Yo Luke,<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I picked
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.opendna.com\/blog\/2003_09_14_mlp_archive.html#10636894100413540
\n4”>these
\noff one of my “industry” newsletters. Thought you might be moderately
\ninterested…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
‘What you up to these days? It looks like you’ve moved to a new firm, but
\nyou’re using same kick-ass webhost as before so maybe it’s just an alias.
\nAre you still in Jersey? Still living with homegirl? Have you started
\nraising a brood of berzerker goth toddlers who will sack the eastern
\nseaboard after episodes of “Dragon Ball Z”, pillaging liquer stores,
\nraping Verizon trucks and setting decent Starbucks-drinking folk
\nafire?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Just thought I’d ask. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I’m bored with this game of “strap on a hand-cannon and deport the
\nimpoverished illegal immigrant” and looking for something new. Something I
\ncan do in the private sector without attracting the attention of deranged
\nfederal investigators (e.g. migrant smuggling and child slavery) or hoping
\nimpoverished illegal immigrants can pay my bills (e.g. immigration law). I
\ncould do imm law for some big corp but… wow. There’s nothing appealing
\nabout trying to get the State Department\/INS\/Homeland Security trinity of
\nevil to hurry up. It might be possible with bribes, but I already
\nmentioned the deranged federal investigators…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
My job with the INS is all about keeping the filthy masses out of the US
\nso the rest of us can get paid more than we’re worth, or at least more
\nthan those heathens would work for. There’s a lesson in there about
\neconomics, but not one that anyone really wants to talk about. Anyway,
\nbecause of that inefficiency that I create the lucky bastards I’m fighting
\nagainst (smugglers and counterfeiters) get paid more for one smuggled
\nlittle girl than I make in a whole year (frequently $50,000 per
\nperson).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
See, I finally understood my econ lessons. And now I understand that that
\nprofits are found where there are inefficiencies in the system – where the
\nfree market hasn’t driven prices down to the cost of production. I suppose
\nif you’re really good you can just increase productivity and drive down
\ncosts so when competition forces prices down your profits are safe. But
\nI’m not that good. The only thing that separates me from the people I
\ndeport is a piece of paper saying I’m American and a bunch of other pieces
\nof paper. I can be honest and say that I have no competitive productive
\nskills whatsoever, and I’m not particularily proficient at the skills
\nneeded to be productive in this epoch (read: math). Really, I’m better at
\nexploiting opportunities and living off the inefficiencies of the system.
\nI’m not the deer that gets up in the morning and tries to run faster than
\nthe fastest lion, nor the lion who tries to be faster than the slowest
\ndeer. I’m more of a scavanger like a jackel or a buzzard. Or maybe I’m an
\neconomic parasite. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I’m thinking maybe I’ll become an import-export specialist, maybe a
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.clearedanddelivered.com\/cd_broker.html”>customs
\nbroker. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A customs broker is a guy who stands on the border and takes money for
\ndoing the paperwork for trade barriers and tariffs. At least here’s a
\ngovernment created inefficiency with clients who are rich – they bought
\nthe cargo and had it shipped across the globe, afterall. I figure there
\nare billions of containers of cargo that enter this country every year and
\nall I have to do is attach myself to a fraction of those and suck a few
\ndollars each one. I can’t run faster than a lion or a deer, but I can damn
\nsure run faster than a tapeworm. One thing I know about that line at the
\nborder is that it’s piled high with paperwork and where it’s digital the
\ncomputers are 8086s running some BBS written in Fortran and backed up on
\npunch cards. From what I’ve seen of the competitors, they aren’t much
\ndifferent. If I can’t increase productivity and extract unreasonable
\nprofits amongst those guys I might as well return to the trees and get my
\nass beat by primates. Mind you, the monkeys may still get the last laugh
\nbecause several
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.ups-scs.com\/services\/customs_broker.html”>of
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.itsfabry.com”>the
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.clearedanddelivered.com\/”>big
\nHREF=”http:\/\/www.maoinc.com\/”>boys are pretty high-tech.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“If you can’t eat your neighbor, go lower down the food chain,” as my
\ngrandfather used to say. Actually, he just said “lets go fishing” but I
\nunderstood what he meant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This is all a great unfolding mind-fuck of an epiphany for me. But at
\nleast it’s a plan with a philosophy I can live my life by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yo Luke, I picked HREF=”http:\/\/www.opendna.com\/blog\/2003_09_14_mlp_archive.html#10636894100413540 4”>these off one of my “industry” newsletters. Thought you might be moderately interested… ‘What you up to these days? It looks like you’ve moved to a new firm, but you’re using same kick-ass webhost as before so maybe it’s just an alias. Are you still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[20,27],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-long-wander","tag-immigration","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}