Drug money saved banks in global crisis | Hacker News Reader

Drug money saved banks in global crisis

guardian.co.uk

29 pointsjakarta9 comments

"Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame."

...since when did saving us from economic collapse become a problem? If this isn't an argument for at least partially decriminalizing drugs, I don't know what is.

If drugs were legalized, this money would have never been outside the system in the first place, as gangs would be largely removed from the equation.

Here's an idea for a one-time stimulus: legalize drugs and offer amnesty to drug dealers who put their money in the bank. No questions asked, you can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash and open a bank account today.

How trusted is The Observer and guardian.co.uk?

I ask because dailymail.co.uk seems to be a very untrustworthy source.

It is my understanding that The Guardian is a highly regarded newspaper in the UK.

according to Wikipedia:

Awards Received

The Guardian has been awarded the National Newspaper of the Year in 1999 and 2006 by the British Press Awards, as well as being co-winner of the World's Best-designed Newspaper as awarded by the Society for News Design (2006). The guardian.co.uk website won the Best Newspaper category three years running in 2005, 2006 and 2007 Webby Awards, beating (in 2005) the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Variety.[103] It has been the winner for six years in a row of the British Press Awards for Best Electronic Daily Newspaper.[104] The site won an Eppy award from the US-based magazine Editor & Publisher in 2000 for the best-designed newspaper online service.[105] The website is known for its commentary on sporting events, particularly its over-by-over cricket commentary.

In 2007 the newspaper was ranked first in a study on transparency which analysed 25 mainstream English-language media vehicles, and which was conducted by the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda of the University of Maryland.[106] It scored 3.8 out of a possible 4.0.

I am not from the UK, but I tend to treat the Guardian like the New York Times. The articles tend to be well-researched and well-written, in my experience. (Both sites host blogs, though, which tend not to be well-researched or well-written.)

They're customers of ours and simonw (amongst others) works there. The Guardian are, by US terms, unrepentantly left-wing, but they're the finest unrepentantly left-wing newspaper in the world, bar none.

As someone who is from the UK, I'd agree with the comments from adw, jakarta and jrockway (the three comments that are currently replying to you). The only clarification I'd add is that while the Guardian is left-wing, it's not radically left-wing. i.e. they're broadly sensible (sorry if that's provocative, I can't phrase it any better), they're not in favour of communism, collectivism etc., they're not apologists for China/Cuba etc., and certainly don't hold back from criticizing the UK's (by ideology) left-wing governing party.

The Guardian and Observer are reputable news sources in the UK. Other reputable sources would include the Economist, the Times and the Independent, possibly also the Telegraph (it's suffered a decline in quality recently) and although satirical, Private Eye is also well regarded. The BBC is reputable, but not a newspaper.

The Daily Mail, Sun, Express are not as well regarded, and less likely to break stories of interest on the international scale. The Mail on Sunday tends to being more reliable, and has won accolades for its journalism, including Private Eye's Paul Foot awards (http://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul_foot.php?)

(Full disclosure: I am UK resident and read the Economist and Private Eye)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com