Narconomics

How to Run a Drug Cartel

De: Tom Wainwright

Narrado por: 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!

Matching legit and narco biz, poses questions

This book has a nice disciplined matching of corporate structures and ideas with the illicit business. How does a business hold onto employees and customers? What would full-body tattoos have to do with it? What is the interaction between people at street level and government when illicit drug business, and the related subcultures such as gang cultures, assume such large proportions in the local daily life and economy? How does this differ, not least in government strategies, in a developed economy full of customers, such as USA, and an agrarian economy full of poor subsistence-level producers, as one finds in South America? This is a good refresher on business strategy, in a strange context. It is well told and listenable, with the author relating many encounters with people at all levels of this.

interesting read from an unusual perspective

written from an unusual perspective of looking at the drug trade as an everyday fortune 500 company

Interesting

It was interesting to examine the illegal drug trade from the perspective of an economist.

A New Perspective on an old problem

This is an outstanding book. I highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in the war on drugs, or in public policy more broadly. The author has a compelling style and a mastery of the crucial facts. As analysis, it's creative and interesting.

The reader is okay, and generally up to the task. However, you would think that in selecting a reader of a book about drug cartels and the economics of the drug trade, you would pick someone who knew how to pronounce Spanish words and names. After all, Latin America is a big part of the story.

The fascinating side of a dark economy

This book gives good insight on how the narcos run their business on a large scale. It gives good comparisons to fortune 500 companies. Overall this book was very enjoyable and easy to understand. For someone who is interested in business this is a useful look into how everything needs to be scaled for maximum revenue.