve impossible.
Now, no doubt they will hit upon the idea of offering you virtual BTC - perhaps 'bank-name' BTC - is it possible people will be this stupid?
Im guessing the answer is yes.
I am long First Solar since last year and making quite a bit of money.
Shorting the entire Solar Industry = Absolute complete madness. Some companies will go belly for sure, but the industry on aggregate has a market cap way too small by an order of magnitude.
When interest rates are zero, all productive asset prices are at their maximum, and when you include inflation and show a negative real return - the zero return from gold starts looking good.
So when your so called 'productive assets' are wildly over priced, leveraged to hell and levitating on falling earnings - then this tool tells us its time to buy.
Munger can just go back to sucking Buffet cock, which lets face it - is the only thing he has ever been really good at.
As stated in my Iron Man blog (p.3)...
England's "Iron-Man Farage" and his UKIP party just whooped some major TPTB ass, by winning a huge number of seats in the national elections/erections.
Bye bye Iron Lady, hello Iron Man!
Munger: Verb; Used in powerful circles of Gay Man Clubs in DC, New York, coastal California and Omaha. Denotes gay hunger for another politicians hairy bung hole. The act of Licking, lapping, snuffeling, nuzzeling, snorting, tonguing, and hog rooting around another mans whisker hole in exchange for inside information to profit from. Mungering, Mungered, Munger, the act of Mungering. Ex "Warren offered up a good Mungering to Senator Graham in exchange for early information on the Boeing/Labor Department lawsuit."
+1 for "whisker hole". lol..................
Munger (tr vb): An obscene synonym for felching (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=felch).
An Old Coot and a Douchebag Extraodinaire.
Any rational person would never buy insurance. It's a fear trade. The people running the insurance company want you afraid. They make tons of money because most policies are never paid out. I'm not afraid. And unless forced by law. I never buy insurance.
People overstimate risk, but things do happen now & again.
Mini-me STFU
These fuckers will never go.
I should know, it's my job to keep them alive forever.
Oh god, I just mungered in my pants again when I saw his photo!
Go munger in the right place next time hhh
I just got junked by Bieber's crotch monkey.
Heh heh......who IS that guy?
That's not Robin, that ALFRED the Butler.
I thought it was only paleolibertarian antisemites who liked gold. At least, that's what a half-hour on ZH can make you feel ;-)
Munger is more likeable than Warren ? www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiw08OPbWp8 The Happy Wanderer (Flafstaff, AZ) Frank Weir Soprano sax 1954
Talk about the deletarious genetic characteristics of inbreeding; Dudes got a face straight out of Star Trek.
This article is a disgrace to heroin addicts everywhere
“…Social Security is amazing how we’ve run it. It’s inflation protected. It’s easy to sneer at it, but it’s one of the most successful government programs ever. It’s low cost and encourages work. People say if you never change the revenue base, it’ll run out of money. But if 10 years from now, the country is 30-40% richer, why not use a higher percentage of GDP to pay people? Young people benefit too – the money is paid to people who might be moving in with them. (Laughter) Everybody’s going to get older, but also richer, so why wouldn’t you spend a higher percentage of GDP on them? Why is that so unthinkable? I’ll tell you what’s unthinkable: that so many people are that stupid! (Laughter)…” - Charlie Munger, 2006
What absolute drivel. The man reeks of ignorance conceived in arrogance.
The man needs to be euthanased. He is the barbarous relic of a bygone era which should not be allowed to infect the present era any longer.
I would like to see how he would be able to start from scratch in the present economic environment.
All that his boss can promise is to give it back when he dies. Well I have news for you Mr Buffett.....you ain't taking it with you anyway.
lol, they crap on munger and cream over bitcoins.
some crowd here.
really.
Really? What kind of a stupid fucking asshole are you anyway?
He's 90. looks better than you do at 40.
Fuck Charlie and the railroad he croneyed in on.
Charlie has judged it righ
People in India and China love gold and he knows that so he must just like sniping at Jews. There are only 12 million Jews in the world and over a billion in the two counties i just mentioned. All Jews are not megarich bankers, most are middle class and some are evn poor. Such a cheap shot makes any of his other points easy to ignore.
How strange. There are 24 million millionaires in the world, and I don't know a single one, but only 12 million Jews, and I know scads of them. You go figure.
I'm in the West. I've only known four jews in my life. Two had tatoos courtesy of the Nazi Party. All four were nice guys.
Oddly, I've only known one confessed ex-German Nazi. Picked me up hitchhiking one night in 1974. Nice guy. During the thirty minute ride he tried to explain the mania that took over his nation...and his regrets.
I'm seeing what he described happening here.
He dropped me off at Dead Man's Point...ten minutes later I got mugged by a carload of jerkoffs.
happened to me too...
Cool story, Bro.
How many of those 12 million are billionaires?
How many are in Banking?
How many control media enterprises?
How many control corporations?
How many were voted in or appointed to the US government?
How many of those hold dual citizenship?
Just asking.
Don't shoot the messenger. Thats what Kings and Emperors did.
"I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom," Mr. Bloomberg said, during an appearance on NBC.
WASHINGTON, GEORGE, in Maxims of George Washington by A. A. Appleton & Co.
"They (the Jews) work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America."
This prophecy, by Benjamin Franklin, was made in a "CHIT CHAT AROUND THE TABLE DURING INTERMISSION," at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787. This statement was recorded in the dairy of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a delegate from South Carolina.
"I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. The menace, gentlemen, is the Jews.
In whatever country Jews have settled in any great number, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion upon which that nation is founded, by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within the state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal.
For over 1,700 years, the Jews have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, as they call Palestine. But gentlemen, did the world give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires. They cannot live only among themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race.
If you do not exclude them from these United States, in their Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives our substance and jeopardized our liberty.
If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves.
Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born where they will nor how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American's, and will not even thou they live among us ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. Jews are Asiatics, are a menace to this country if permitted entrance, and should be excluded by this Constitutional Convention.
Did they know something we keep denying?
Man, you're a sucker, or a huckster.
Original misquotation of George Washington (which I see has now added layers):
"They work more effectively against us than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we ar engaged in. It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago has not hunted them down as pests to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America -- The Jews." -- This is a slight variant of a statement Washington wrote, not against the Jews, but against currency speculators during the Revolution. (See the discussion in Paul F. Boller & John George, They Never Said It, Oxford Univ. Press, 1989, p. 126) [snopes]
You can order the book here and check for yourself.
This quotation is a classic anti-semitic hoax, evidently begun during or just before World War Two by American Nazi sympathizers, and since then has been repeated, for example, in foreign propaganda directed at Americans. In fact it is knitted from two separate letters by Washington, in reverse chronology, neither of them mentioning Jews. The first part of this forgery are taken from Washington's letter to Edmund Pendleton, Nov. 1, 1779 {and the original can be found in the Library of Congress's online service here. I have tried to reproduce Washington's spelling and punctuation exactly. In that letter Washington complains about black marketeers and others undermining the purchasing power of colonial currency:
... but I am under no apprehension of a capital injury from ay other source than that of the continual depreciation of our Money. This indeed is truly alarming, and of so serious a nature that every other effort is in vain unless something can be done to restore its credit. .... Where this has been the policy (in Connecticut for instance) the prices of every article have fallen and the money consequently is in demand; but in the other States you can scarce get a single thing for it, and yet it is with-held from the public by speculators, while every thing that can be useful to the public is engrossed by this tribe of black gentry, who work more effectually against us that the enemys Arms; and are a hundd. times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in.
The second part of this fabricated quote is from Washington's letter to Joseph Reed, Dec. 12, 1778 and can be found at the Library of Congress here, which again condemns war profiteers (the parenthetical list in the quotation is Washington's own words which he put there in parentheses):
It gives me very sincere pleasure to find that there is likely to be a coalition ... so well disposed to second your endeavours in bringing those murderers of our cause (the monopolizers, forestallers, and engrossers) to condign punishment. It is much to be lamented that each State long ere this has not hunted them down as the pests of society, and the greatest Enemys we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that one of the most attrocious of each State was hung in Gibbets upons a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment in my opinion is too great for the Man who can build his greatness upon his Country's ruin.
As for the Franklin bollocks about vampires, it's so common, it has it's own wiki page.
Seriously. Muppet. You can critique Bernanke for "undermining the purchasing power of colonial currency" without going full frothing AntiJewtard. Unless you're here simply to muddy the waters, eh? Astroturfing on the payroll? Does your IP lead interesting places?
At what point do we ignore the words of cunts like this?
Really?!
Why are we even giving a shit on what this lying pirate has to say? What hold does this cockwipe have over us? Why does ZeroHedge even give a fuck what he had to say?
If a respectable and widely read fringe blog doesn't call Munger out for his BS, who will?
The mainstream or bloomturd media?
A tinfoil hatter blog with a tiny readership of basement couch dwellers?
It's an opportunity to enlighten the dim, and certainly justified by the ZH subscription price
Munger says: "You can not trust bankers to control themselves. They are like heroin addicts." How is he wrong?
If I was 88 years old and had lived a life like Munger's, I would be a very happy(rich) man. At least Munger had the guts to say the above on CNBS.
Buffettoon would never say anything like that. If he did, he'd be cut off from taking part in "once in a lifetime" inside deals with the likes of Lloyd Blankfiend and Jamie (best banker there is) Demon.
"gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939 but civilized people don't buy gold - they invest in productive businesses."
Here's where I think Munger falls short on gold. We are no longer a civilized people. We are fast approaching a "Jewish Family in Vienna" like scenario. This has largely been brought on by the heroin addicted bankers that he has correctly called out. Addicts do strange things when they are strung out and need another fix. It's fixin to get worse.
Munger, very near his death bed, hopes the world will continue as he has known it. We all know hope is not a strategy.
P.S.: Anyone seen an extremely heavy black wool overcoat - likely soaking wet? Seem to have lost mine on a recent Great Lakes Ferry trip.
Junk away.
I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm saying he's a self serving hypocrite, albeit a more straightforward one then his buddy Warren. If he can't trust bankers to control themselves, and they are like heroin addicts- then what is doing backing John Stumpf and this 3 trillion derivative book or Brian Moynihan and his 50 trillion derivative book, that he has transferred to the deposit bank? He isn't telling them to control themselves or cut back on their heroin habit. At least JPMs depositor base is more institutional than Wells or BofAs-
Hmm.. bankers and heroin. What does that remind me of?
It's a mystery that has got British law enforcement officials and others across the planet scratching their heads. Put bluntly, enough heroin to supply the world's demand for years has simply disappeared...
Theory 2: Vast quantities of heroin and morphine are being stockpiled. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UNODC is convinced that is the only explanation. In a recent bulletin he issues an urgent order: 'Find the missing opium.' "As a priority, intelligence services[1] need to examine who holds this surplus, where it may go, and for what purpose" he says. "We know little about these stockpiles of drugs, besides that they are not in the hands of farmers."
Further credibility is given to the stockpiling theory in that 'farm-gate' prices for opium remain pretty stable at about $70 per kilo.[BBC 2008]
Let's look at a regional producer 2008
Let's put that production against Global figures 2007
Quite the mystery. What does economics say about stockpiling, and the reasons thereof? (Hint: it's either price protection or you're saving up for a time of scarcity).
Zoinks!
Let's forward to 2013!
According to the UNODC, quoted in the EMCDDA report:
“an estimated 3 400 tonnes of Afghan opium was not transformed into heroin or morphine in 2011. Compared with previous years, this is an exceptionally high proportion of the total crop, representing nearly 60 % of the Afghan opium harvest and close to 50 % of the global harvest in 2011.
What the UNODC, –whose mandate is to support the prevention of organized criminal activity– has done is to obfuscate the size and criminal nature of the Afghan drug trade, intimating –without evidence– that a large part of the opium is no longer channeled towards the illegal heroin market.
In 2012 according to the UNODC, farmgate prices for opium were of the order of $196 per kg...
The profits are largely reaped at the level of the international wholesale and retail markets of heroin as well as in the process of money laundering in Western banking institutions.
The revenues derived from the global trade in heroin constitute a multibillion dollar bonanza for financial institutions and organized crime.[source April 13th 2013] EU Drug Markets report 2013 [Warning: PDF]
tl;dr
In the past few years of US involvement in Afghanistan, farm gate prices for opium (i.e. on the ground, not after shipping) went from $70 to $196 / kg, while production has increased. UNODC claims that 60% of the crop isn't being turned into heroin, yet it's still getting bought from the producers.
So... in 2008 vast amounts of processed heroin "disappeared"; in 2013 with a large % rise in price, 50% is not being processed (can you eat opium? seeds for McDonald's buns perhaps? Just watch out for 4 year jail terms for it though) ~ there seems to be some disconnect here.
That's trickle down we can believe in.
[1] By "intelligence services" we assume he's not asking the CIA, or he's doing that European *wink wink* thing. Ghost money is quite the political hot potato at the moment.
The raw (latex) opium is being processed into refined opium. However, the refined opium is being used as either money or collateral to purchase needed items I.e. land cruisers, farm equipment, generators. Spin boldak and torkham are the exit points for opium to be further transitted to Karachi, Dubai and then the world.
In regards to Dubai - the construction boom which has about 90% of the worlds sky cranes is due to opium and NOT oil. Imagine that!
That's interesting; suffice to say, I don't know anything about the processing chain of opium / heroin, apart from to note the huge rise of it in the ex-Soviet block and Asia. Poking around researching the topic regarding Dubai is probably not something I want to do bare-back.
This might be a cheap shot, but I find it slightly ironic that a nation with a military force on the ground with a known history of using agent orange and defoliants (cf; Colombia & RoundupTM [warning: PDF]) has decided to not purge the country on the basis of "humanitarian grounds".
Colombia, demonstrated that aerial spraying of defoliants under the US ‘Plan Colombia’ programme has had the unintended consequence of defoliating not only coca but also contiguous and interspersed native forest and food crop parcels.... While this research should not be used to indict the UNODC or the organizations responsible for spraying, it should serve as a warning that the published reports on drug war results are open to interpretation and that some of the anecdotal, and usually dismissed, claims of misapplication of spraying may, in fact, be true. As demonstrated here, significant numbers of other non-coca land cover classes have been affected adversely. (from the report, above, funded by NASA, which is why you shouldn't be de-funding it)
I'm sure the two situations are totally different however.
The reason that there is no chemical spraying is that Karzai said that utilizing chemicals for eradication was chemical warfare. Hence manual eradication.
However, with that said, the department of states Bureau of International Narcotics Law Enforcement (INL) developed a triad model partnered with USAID, United Kingdom Embassy-Kabul and other various agencies with this:
1. Eradication - INL, UKEK
2. Agricultural Development (with alternatives to poppy) - USAID
3. Personality Targetting - DEA, UKEK, TF
The interesting thing about this triad, was that the British Foreign Officer Consul in Lashkar-Gah (Helmand Province) paid the farmers in Nad-I-Ali district nd other districts NOT TO GROW poppy! That particular program started on 2006.
As with the Alternatives, it is hard to grow wheat, when there is no market for it, has a low return, no functional road system and no milling capabilities whatsoever.
As far as drug lord personality Targetting, well let me tell you about this, after a few drams of whiskey, a nice habana and a few days. Because the Targetting of NARCO bad guys is really about disrupting the money game.
The Americans bought it!
That was my assumption. The question is what they then did with it; splashing burning mountains of opium all over the news seems an obvious PR move, and yet it's never happened. I'm also surprised that no-one jumped in with major Pharma partnerships to produce legalized heroin production infrastructure - so then I went and used some Google-fu.
I've just learnt about the legal trade (this article was very useful; I lack the knowledge to spot any bias straight off, but it seems sourced / legit), 40% from Tasmania of all places (we wonder at the logging trade / deforestation intersect, if any), and six countries using 79% of the legal global supply in 2003 (!!), the Senlis Council proposition (which suggested exactly my initial thought) and even the branding that's done in the illegal market (the lions seem a little snarky, considering opium's history).
To put a Capitalist hat on, it seems the real issue is only six countries use the majority of the legal supply (I'm not going to touch upon over-prescription in the USA / legal addiction that I know are huge issues) ~ if more countries were included in the legal supply, presumably the illegal trade would diminish, and cash / power would flow to Corporations rather than warlords.
But Indian opium production is also viable because it benefits from a preferential access to the large US market in spite of very high opiates production costs: in 1999 the production costs for the equivalent of 1 kilogramme of morphine was US$ 56 in Australia, under the CPS system, compared to US$ 159.77 in India. In Afghanistan, the production of one kilogramme of morphine equivalent is approximately US$ 450[12]. At such a price legal Afghan opiates could hardly be marketed. Afghan CPS production is also very unlikely because shifting to the CPS method would only increase national agricultural unemployment and poverty. In any case, such a shift would be most difficult to implement for CPS production requires considerable water inputs not readily available in Afghanistan.
So basically, Afgan lacks infrastructure, water and secondary markets to actually make a viable market for their main export, unless it's through illegal channels.
FUBAR. I guess they'd better pray the mining companies are nice to them.
Thanks for the reply btw, interesting diversion for an hour.
Over 90% of the illicit opium (and derivatives) comes from Afghanistan. 80% of the worlds LICIT opium comes from the KASHMIR area!!!big pharma is ALL READY there! The sectarian strife is a smokescreen
Paid for instability.
big pharma is ALL READY there!
and therein lies the answer
I have spent many YEARS in Afghanistan!!
Munger's right.
Full Reserve Banking solves the problem.
can you trust government to control themselves ? Oh wait they are he same bunch.
Is this the guy who said to suck it up and cope, to people who are not rich like him?
He likes the Fed, but doesn't like centralized planning?
He didn't say much about trusting insurance companys.