Thought of the Day

It's amusing to me when politicians and law enforcement personnel vilify gangsters, when the government and the mafia have a strikingly similar business model, albeit with different terminology. The mob murders people; the government fights wars. The mob has protection rackets; the government has taxes. The mob deals drugs; the government profits off the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders (and they kind of straight up deal drugs too, i.e. Iran-Contra affair and the Mena Connection). The mob traffics firearms; the government employs contractors like Halliburton and Lockheed-Martin (and they kind of straight up traffic weapons too, again i.e. Iran-Contra). The mob has numbers rackets; the government has state lotteries. The mob counterfeits money; the government prints fiat currency at a crippling rate, which it owes, with interest, to a private institution, essentially making the U.S. dollar an IOU rather than legal tender.