22 September 2008

Read the news and that's what it looks like - anarchy.  Why?  My opinion: there is too much opportunity to get rich via roguery.  Looks something like the late middle ages when trade started to develop - the hinterlands were full of bandits waiting to strike.  It's all about rule of law and maintaining order - caravans had to travel with armed guards.  Why do that (work for law and order) while under constant threat of death or dismemberment when the bad guys can make so much more?  They seem to understand risk and reward better than the elite dudes on wall street who forgot about the risk factor.

Is it really that bad?  Mostly no, but it makes for news that's watched, so it's in our faces continually.  In some areas it is though.  Mexico for example, where the cartels opperate partly by buying up cops and soldiers.   The mountains on the border of Afghanistan?  That's all they have ever known.  Even Iraq where progress was being made.  If the Shi'a and Sunni can't get together they say the Sunnis are likely to hire out to the highest bidder.

And that's really what it's all about - the highest bidder.  There is so much money floating about - oil, drugs, but also legitimate money, such as inflated salaries that some pull down - that the temptation is very high in many place, and we all know what that means.  Have I ever mentioned greed?

But the end is in sight.  Really.  Either things will be brought under control and become a little more orderly (remember much of the world has always been like this, albeit with less opportunity) or the source of the money - us, the West - will just plumb dry up.  If we cut back on our use of oil and stopped buying drugs what do you think that would do to the world thugery markets?  Even cancelling going on cruises would have an effect.

So which way?  Anarchy?  Not in the U.S. but maybe elsewhere.  We have had a taste of it recently - sort of, and don't much care for it; we have had it too good for too long, and prefer it that way; what good is money without law and order?  And we still have police and armies that function.  Elsewhere?  Stay tuned; Zimbabwe is already there and so is Somalia; and there are others teetering.