CASH, CROOKS, & COVID:
Microeconomics deals with the interaction of monies within a finite locale, so this is kind of a connect-the-dot on that perspective. With that in mind, one can extend the covid-19 pandemic in terms of the exchange of information as well as monies. The story begins in the jail of a small town about 50-miles outside Mobile, Alabama, in the early 2000’s decade. My ‘bunkie’ (cellmate) was a 30-something year old, white guy who had grown up in the area and dealt drugs since the days of his youth in high school. His school resource officer, an on-site hand of law enforcement for the school, would eventually become the Sheriff for the county and city of Mobile.
As anyone who has been in jail knows, cellmates become fast friends and share their stories. Howard, my ‘bunkie’, had many stories to tell from his days of selling weed in high school to cooking meth and trafficking in cocaine. Howard was the real deal when it came to selling drugs, but he also worked as an electrical apprentice re-wiring tankers or huge vessels in the local shipyards.
Howard & I spent nearly 10-months in that cell together as he waited to go onto state prison – my time there got extended with the dismissal of each of my twelve felony charges. After a while, the stories we told each other became more extensive with ever increasing detail. One such story was when Howard and a co-worker had travelled to New Orleans to pick up a ‘brick’ of cocaine – a prequel story of his bust with it. Anyway, long story short, the dealer in New Orleans was Vietnamese and Howard went to a party attended by many other Asians wherein he was to pick up the ‘merchandise’.
Normally such transactions are limited to intermediary persons who limit liability or exposure of someone higher-up in illegal organizations, but in this case Howard was being ‘recruited’. The ‘organization’ had done their homework. You see, Asians have a distinct advantage in the illegal black-markets of the U.S. as they are very tight-knit cliques, clans, or families with backgrounds easily traceable. But, at the same time this also inhibits their ability to expand.
I’m not sure Howard grasped the broader implications of this as he related his story about the party, but during the party he was asked to meet with ‘someone’ where he was shown a large room with many ‘bricks’ (kilos) of drugs stacked along the walls of the New Orleans warehouse. The ‘person’ he met with – also Asian – was obviously of great importance in the organization and asked Howard to take more ‘merchandise’ on consignment, but Howard only wanted that which he could pay for at the time; yet he resigned himself to more parties in the future if it were okay with his hosts. It was.
Howard was later arrested with that merchandise after he returned from New Orleans and this was the point of the story as he continued to dwell on the purity of the cocaine of which had the odor of ether – as opposed to diesel fuel – that resulted in a better product when used as a catalyst in the mixing process.
For those who aren’t aware, Southern Louisiana is home to a large population of Asian immigrants. I don’t know how it is they came to re-settle in the area after the Vietnam War, but it is conducive to fishing, as well as, a warm climate both of which would be an attraction I would assume. I do know that many Vietnamese in the surrounding areas of New Orleans were given a lump-sum payment upon their transition to the States from Nam after the war and many settled there. They used these lump-sum payments to buy fishing boats and open grocery stores.
Now our story takes us to the previous decade to a small fishing village about 100-miles west of New Orleans. Like any town in southern Lousy-Anna, it was close to the water which had ports and companies that supported the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico. My reason for being there was as a journeyman ironworker because the company I worked for was installing the steel in a bridge going over a river. Keep in mind that in the early 1990’s debit cards weren’t in use like they are today & travelling in different states all the time was a hassle when it came to cashing one’s paycheck because banks may not have branches there.
So, I’m working in this small town sweating my nuts off, bulling iron in the summer sun & losing 10 – 15lbs every day at work, but making good money along with about a hundred or so others on this bridge under construction. One bad thing about bridge work is each job is temporary. Once the bridge is built, it’s time to go elsewhere for another job. On payday I need cash for the local bar & whorehouses – of which there are many – and so do nearly all my co-workers. Through the jobsite grapevine we learn of a small Vietnamese restaurant close by which cashes checks; in-state, out-of-state, personal checks it didn’t matter. For a 3% surcharge this place cashed any check.
I took “Money & Banking” in college, and also from personal experience, I knew cash would become scarce in small communities after an influx of highly-paid workers on a short-term project, therefore most businesses could only afford to cash checks until the cash exceeded the local supply chain needed by the community on a normal basis. But, … that wasn’t the case here. At its peak the workers on this bridge project were so many that local rental properties were unavailable to house them all. Yet, somehow this small restaurant was able to supply the job’s workers with cash each & every week to the tune of 100’s of thousands of dollars without fails? How was that possible I would ask myself each week?
Now, fast-forward to present day & the corona virus where I turn on my TV to learn New Orleans is a ‘HotSpot’ for the COVID-19 virus pandemic, and I think to myself, “What the fuck would cause that backwoods shithole of a town to be a magnet for an international outbreak?”
HOW DO YOU THINK IT HAPPENED? LOL ;>)