Tom Wainwright

Alexander Vampilov is not well known to the English speaking audience - which is a pity. His plays have something of Chekhov in them - they transcend time and place in ways that makes them very Russian and not Russian at the same time. BBC 4's adaptation of The Elder Son managed to keep most of that charm better than I expected.

Two young men, who do not know each other very well, find themselves in a bit of a trouble - they escort two girls home in the evening and manage to miss the last show more train back to town - thus getting stuck in the suburbs. They start knocking on doors to see if someone will allow them to stay for the night - with predictable results. Until a chance encounter allows them to overhear some names and almost by mistake one of them, Volodya, claims that he is the previously unknown oldest son of a local man. Some more creative thinking and overhearing things and the father is convinced. The men have a place to sleep, the plan is to just sneak out the next morning and never to be seen again... and then things don't work exactly like that.

The family Volodya crashes is in the middle of huge turmoil - the daughter is about to be married and to move away, the younger brother is in love with a neighbor and it is not going well so he is about to leave as well. Except that noone is leaving for the right reasons. And things keep unraveling.

This is technically a comedy but as with most good comedies, it ends up being a lot more. It is an exploration of the family one is born into and the family one chooses to be a part of. Volodya may have started looking for a warm place to sleep but he ends up with what he had been missing his whole life.

The original was written in 1967, the adaptation was done in 2021. I had watched a movie based on the original play years ago (the Russian one from 1976 (there is also a US one from 2006, moving all the characters to USA and changing some details which I had not watched)). And all of the ones I had seen work very well (well, yes, these days there are Ubers and taxis in most places but... there are still small towns where things are still not working that fast). I loved this adaptation - it is fairly close to the original play and it keeps all of the important things and more importantly, it managed to keep the atmosphere of the play. show less

Here's a spoiler: the takeaway from Wainwright is that prohibition doesn't work. But unlike the resident pothead, his thesis is based on analysis that exposes drug war policy as often wasteful or even counterproductive.

Drug lords adapt is probably a better subtitle. There's nothing particularly novel revealed by Wainright's research if you have a passing understanding of the politics of drug enforcement. But what he does well is tie the operating norms of violent cartels with the incentives show more created by the very institutions that seek to control them. Violence is the the criminal enterprise's recourse in the absence of enforceable contracts. When you combine that operating reality with a demand curve that's only growing and a hydra-like supply line, is it any wonder why cartels thrive against policies that only escalate the drug war? show less

An interesting & informative look at the business of illegal (& some legal) drugs through an economist's eyes. Dare I even say it was also funny in a few places (because of the author's dry British wit)? I'm not the usual type who would read an economics-based book, yet this was a fascinating, quick, easy-to-read overview of the drug trade. Since the drug industry is international in scope, he tackles it from the angles an economist would use to assess any global business, including supply show more chain, mergers, people/personnel, PR, offshoring, franchising, R&D, online sales, diversification, & laws. Wainwright's analysis looks also at the current war on drugs (which obviously isn't working as he points out, "the 'all-out war' approach has failed to cut the number of consumers, while it has driven up the price of a few cheap agricultural commodities to create a hideously violent, $300-billion global industry") & provides some suggestions of better ways to try approaching the "war on drugs". Fits-in perfectly with other cartel-related reading I've done in the past year. Recommended. show less

Меняйся, или проиграешь. Лучшие бизнес-практики не знают границ и охотно подхватываются менеджерами из других областей, необязательно смежных. Том Уэйнрайт, редактор британского The Economist, решил окунуться в параллельный мир наркокартелей и узнать, как он реагирует на show more новые вызовы, стандартные для любой фирмы: управление персоналом, новые законодательные инициативы правительства, поиск надежных поставщиков и борьба с конкурентами.

Успехи у дельцов действительно нешуточные: эффективность выработки кокаина из сырья возросла на 60% по сравнению с тем, что вообще считалось реальным недавно. Еще бы — в поисках новых решений и пестицидов cocoleros, как добропорядочные техасские фермеры, посещают сельскохозяйственные выставки и выписывают специализированные журналы. Интернет позволяет, с одной стороны, вести бизнес в Британии с оборотом $100 млн силами всего трех человек, а с другой — увеличивать продажи за счет обратной связи удовлетворенных покупателей, оставляющих отзывы на сайтах (которые, впрочем, быстро сносятся полицией).

А как убрать конкурента, не особо вспотев? В Мексике лучше не выходить из дома в 17:45. Почему? Потому что, устроив перестрелку на чужой территории в это время (и оставив пару тел), мафиози привлекают туда массу СМИ аккурат к шестичасовому выпуску новостей и пометке «Срочно» на экране. Общественность негодует, полиция по звонку из мэрии мчится в квадрат как ошпаренная и кладет всех местных. PR-зубры, учитесь!

Специфический франчайзинг и офшоринг, убытки от легализации наркотиков в США и стратегии их преодоления (например, диверсификация), а также что наркобароны почерпнули у Walmart — в общем, прелюбопытное чтение. Суть книги, однако, не в том, чтобы воспеть предприимчивость и проактивность криминала, а в том, чтобы указать, как наносить удары по его бизнес-модели, которая сегодня правоохранительными органами понимается не вполне адекватно. Ведь стоимость выращивания кустов коки по сравнению с розничной ценой готового продукта сравнима со стоимостью холста и красок в модном произведении искусства, поэтому атаки на крестьян в Андах большого результата не приносят, а вот продуманная работа со спросом — да. show less