I live, mostly very happily, in Mexico. I just received official notice that I am under partial lockdown, and that might even be good news!!
“El Mencho”, the extremely dangerous nutcase boss of the “Jalisco New Generation” Cartel, has been killed by forces of the Mexican government, ending a de facto state of peace between the government and narcos.
We shall see how well the government has prepared for this moment, and what forms of madness this unlocks from the gangsters…
@flyerboys are you personally in danger? Do the narcos threaten civilian bystanders?
Wendy
I am quite safe, as are most Mexicans.
I grew up in Los Angeles and New York and frequented so-called “dangerous” neighborhoods since I was 7. I learned to fit in, to always look ahead especially at corners and turnings, and always to “read the scene” and be ready to leave or go on.
I think what the Mexican government is doing is intelligent, as I think it is mostly pre-planned drama that they wrote.
I think the semi-curfew is in place so as to maximize the availability of armed governmental forces, both police and other more army-like police types, away from regular work to be available anywhere needed after the top mobster was assasinated.
Just a couple observations after seeing the news earlier today. One FB friend is on a cruise ship, next stop was going to be PV, but now they are not stopping by due to the unsettled situation. My DD’s FIL owns a condo in PV, rents it when not needed for friends, family, we’ve been down a few times, always a fun trip. He hasn’t heard anything so far from the resort management, so we’re just watching, waiting… Hopefully this all gets sorted out, a lot of folks rely on tourism in PV and the area, has to hurt… Stay safe flyer!!
One of my good buddies lives in Pátzcuaro. He said the same thing. He and his family have lived through extortion attempts when he was younger. Mexico and its citizens deserve better!
The US had offered a $15m (£11m) reward for the capture of El Mencho, who was accused of smuggling huge quantities of cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine across its southern border. El Mencho’s cartel, which was founded about 16 years ago and had become Mexico’s most influential crime group, was also accused of attempting to assassinate Mexican government officials.
Senior US officials celebrated El Mencho’s killing, which follows months of pressure from Donald Trump over the influx of drugs and migrants across the 1,954-mile (3,145km) border between the two countries. The US president has even threatened military action against cartels that he has claimed “are running Mexico”. Writing on X, Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, called El Mencho “one of the bloodiest and most ruthless drug kingpins”. He posted: “This is a great development for Mexico, the US, Latin America, and the world.”
The US embassy in Mexico said that the operation was carried out by Mexican special forces “within the framework of bilateral cooperation, with US authorities providing complementary intelligence”.
The Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel, which specialises in intelligence collection on drug cartels, played a role in the military raid, a US defence official told Reuters. The taskforce was quietly launched late last year with the goal of mapping out networks of drug cartel members on both sides of the US-Mexico border, US officials said.
If only, as a country, we tried to do things that would bring down the demand for these drugs. Sigh.
Most “Market Economy” advoctes utterly refuse to contemplate market economics and drugs because, well, drugs are evil, and so actual thinking must take a back seat to
such as far better school education regarding
Aint gonna happen in my lifetime.
I watched the entire modern drug nightmare landscape come into being starting with idiotically vicious and utterly unsuccessful suppression of low scale marijuana culture (much of it culturally evolved over centuries) threw thousands of poor fools into jail while
Creating Freaking Drug Gangs Drowning in money and power world wide.
Dad did a great job with me and sibs, teaching us, carefully introducing us to substances and their uses and abuses.
bjurasz is wishing for the advanced course, but we need to start small
USE MARKET ECONOMICS TO CRUSH DRUG LORDS OR ALL IS HOPELESS AND GOVERNMENTS BECOME PAWNS OF THE DRUG LORDS.
Sadly the War on Drugs empowers the drug cartels. Another case of good intentions paving the road to hell.
The Captain
You are raging at the wind. For as long as there have been humans they have availed themselves of reality bending drugs. Native Americans and peyote. Hippies and LSD (mescaline, etc.) Roaring 20’s and alcohol. Psychotropic mushrooms were in use in mesoAmerca thousands of years ago, and have been found in cave paintings in Spain.
Beer and wine have been popular throughout the world, stills to refine alcohol have been found in 8th century ruins in the Middle East as well as decrepit barns in Appalachia in the last century.
You ain’t ever gonna “bring down the demand”, I don’t think. It’s inherent in humans.
And other species; heck even my cats go crazy for catnip.
While I totally agree with Goofy; there are ways to reduce demand. Reduce inequality, provide opportunity, offer hope to the population, and programs to address addiction.
JimA
News like this shows how quickly geopolitical risk can spill into markets. Lockdowns and unrest aren’t just headlines, they ripple through supply chains, tourism, and investor sentiment almost instantly. I try not to trade off shock value alone, but events like this definitely shift risk premiums. Situations tied to security always feel unpredictable, which makes position sizing even more important.
At the same time, the market effects of geopolitical shocks tend to be short lived.
DB2