In addition, the Mexican Mafia regulates drive-by shootings…because any particular street gang only suffers a portion of the increased attention of law enforcement from drive-by shootings, each street gang has an incentive to do too-many (Buchanan 1973).
A blog by Silas Barta
Friday, October 21, 2011
You know you're an economist when ...
... you find yourself needing to cite “Buchanan 1973″ when claiming that gangs want to do “too many” drive-by shootings.
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2 comments:
This is not humour, this is the foundations of a nation state. The average Mexican should be paying tax to the police to protect them from the gangs, and paying tax to the gangs to protect them from the police. Violence is a commodity, no different to gold or oil. It's tradable too.
Come to think of it, the Mexican gangs might consider starting the printing of their own fiat currency, and then insist that all protection money be paid in that currency. Could be interesting.
The classic “you know you’re an economist when…” idea, where everyday habits and ways of thinking get filtered through economic concepts like incentives, opportunity cost, and marginal thinking. It plays on the stereotype that economists tend to interpret normal life situations in terms of models and decision-making logic rather than just intuition, which is part joke and part accurate description of how the discipline trains you to think. On a different note, if you’re also working through academic writing or research projects, this thesis writing service UK can be useful when you need structured support with planning and writing more complex work.
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