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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Cartel violence largely occurs in the parts of Mexico not seeing the rise of investments.

For example, Monterrey and Nuevo León in general has always been fairly calm and it is a major hub globally for automotive, power electronics, and machining.

Most of the rise of criminalization in Mexico can be tied to the economic crises of the 1994-96 (peso crisis), 2001-03 (factories moving from Mexico to China), 2008-09 (collapse of automotive industry in the US, and then COVID (8.3% GDP contraction - one of the worst globally).

Whenever the Mexican economy recovers, criminality tends to recede.

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It really is a big issue. I'd say the biggest one, everywhere you go. Getting rid of drug-related crime and violence would double Mexico's GDP in a few years.

Source: Mexican.

I'm not denying it's an issue - it's a massive issue for massive swaths of Mexico.

In fact, Mexico could be growing even faster if organized crime is brought under control.

The fundamentals in Mexico are fairly strong (relatively high median household income, access to the largest market globally, decent enough social indicators) and good governance can carry it forward dramatically.

That said, we in the US could help much further by actually sanctioning Cartel organizations en masse, instead of doing it haphazardly as we are today. Similar economic warfare forced the Italian and Japanese governments to drastically crack down on organized crime in the 90s and 2010s respectively.

They're linked, but don't you think general corruption is even more damaging to Mexico? In cdmx we're quickly running out of water in major part due to corruption. Anyways, most cartel activity I've heard about from friends has been on highways, outside of major cities.

They both enable each other, after all bad people do plenty of bad things, not just one.

Cartel violence is present even is large urban centers, ask anybody who runs a moderately successful business.

True, although I always had the impression that the violence in large urban centers leaned towards "organized crime" and less "cartel" but that's just my impression.

> Whenever the Mexican economy recovers, criminality tends to recede.

Or could it be that whenever criminality recedes, the Mexican economy recovers?

Homicide rates seem to spike 1-2 years after a recession in Mexico, or at least based on comparisons of GDP Growth rate contractions and homicides per 10k [0][1].

And this does make sense - if you don't have a job, the cartel's offer is fairly competitive.

Also, those areas that tend to be the most violent are also part of the now largely defunct Maquiladora belt.

[0] - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/MEX/nor...

[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/MEX/mex...

At least in mexico, criminal violence is definitely tied to poverty.

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