What are you currently reading in 2017?

[Backwards Observer]

The True Flag by Stephen Kinzer


Freak Show by Robert Bogdan

[Bill Moore]

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel
by Tom Wainwright

https://www.amazon.com/Narconomics-H...0&sr=1-1-spell

After reading this book, I feel fully qualified to run a drug cartel now. O.K., maybe not, but a fascinating read nonetheless that provides great insights not only into the cartel business from production to distribution, but provides great analysis based on economics on why are expensive drug war (globally, not limited to the U.S.) is failing miserably.

I would love to see this type of analysis conducted for COIN, and instead of listening to the same old tired theories being repeated, actually pull the data and analyze it objectively. It provides a very different, as it did for this study of cartels.

Not surprising, he explains how the DEA's focus for marijuana and cocaine coming from Mexico missed the shift to Meth and now Heroin. His point was the drug market changes frequently based on fads, yet law enforcement has been slow to adapt. He also points out that the crackdown on illegal immigration under Obama (yes its true) on the U.S. southern border, resulted in the Cartels moving into the human trafficking business and professionalizing it. It is a major paradigm shift from the coyotes leading people across the Arizona desert on a high risk crossing. Instead, the cartels move them to holding areas where they get three meals a day, medical care, and access to an internet caf so they can stay in contact with their families. The agreed upon prize to move them into the U.S. (roughly $1,500.00) comes with a guarantee. The traffickers will conduct as many attempts as required to get them into the U.S.

His analysis on the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado was interesting. As one law enforcement explained, there is nothing stopping people from buying it legally, and then driving across the border and selling it illegally. You're average Joe Blow is creating a new gray market. They did a cost analysis on how this will impact the cartels who still move marijuana and the cartels will be less competitive in most places outside of Texas (even more so that more states have legalized it). However, if the legalization trend continues, there is no reason Mexico won't grow it legally at a cheaper price and put the U.S. growers out of business eventually. Darn NAFTA.

He covered the drug trade in New Zealand, somewhat surprising to me, but a local music star Matt Bowden in NZ established a multimillion dollar business producing synthetic drugs for legal highs, always changing the formula to stay one step ahead of the law (until he couldn't). The author points out that relative safe drugs became more dangerous over time because they safer ones were outlawed. Interesting point, considering in other countries, certain drugs like ecstasy that were relatively safe, but the crack down on it, pushed the crowd into more dangerous drugs (supply and demand).

He didn't take easy on the cartels, he provided good coverage on the violence and what drives it and what tends to bring it down. At the end of the book he cited four mistakes we are making in the war on drugs:

1. The obsession with supply: He points out that the demand for drugs is inelastic, so even if we force the price of drugs up that will simply result in more money for the cartels. The producers get paid pennies anyway and that won't change. Obviously his point is to focus on demand, but we all know that is easier said than done.

2. Saving money early on and paying for it later: Back to point one, we are cutting costs by reducing funding for prevention programs, but increasing funds for law enforcement. Our bloated prison system is very expensive (even more so that we privatized much of it). He claims we're spending enough on fighting drugs, but we're spending it on the wrong things.

3. Acting nationally against a global business: I found his comments on target in this area. The richest countries are funding the UN's efforts to eradicate the crops in poor countries, so the rich countries are happy with the way the war is being fought even though it isn't making a difference. The drugs are not valuable at the production end, they're not valuable until they're a finished product ready for distribution, but we don't focus on that. Instead we're burning bridges with countries and their citizens in multiple developing nations to protect our citizens from their own bad habits?

He does point out this is changing, because the lines between producer and consumer are blurring, as developing countries with larger middle classes are now consuming drugs at an increasing pace.

4. Confusing prohibition with control: He uses the term balloon squeezing and herding cockroaches to capture the futility of trying enforce prohibition. He suggests that the legalization of marijuana so far appears to be mostly positive compared to trying to enforce prohibition, which is a very expensive and ineffective effort. What about harder drugs, he doesn't claim to have an answer, but points out that England, Switzerland and other European countries have already legalized heroin in a very limited way. Some doctors have permission to prescribe heroin free of charge to addicts. The idea is addicts are gradually able to wean themselves off, and since it is free the government has reduced the number of robberies they committed by 90%.

I think you'll enjoy the book.

[Backwards Observer]

Bear by Robert Greenfield


The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things by Bruce Sterling

[Backwards Observer]

The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber


The Lunatics of Terra by John Sladek

[Backwards Observer]

Endless Enemies by Jonathan Kwitny


Bad Moon Rising by Thomas M. Disch (editor)

[omarali50]

I just finished "The Silk Roads; a new history of the world" by Peter Frankopan.

My review is at Brownpundits.com


This is a frustrating, though still useful, book. Historian Peter Frankopan's title claims this is "a new history of the world". He then proposes that what the world needs is to reorient its focus from Europe to "the silk roads", vaguely defined by him as "the region between East and West.. from the Eastern shores of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean to the Himalayas". This almost certainly reflects the fact that the core of this region happens to his particular area of interest (Turkey, Persia, Central Asia and Russia) as a historian. Having made this decision, he has to force the rest of the story to keep coming back to this region, to somehow keep his argument afloat. My recurring thought on reading this book was that all this is unnecessary. He could have written a history of the region without pretending that this was the REAL history of the world, and it would have worked fine. Or he could have attempted a history of the world and not bothered with this tendentious framing. But he insists on doing both, and it causes endless (and needless) irritation.
...
In general, the account of recent events (the book ends with the recent American disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan) is too superficial to satisfy anyone who is genuinely interested in any particular theater of conflict, and too trite and formulaic to be categorized as a groundbreaking universal history. The last chapter is a good example of the irritating way he mixes occasional good insights with his need to fit everything into his original "silk roads as center of the world" thesis. He also has a tendency to rather pompously assert "the West needs to give up its current disastrous focus on X and step back and adopt the correct way of looking at things"; which is irritating because X is usually a straw man and the "correct way" is mostly a rewording of his unproven "center of the world" thesis.

My last point is bit hard to convey, but I will try: Frankopan displays absolutely no awareness of the fact that he himself is part and parcel of the institutions and society which he repeatedly dismisses as painfully naive and incompetent. #One gets the feeling that the author really believes that he and Oxford will be just fine, since they are somehow above the fray. As an (artificial) vantage point from which to write the book, this is not a bad idea, but when reading the book one gets the distinct impression that this is not just a strategic (and justifiable) vantage point, it is a thought that has really never crossed his mind. My point is this: a universal history is ultimately a reflection of the wisdom, insight, discernment and, yes, character, of the author. He is picking and choosing what few things to present out of a gigantic mass of materials, and#he decides how to frame it; and Peter Frankopan does not impress me in this regard. And being impressive in this regard does not always mean one has to agree with the author's conclusions. Christopher Beckwith (author of "Empire of the Silk Roads") may have many opinions I do not share, but he commands respect by his impressive and careful scholarship and his deeply thought out positions. In short, what he says has weight, even if I do not agree with his conclusion. Peter Frankopan does not match that standard. He may have access to more facts, but he is no Gibbon, and that knocks this book down a peg.

Still, the book is not without its redeeming features. He has read widely and there are genuine insights and nuggets of interesting information scattered throughout the book, making it worth your while. You would be well advised to suspend judgement about the frame in which he has chosen to frame them, and you should keep in the back of your mind the fact that all his minor facts are not necessarily correct.
Still, worth a read.

PS: for a really good book about the Silk Roads, one that will teach you new things and genuinely make you think new thoughts, check out Christopher Beckwith's "Empires of the Silk Road". Razib Khan has an excellent review.#

[flagg]

One Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Team, by Chris Fussell

https://www.amazon.com/One-Mission-L...dp/B01MTXIBL8/

Very good book.

Practical, applicable followup to the McChrystal "Team of Teams" book.

In a nutshell, it promotes a hybrid org that mixes solid line bureaucratic pyramids with the dotted lines of network clouds.