:: ::

:: MAX BLACK ::

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --C.S. Lewis

"The Swiss pocket knife of conservative thought on the web..." - Eli Kardrakian

"Bookmark Max and dump your subscription to the newspaper; if you don't have a birdcage you really don't need it anyway..." - Shirley St. James

:: Sunday, June 13, 2004 ::

Cash Crop

Josh Chavetz is in Afghanistan touring agricultural sites and meeting with Afghani farmers. Understanding how these farmers live is a big part of finding solutions to the illicit opium trade in the region:

"Opium isn't just valuable as a cash crop, but as cash... and credit, too. The Afghan banking system collapsed over the decades of war and Communism, with the final blow delivered when the Taliban enforced a clumsy interest-free "Islamic" banking mandate and dismissed all female bank employees. Inflation soared, credit dried up. Only the central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank (Pashto for "Bank of Afghanistan", not ebonics for "The Afghanistan Bank") survived. Throughout rural Afghanistan, opium became the de facto currency, and opium traders paid local farmers a lump-sum in advance for their yearly crop -- in effect, a loan on highly advantageous terms for the traffickers. Even now that Afghanistan has a few banks and a stable currency, "narco-lenders" are still an important source of credit for many farmers.

The little opium-skull at the head of this post is from the UN, anti-opium, postal stamp. Go figure--a postal stamp for a country that doesn't even have a postal addresses.

:: Max 10:10 PM [+] ::
...

---