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Global Economic Collapse Means Boom Times for Criminal Syndicates

By Michael T. Klare, Tomdispatch.com. Posted April 7, 2009.


In a world on the brink, we must offer a global stimulus or else face an epidemic of global crime.

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In all catastrophes, there are always winners among the host of losers and victims. Bad times, like good ones, generate profits for someone. In the case of the present global economic meltdown, with our world at the brink and up to 50 million people potentially losing their jobs by the end of this year, one winner is likely to be criminal activity and crime syndicates. From Mexico to Africa, Russia to China, the pool of the desperate and the bribable is expanding exponentially, pointing to a sharp upturn in global crime. As illicit profits rise, so will violence in the turf wars among competing crime syndicates and in the desperate efforts by panicked governments to put a clamp on criminal activity.

Take Mexico, just now in the headlines. In late March, during her first trip there as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was repeatedly asked about the burst of narcotics-related violence in that country, the thousands of deaths that have gone with it, the patent inability of the Mexican military to contain, no less repress, the drug trade, and the possibility that the country might be at risk of becoming a "failed state." Mexico itself may not be in danger of collapse, she replied diplomatically, but a very real danger threatens both countries from a rise in violent crime along the U.S.-Mexican border. "The criminals and kingpins spreading violence are trying to corrode the foundations of law, order, friendship, and trust between us," she declared at a press conference in Mexico City. To counter this danger, the secretary of state promised a militarized response that reflected the level of danger she imagined -- a significant increase in U.S. anti-narcotics assistance, including the expedited delivery of Black Hawk helicopters.

The Mexican drug trade itself is nothing new. The illicit export traffic to the United States and the ensuing bloody competition among drug traffickers for access to the U.S. market have long concerned U.S. and Mexican law enforcement authorities. In the last two years, however, the violence associated with this commerce has grown to unprecedented levels as the leading crime syndicates -- the Juárez Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, and Los Zetas -- have successfully resisted a fierce government crackdown, while fighting among themselves for control over key border access points. According to Mexico's Attorney General, Eduardo Medina-Mora, 5,376 Mexicans were killed in drug-related violence in the first 11 months of 2008 compared to 2,477 during the same period in 2007, an increase of 117%. And as times get ever tougher for ordinary Mexicans, recruiting for the trade grows ever easier while the killings only multiply. U.S. law enforcement officials now believe inter-gang warfare is spilling into the United States in a serious way, producing rising murder rates in border states like Arizona, California, and Texas.

The ongoing slaughter in Mexico may be monopolizing overseas crime headlines, but other parts of the world have also seen sharp rises in criminal violence in 2008 and the early months of 2009 as the global economic crisis has deepened. With legal jobs disappearing, growing numbers of unemployed youth are unsurprisingly drawn to what's still available -- illicit professions or jobs in the military and police that, in many countries, are ill-paid but allow access to bribes. Just such a process appears to be under way in impoverished parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Drug Traffickers and Pirates

In fact, it's an irony that, as global trading and other aspects of economic globalization are breaking down, crime may be globalizing. Consider recent developments in Guinea-Bissau and Peru, when it comes to the growing reach and savagery of Latin America's drug traffickers.

On March 1st, in Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony on the west coast of Africa, unknown assailants killed Army Chief of Staff General Batiste Tagme Na Waie and President João Bernardo Vieira within hours of each other. The two men had long been political rivals, and it is widely believed that President Vieira was behind Na Waie's assassination and was then killed in retaliation by members of the country's security forces.


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See more stories tagged with: crime, globalization, financial collapse

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency.

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tough times ahead
Posted by: chance garden on Apr 7, 2009 1:12 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So what we have here are global societies that are now completely corrupt at the highest levels with the illicit marriage of the Banksters with the FED PolitiCONS...then the narco-tribes at the other end...both groups now sqeezing the Middle with deconstruction and terror...Both group making us promises of "protection" and depriving us of our rights in the name of "security"...The rise of the International Syndicate State, with their "International Police Forces" composed of thieves and violent criminals to "protect us all" in one form or another...Yes, indeed, there are tough times ahead for us all...but don't worry Scarlet, after all, tomorrow is another day!

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» But Scarlet.... Posted by: floridahank
We Have Our Own Crime Syndicate: Wall Street Banksters
Posted by: mmckinl on Apr 7, 2009 1:24 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And they are raping and pillaging our economy and our treasury ...

Neoliberalism has come home to roost and thanks to "The Shock Doctrine" Americans are only now waking up to the damage that the MSM, Presidential~Congressional and Financial Crime Syndicate have successfully hidden from their view for over 25 years.

Yep ... the Global Economic Collapse Means Boom Times for Criminal Syndicates ... But the greedy bastards have gone too far this time. Whether America has the back bone to discard and overthrow the criminals that have brought us to the brink of ruin, is another matter.

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Goldman Sachs: a criminal gang
Posted by: DrBrian on Apr 7, 2009 2:33 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The above two posts are correct; Goldman Sachs makes the Medellin and Cali cartels look like amateurs. They may have bought off Congress and Obama, and in the past purchased exemption from regulation, but fraud is and has always been a crime.

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Violence in all the 'safe' places
Posted by: weathered on Apr 7, 2009 3:43 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the Hamptons/Bozeman/Aspen.....this will not be pretty.

What's truly tragic is it Never had to get like this, ever!

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The media keeps predicting this
Posted by: LTBROWN on Apr 7, 2009 4:33 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Like you guys want it to happen. I don't subscribe to that type of thinking, that, "If you say it enough times, it will come to pass."
Stop scripting it, for God's sake.

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Sorry, this comment has been removed from the system.
sorry Prof, food stamps won't do it
Posted by: johnwinthrop on Apr 7, 2009 4:38 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Prof Klare, who certainly has fingered state terrorism and cooperation with global corporations before, has it wrong this time. A global welfare("stimulus") program isn't going to stop Russian gangs or Somali warlords from recruitment of youth. Crime pays. Well. It was growing during good times and it will as he predicts, do better in bad times.

Jobtraining young people as computer operators(to replace US workers?) or giving food to the hungry in East Africa provides neither the thrills, compensation nor sense of power being part of a gang does. For what is a nation state but a big gang? These excolonies(and Russia is but an exCommunistcolony,dear Alternet/fellowtravelers), are failed states, not states. The West in the end may have to use its WMDs, that it obsessed about concerning Iraq, to limit and depopulate these potential centers of world barbarism. IF you think the American people are now so sensitive to human rights after Gitmo and Obama/Holder, think again. One more big terror incident and screw habeus corpus, the US Supreme Court and the Geneva Convention.

Or, we can simply embrace, even more vigorously than now,multiculturalism and diversity, and welcome the hoodlums of the world into our already rotting economy and into our neighborhoods. They certainly won't lower the dreadful quality of our Liberal-run public schools.

Drug dealers are good at math; maybe they'll increase the math scores of the public schools. Or like the Romans, we can put the invaders to work as our internal security force.

That will settle Bloods and Crips down for a while and put fear into the lower regions of MS13 members. But then the Somali, Indian, Congolese and Russian hoodlums will be running the USA.

Hoodlums running the USA! Can you imagine? Larry Summers will have to cut them in on his hedge funds!

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China
Posted by: Urgelt on Apr 7, 2009 6:12 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I think China will be forced to expand its military by the economic downturn.

They need to do it to quell social unrest. They need it to do it to reduce unemployment. And they need to do it to wrest land and resources from their neighbors, because with trade in decline, China is in serious trouble. Their population is simply too large for their resources. If they don't solve that problem somehow, the ruling class will be vulnerable.

Japan felt similar pressures in the 1930's. They had inadequate markets, as they were largely frozen out by Britain and the US. They lived on a resource-poor land. They expanded their military to combat unemployment, and then had the means to open markets and obtain resources. Thus was the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere born - a program of conquest.

To China's north, Siberia beckons. It is a conquered territory occupied by a foreign power, Russia. It is thinly populated and amazingly resource-rich. If China could secure Siberia, it would solve its problems and be in a position to dominate the world economy for the rest of the 21st Century.

Russia poses a serious obstacle, being a nation with nuclear weapons. But if Russia itself fractures under its own internal pressures, an opportunity may arise for heavily-militarized China. That fracturing is quite possible. Russia is no less an empire than the USSR was and is subject to the same historical forces. If it falls into civil war, China may see opportunity in it.

A Chinese adventure in Siberia would dismay much of the world, especially Japan, which has much to fear from a China grown so powerful.

We are all playing with fire. It strikes me as quite possible that history will write of our times that Wall Street fraud led to a world war, perhaps the worst of them all.

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» Why? Posted by: godsbreath64
» Give me a break... Posted by: Pirate1
Don't click on that link (IDENTITY THEFT!)
Posted by: GuitarBill on Apr 7, 2009 9:21 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This scumbag is not trying to protect your privacy; he's trying to steal your identity.

If you click on his "Privacy Center" hyperlink, the server the link points to will install a keylogger on your computer, which is used to steal your credit card number, SSN, etc.

Please, report the comment to Alternet's staff.

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No more global stimulus crap. Localization and decentralization are the way.
Posted by: JenniferBedingfield on Apr 7, 2009 8:08 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All this globalization crap going on is nothing more than corporatist centralization and it's all based on "cheap oil". Well, what happens when the oil runs out? We'll just spread out, go local and decentralize. From there, we'll do some fair trading for a change and put quality over quantity. Let the global economy collapse already. If the author wants to call us criminals for choosing to go local and decentralize, to hell with him.

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Global Crime? Dude, We're Already There.
Posted by: rastaman on Apr 7, 2009 8:14 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
and the crime boss is sitting in the whitehouse

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» "Ho. Ho." may you know your shame. Posted by: godsbreath64
some of it's simple
Posted by: Outspokengrandmother on Apr 7, 2009 8:30 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
1. Use existing laws to break up the huge cartels that are ruining our economy.
2. Let the big banks fail.
3. Legalize the drugs and take out the profits. Tax the hell out of the sale of drugs and give the profits to the States
4. Put back Sarbanes Oxley and regulate the Hell out of Wall Street.
5. Start taxing Wall Street like the rest of us are taxed to reduce our national debt.
6. Put in huge tax incentives to get off oil.

Of course I don't owe Wall Street my political career - which means
7. Make it impossible to buy politicians by strictly limiting the amount they can spend and receive and from whom they can receive it.
8. Make a law that governs the employment of spouses of politicians and judges so we don't get people like DeLaura of Connecticut doing the bidding of Monsanto, the company that employs her husband.

Having said all that,,,I no longer believe we have a snowballs chance in Hell of recovering from the neo cons and the neo liberals. I think we're going back to a feudal state. and i'm trying to figure out how to be a "have."

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» Merlin U Posted by: johnwinthrop
BA
Posted by: mnstra on Apr 7, 2009 8:55 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Boy Tom you got a nerve implying that a crime wave will spread as a result of the melt down. What are you a shill for the corporate elite.?
You Try to change the subject away form the thieves in congress and the so called finance industry. The rape has been done.A thousand Bin ladens could not have done the damage that the banks and AIG and congress have done up to now.
Wake up...........And the presidents,

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GIVE PEOPLE BUILDING JOBS
Posted by: eosrk on Apr 7, 2009 10:15 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
it's that simple, rebuild and improve the waterways, hiways bridges, roads, I mean, do these educated fools realized this yet or DO I NEED TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2012!!!

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Solution?
Posted by: S.H. on Apr 7, 2009 11:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
With all due respect to Professor Klare, especially, most simply, as a fellow human being. I would suggest he presents much argument in support of his opening paragraph assertion: "From Mexico to Africa, Russia to China, the pool of the desperate and the bribable is expanding exponentially, pointing to a sharp upturn in global crime."

He goes on for numerous, paragraph by paragraph assertions of examples, to support his stated thesis, extending on his paragraphed examples for pages. Many, if not all of his examples, skillfully setting forth in rather specific summary, evidence of the escalating violence, and its purported causes, as he seems to see it, in country by country, involving people throughout the populated parts of the globe.

He then concludes his article by a one sentence paragraph, barely entending into four (4) lines, inferencing a general, hardly specific solution, according to my reading: i.e., "Without a global stimulus effort aimed at those at greatest risk of destitution, hunger, and homelessness, expect an epidemic of global crime and boom times for criminal syndicates and cartels everywhere."

I do not know the person represented by the name (label) Professor Michael T. Klare -- either in person, or in what, in his being, motivates him -- though I do accept him as a fellow human being as passing through this human condition, with the rest of us, called "life".

That said, in my view, Professor Klare, in his article leaves out, arguably, in case after case reference to the gigantic crimes already perpetrated, and continuing to this very moment, by those of the governing elites whom we have tolerated by allowing them to remain in their positions of (mis)-leadership, throughout the world, and have led us to this "crisis" Professor Klare references.

To me it seems, We the People, in the "United States of America" in particular, have continued to tolerate the abuses of our "leaders", for, at least, more than a generation now -- at least, since the "uprisings" of the civil rights protests surrounding and including our Vietnam War Era.

Unfortunately,as it seems to me, in the end, Professor Klare seems to give us a solution stated vaguely, in a single sentence, amounting to much less than four full lines of text.

As to the specifics of his solution Professor Klare offers none, other than the vaguest reference. He offers us no more than suggesting a "global stimulus effort".

Does he mean something like the "stimulus packages" as offered from those running our U.S. governance? Two packages in short succession, beginning with TARP to the most recently passed stimulus package that will add, beyond any of our undstandings, through subsequent budgets, trillions of dollars more to our national debt, from which we can, perhaps not likely, even now, ever really "recover".

I will end here, leaving to others, who read this comment of mine, what conclusions they wish to reach, and what actions they wish to take to perhaps begin to slow our fall into what I will metophorically call the "Deep, Dark, Morass", into which our combined "foolishness" has, from my point of view, now led us -- perhaps now inextricably.

S.H.

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» stimulus? reach for your weapon. Posted by: johnwinthrop
» So let me clarify Posted by: johnwinthrop
By criminal syndicates do you mean the banks, corporations, and governments of the world?
Posted by: rafaeltoral on Apr 7, 2009 12:43 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I dont worry about the mob, I worry about the fed.

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Fair-trade cannabis, coca, opium
Posted by: DignityForAll on Apr 7, 2009 12:48 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Ending drug prohibition would help take profits away from smugglers and allow more money to reach impoverished farmers.

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» New video on coca farmers Posted by: DignityForAll
None of you, get Klare's Point. When the world economy tanks, the global criminals fill the gaps...
Posted by: yellow on Apr 7, 2009 2:28 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When the world economy tanks, the slack is taken up by deparite people. Drug lords, sex slave traders and arms peddlers all fill the gaps by hiring the poor and chronically unemployed into their ranks. When mainstream economies shrink, the underground economy, run by ruthless criminal, expands proportionately. In addition, it it obvious that societies that neglect the vast majority of people don't care about crime so long as only the average person is affected; why tax the rich, who live behind iron gates and electronic surveillance, to pay the rest of society's law enforcement bills?

This is now the world in which we all live. Again, it all comes down to social inequality.

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Most
Posted by: wormfarmer on Apr 7, 2009 2:57 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
of what I've read in the past few days has been dealing with the political / cultural shortcomings of both our system and our species. We, as a species must admit to our imperfection in that we are an envious, greedy society capable of devouring both ourselves and our planet. I've read a number of articles that have very sound and feasible places to start. We need to recognize that we have the tools to create a more honorable society, but we have to regulate ourselves, and not stray into gray ethical areas that will be up for debate. We must do this, or be subject to a cycle of dishonorable behaviors that will spell the end of our striving for a better society. If we don't do something positive soon, I fear the consequences.

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Klare is just a big fat slob of a professor and his article is making me hungry for another pizza !
Posted by: FLYING DOOFUS on Apr 7, 2009 6:18 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
MORE FOOD AND MORE TAX CUTS ! AND NO MORE WARS !

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We have our own version of Mexico.
Posted by: monkeywrench on Apr 7, 2009 10:17 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
" 'The criminals and kingpins spreading violence are trying to corrode the foundations of law, order, friendship, and trust between us,' she [Hilary Clinton] declared at a press conference in Mexico City."

Oh, I dunno; Here in the Good Ol' USA, our own Wall Street financial institutions seem to be doing a pretty good job of it all by themselves – and, with the government's help, doing it legally as well.

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We have our own version of Mexico.
Posted by: monkeywrench on Apr 7, 2009 10:17 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
" 'The criminals and kingpins spreading violence are trying to corrode the foundations of law, order, friendship, and trust between us,' she [Hilary Clinton] declared at a press conference in Mexico City."

Oh, I dunno; Here in the Good Ol' USA, our own Wall Street financial institutions seem to be doing a pretty good job of it all by themselves – and, with the government's help, doing it legally as well.

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There's a little bit of Mexico right here.
Posted by: monkeywrench on Apr 7, 2009 10:19 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
" 'The criminals and kingpins spreading violence are trying to corrode the foundations of law, order, friendship, and trust between us,' she [Hilary Clinton] declared at a press conference in Mexico City."

Oh, I dunno; Here in the Good Ol' USA, our own Wall Street financial institutions seem to be doing a pretty good job of it all by themselves – and, with the government's help, doing it legally as well.

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Sorry
Posted by: monkeywrench on Apr 7, 2009 10:21 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
AlterNet glitch = triple posting.

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From News of the Weird Column, 4/19:
Posted by: Overburdened Planet on Apr 20, 2009 5:06 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Tight Money: As Italy's banks (like so many others) curtailed lending during the global financial crisis, the country's 180,000 small businesses had nowhere to turn for liquidity except to the Mafia, whose lending continued (at ridiculous interest rates, of course), unrestricted by the recession, according to a March Washington Post dispatch from Rome. Organized crime in Italy collects an estimate of the equivalent of $315 million a week. [Washington Post, 3-1-09]

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