Narconomics

How to Run a Drug Cartel

By: Tom Wainwright

Narrated by: Brian Hutchison

What drug lords learned from big business.

How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the $300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.

And what can government learn to combat this scourge? By analyzing the cartels as companies, law enforcers might better understand how they work - and stop throwing away $100 billion a year in a futile effort to win the "war" against this global, highly organized business.

Your intrepid guide to the most exotic and brutal industry on earth is Tom Wainwright. Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers.

The cast of characters includes "Bin Laden", the Bolivian coca guide; "Old Lin", the Salvadoran gang leader; "Starboy", the millionaire New Zealand pill maker; and a cozy Mexican grandmother who cooks blueberry pancakes while plotting murder. Along with presidents, cops, and teenage hit men, they explain such matters as the business purpose for head-to-toe tattoos, how gangs decide whether to compete or collude, and why cartels care a surprising amount about corporate social responsibility.

More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them.

©2016 Tom Wainwright (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Awesome book

If you like Freakonomics or Gladwell, you'll love this book. I wish Tom Wainwright had written another book--I'd be buying it right now.

I'm Sold!!

The drug business from where an economist stands. I like it. The numbers are close accurate. Very important, since we so often hear inflated values on drug seizures and net worth in the sphere. The author tackles the subject from all angles. The narrator was easy to listen to.

Attention grabbing

There were definitely high points in the book that transported you to central America, and some really fascinating descriptions of how enforcement of drug policies has made zero impact. However, there were many points also that seemed to drone onwards. Overall, the narrator did an awesome job and the book kept my attention.

More than just the cost of a joint

It's more than a book on the economics. It draws parallels with other legal and non legal endeavors.

Amazing!

Amazing book from every perspective... enlightening, interesting, and applicable. The way he uses stories to demonstrate his theories is fascinating. The one critique I have is huge, which is that he never mentioned Portugal's decriminalization once, though he did mention others. He got that one VERY wrong! However, this book was recommended to me by a person who is heavily involved in fighting drug trafficking, and I am so glad I read it. Highly recommend! Now if only our leaders would decriminalize drugs... not so we could use them, but so we could control them and take away the power of the cartels!