Things are looking bleak for English lower league and non-league football.
Two years ago it was Bury, last year it was Macclesfield Town, will it be Dover Athletic and Southend United’s turn to be bankrupted into non-existence this year?
Covid has made things worse, but this has been a problem that was about to happen for years now.
In neoliberal terms of analysis: these groups are working in a highly regulated market, and reaping the inevitable profits from that regulation, but are also working to maintain a favourably regulated space for themselves on Spain’s southern coast in order to reduce their core costs. One is led to ask the question, given the failure of both demand- and supply-side regulation to mitigate increasing negative externalities: might an overall structural market reform be the solution? 
It does sound like El Pais/The Guardian got a bunch of “honest crooks” to go on the record. I found the candour of the Napolitan Camorra enforcer to be particularly refreshing (or perhaps “bracing” is the word).
Last year, I was sad to see what’s happening in Mexico after watching a travel piece on Acapulco. Cartel-related crime in Puerto Rico and other popular tourist destinations in the Caribbean is increasing, too:
Not sure what these groups would do in a legal market, since they’ve spent so much time and money on controlling the illegal ones.
Not sure what these groups would do in a legal market, since they’ve spent so much time and money on controlling the illegal ones.
I’m sure in pure economic terms this is “Dutch Disease” (although, ironically, the El Pais/Guardian article does note Dutch gangs are prominent in Marbella). You would be looking at 20 years before the economies readjusted to other sources of income. I’m sure the Dutch and Canadian legalization stories will prove informative: drug consumption will drop after legalization and former “informal” drug industry people will move on to the next thing as margins shrink (ideally).
Unless we design our economies to provide employment opportunities that are more attractive than crime (and the mirror economy in enforcement/suppression) we’re likely stuck for now.
There has been commentary that it’s unfair that in now legal places cannabis sales are now the province of white folks with the money and bank connections to open stores and the black entrepreneurs who use to be the main source are left behind.
I’m guessing that there aren’t MORE Black weed dealers than white weed dealers… if more Black weed dealers ended up in jail, it’s because of racism in our criminal justice system. Whites dominate both the illegal and legal market, because we live in a white supremacist system. White people have more access to capital to open new businesses. I find it highly unlikely that the people who are dominating the legal weed business are former illegal drug dealers.
The biggest dealers I knew prior to legalization were White frat boys.
I find it highly unlikely that the people who are dominating the legal weed business are former illegal drug dealers.
Can’t comment on the U.S. side… especially with how I pronounce “shibboleth”… 
Here 
the bag gets a bit mixed not only by the medical cannabis companies’ head start, but with the general lack of profit to be made. We have a “personal use” 4-plant exemption and, based on the reports of an acquaintance, modern strains produce jaw-dropping amounts from 4 plants. Mix in a little neighbourly co-operation and you have a local surplus that can render the legal market a tad redundant. When street prices are lower than legal retail you know you have a problem.
Buy me a 
, however, and I will tell you a couple of entertaining stories of local entrepreneurs from well established Upper Canada demographics and their exploits in the space. “Dominate” is not a word that applies…
It is astonishing that the FA has allowed clubs like Macclesfield to die when their total debt was approximately the per-game salary of Manchester United’s second goalkeeper. (I saw this video the other day, right after the EPL team I support self-destructed. I’m thinking of switching to bowling or fishing as a sport to follow.)
(We were a Chicago Daily News family when I was growing up, and I’m still not a Tribune fan, but this is a major blow to news coverage in Chicago.)
Shit. Our neighbor down the hill was shouting in a more alarming way than usual, so we walked down our trail to see if everything was okay. She ended up shouting at us about 5G and how people were spying on her and there are no more dandelions (Narrator: there are), and claiming another neighbor called the cops on her and, and, and.
Anyway, last night I was sitting out on the porch alone at around 9 pm, and she goes walking by the house screaming up at me that I’m a nazi bitch and how dare I threaten to call the police on her (I didn’t) and tell her to shut up (also didn’t, though mr. Linkey did politely ask her to keep it down after 10 pm) and that she was going to break into our house and it’s illegal to spy on people…
I wish we’d never gone to check, and I don’t want to engage anymore than we already have, but I’d like to anonymously help hook her up with social services that might be able to help her. And I’m kind of scared of running into her on a regular walk on our rather rural road by the river.
Does anyone have any wisdom to share? I’d rather not involve law enforcement.
Get a big or bigger dog?
Which is to say, I’m sorry but I don’t know what to recommend. I hope she’s not actually dangerous. Has it been going on long? My experience is that people like that burn out or something before long, always hurting only themselves. Which is awful enough. I hope you don’t feel endangered.
does she have any family that you can reach out to?
Not cerebrally. I know the stats, and that she’s more likely to be the victim of violence than do violence on anyone else. But between her and the recent squirrel attack, my porch has gone from feeling like my safe haven to feeling a little scary! I’m half joking, and know I have it good, but it is crummy. So, while I know I’m not likely endangered, viscerally, it is scary to have a ripped and angry person directing her anger towards me. Kind of like inadvertently drawing the eye of Sauron upon one’s self.
I don’t know them personally, but the word in the neighborhood is that her brother is trying to get her evicted, so I don’t think it’s a good relationship. She seems to have taken over the property when her elderly mother went into hospice, and now it’s a familial property dispute.
It’s a good thought. I’m finding it morally difficult to balance my desire for her not to be put in a tougher position than she already is, and wanting her to stop loudly threatening me. I’ll err on the side of leaving her alone and trying to contact social services for now. Well, probably forever, unless she actually does anyone physical harm. Just sucks. I wish we had more well-funded and humanely-staffed programs in this country to help people.
I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this.
I think that social services is the best call. They can try to get help for her. I’d also let social services know what you’ve heard about her brother and that there might not be any family help for her. Let them know that you’re worried about her harming herself or maybe others, but you really don’t want to involve the police.
(I bet social services departments across the US are hearing that last part a lot lately.)
It may take several weeks for social services to make contact with her, so you might consider reaching out to them sooner rather than later. However, if things deteriorate further and you feel unsafe, please call the police. Do not feel guilty about doing that.
The leaflets reportedly found at the site warned of the “cleansing” of brothels, “degenerate homosexuals”, thieves and informants, and declared “Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.”
And people wonder why libertarian socialists hate tankies.
This Peruvian election is fucked up enough as it is. Do you vote for the left wing misogynist who wants to ban abortion, or the right wing misogynist whose father’s government force-sterilised women when they were in power?
I don’t think black dealers were the primary source, but they definitely got screwed on both sides of the legality coin… I think I’ve seen an article on legal weed, and there was only the one black owned supplier/grower at the time?
There was a cartoonist (Keith Knight… I remembered!) who had an idea I would have unreservedly supported, that considering blacks had been unproportionately affected by weed’s illegality, only black people could run legal weed businesses… It would have definitely been a good form of reparations for a recent injustice. Found the comic too: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em | The Nib
I may have met that guy when he gave me a lift from Tulsa to Oklahoma City. He was selling his trucking business, and wrapping things up before heading up to Washington state, where he was in place and set up to grow marijuana as soon as the legality came into effect.
This was a few years back, so I’m hoping that there are more now…
A quick search seems to indicate there are, though obviously this group represents growers, distributors and patients, among others: Who We Are – Minority Cannabis Business Association
