Some random items of interest:
- Mexico's Zeta's bunkered $715 m in oil from Pemex last year: "The Zetas are a parallel government," said Eduardo Mendoza Arellano, a federal lawmaker who heads a national committee on energy. "They practically own vast stretches of the pipelines, from the highway to the very door of the oil companies."The Zetas earn millions of dollars by "taxing" the oil pipelines -- organizing the theft themselves or taking a cut from anyone who does the stealing, according to Mexican authorities. To steal the oil, Mexican authorities said, thieves sometimes use safe houses from where they build extensive tunnel networks leading to the pipelines. They fabricate powerful drills that enable them to puncture the highly pressurized steel pipes and extract the oil without causing spills or suspicious drops in pressure. Sounds familiar.
- Charlie Stross makes a good observation re: the use of drug profits to maintain liquidity during the banking crisis: What we've just seen, hidden in the euphemism here, is a confession that drug cartels and other organized criminals have gone on a $352Bn asset-buying spree — and the banks and regulators, world-wide, turned a blind eye to this because the alternative was to allow the banks to collapse. And the corollary is that these investments are now in the system, laundered, whitewashed, and legit. These narcodollars aren't neatly bundled up inside the mattress any more; they're in the system, doing their owners' bidding.
- Cory Doctrow's book Makers is available as a free download. Good way to get a feel for the coming tsunami of micro manufacturing. Thanks Cory. Wish I could do this with my book.
- Government transparency in action (another crime hidden from view).
- In case you missed this: Matt Taibbi has another fantastic editorial up.
- Blodget on how to make a billion without risk.