Thursday, 14 February 2002, 12:06 am
Column: Catherine Austin Fitts
Narco Dollars for Beginners (Part 1)
How The Money Works In The Illicit Drug Trade
Originally Published Oct 2001
Part 2 – Sam & Dave Do White Substances
Part 3 – The Ultimate New Business Cold Call
Part 4 – On Your Map
Part 5 – Getting Out of Narco Dollars
Part 6 – Georgie And West Philadelphia
Part 7 – Dow Jones Up, Solari Index Down
Part 8 – Fast Food Franchise Pop
Part 9 – At the Heart of the Double Bind
Part 10 – Drugs as Currency
Part 11 – In Defense of American Drug Lords
Part 12 – We Have Met the Enemy and It is Us
Part 13 – The Real Deal: Americans Love A Winner
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A Simple Framework:
The Solari Index and the Dow Jones Index
The Solari Index is my way of estimating how well a place is doing. It is based upon the percentage of people in a place who believe that a child can leave their home and go to the nearest place to buy a popsicle and come home alone safely.
When I was a child growing up in the 1950’s at 48th and Larchwood in West Philadelphia, the Solari Index was 100 percent. It was unthinkable that a child was not safe running up to the stores on Spruce Street for a popsicle and some pin ball. The Dow Jones was about 500, the Solari Index was 100 percent and our debt per person was very low. Of course I did not think about it that way at the time. All I knew was that life on the street with my buddies was sweet.
Today, the Dow Jones is over 9,000, debt per person is over $100,000 and the my favorite hairdresser in Philadelphia, Al at the Hair Hut in West Philadelphia, and I just had a debate yesterday afternoon while Al was cutting my hair about whether the Solari Index in my old neighborhood was 0 percent (my position) or 10 percent (Al’s position). Men always think it is higher than women.
Despite the boy-girl spread between us, it is fair to say that Al and I agree that the Solari Index is in the tank —both in the streets of Philadelphia and throughout America.
Life on the street ain’t sweet any more. I watched the slide of the Solari Index as a child. A lot of it had to do with narcotics trafficking and the people that narco dollars put in power on our streets – and in city hall, in the banks, in Congress and the corporations and investors down town and that ring the city.
My mission is to see the Solari Index return to 100 percent and to do so in a manner that moves the Dow up and our debt per person down and makes me and my partners a whole pile of money.
A few years back when my efforts to improve the Solari Index were threatening to reduce narcotics profits in a few places, I discovered that I could not look to the enforcement or the judicial establishment funded with my tax dollars to protect me. Narco dollars had the upper hand throughout government and the legal establishment.
That’s when I decided that I would have to learn how the money works on the drug trade.
Here is what I have learned that has been useful to me—- and may help you have a better map of how narco dollars impact you, your business, your family and the Solari Index in your neighborhood.
(continues…)
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…come back tomorrow for Part 2 of Narco-Dollars for Dummies…
– AUTHOR NOTE: Catherine Austin Fitts, author of Scoop’s “The Real Deal” column, is a former managing director and member of the board of directors of Dillon Read & Co, Inc, a former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration, and the former President of The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc. She is the President of Solari, Inc, an investment advisory firm. Solari provides risk management services to investors through Sanders Research Associates in London.
Anti©opyright Solari 2002