[notch898a]

It's occurred to me, but this happens even in places where tourists basically aren't found and there is no well oiled machine for it even be worth the cartel's time to like keep watch for tourists and call the police to shake them down. That and the cartel can just straight up roll up with guns and take all your shit, why wouldn't they just do that if they wanted your money? Instead you find the cartels want nothing and the police want a bribe that would amount to very little for the cartels and not at all worth some arrangement picking up pennies with bumfuck police that almost never see a tourist.

[SlickNixon]

You're making a number of assumptions for what's required in this process beyond "shake down any tourists you like and give us a cut when you do (or we'll kill you)".

>That and the cartel can just straight up roll up with guns and take all your shit, why wouldn't they just do that if they wanted your money?

Being robbed by the government is more palatable to tourists. Would you travel to a place where ununiformed criminals shook you down for $100 a day?

[notch898a]

>"shake down any tourists you like and give us a cut when you do (or we'll kill you)".

What you are describing is a tax. A tax is generally understood to reduce an activity which is why cigarettes etc are highly taxed. Not sure this is making the argument you think it is. In fact you are describing a system where the cartel disincentives this behavior, by making it less profitable.

>Being robbed by the government is more palatable to tourists.

Hard disagree with this one.

[SlickNixon]

> What you are describing... by making it less profitable.

Absolutely correct and totally irrelevant to the original point, which was that the administrative overhead for the cartel is vanishingly small.

>Hard disagree

It was palatable enough for you to travel to Mexico.

[notch898a]

I mean yeah, but I've also travelled as a private citizen to a number of places that someone politically-uncorrect would call "3rd world shitholes" like Iraq, Syria, etc. I've travelled places where I've been handed an AK by the locals and basically told "good fucking luck, try not to die." I'll go pretty much anywhere; I've been shot at, I've been robbed, I've been pushed out of cars abandoned in the middle of nowhere, I've had my shit jacked before and I generally not hold it against the police or the country in general if ununiformed criminals do that.

This is purely a matter of opinion but being told I have to worry about the cartels and the police is a bigger pill to swallow than just worrying about the cartels. The fact I personally was willing to go doesn't indicate I find being robbed in uniform more palatable.

[SlickNixon]

The point is that a police uniform gives a veneer of respectability to robbery (they even call it something different--a bribe!) that a mugging does not posses, and presents as a routine matter instead of an assault or threat of violence (the threats there, of course, just less explicit). The uniform is a bone-stock, fundamental element of the police bribe dynamic. You can hard disagree that tourists find it more agreeable, but you need to throw out some kind of argument for why that is (more than just how hard ya are).

[notch898a]

Um the paragraph you appear to have interpreted as "how hard you are" was a response to my tolerance to travel to somewhere in Mexico (re: It was palatable enough for you to travel to Mexico.) I'm utterly baffled you took that as a reply to something else, but I'm pretty sure in any case that characterization was bad faith. The whole point was not that I find it "palatable" but that I'm willing to travel to unpalatable places.

In any case, you're telling me I "need" this or that to disagree with a mere opinion about "palate", which is just insane. An opinion cannot be proved, I think you know this, and I don't see you offering some kind of poll that samples tourists about who they'd rather be robbed by or whatever you may be looking for either so I will disengage now.