LOL. Not only do you have no clue what you're talking about, or who you're talking to, but you seem to be confounding several concepts and numbers there (the size of the illicit economy as it relates to the licit economy and the booming quasi-licit pot industry and various legalize-it-bro talking points.) You also seem to think that I'll somehow be surprised at something you're saying here.
And further LOL @ pride in corporatization of marijuana (i.e. transfer from the former to the black to grayish market) as if it's a
good thing. The tax situations of these corporations are in many jurisdictions pretty questionable, anyway, especially, for obvious reasons, on a federal level. The market, like most corporate agricultural markets, is also increasingly bad for the labor at the bottom. Not a lot of benefits, job stability, etc. there. Not to mention the fact that if Trump/Sessions et al. step up enforcement of federal marijuana law in "legal states," which I hope they follow through to do, both for the lulz and to troll West Coast stoners and for what would amount to a sort of tariff on so-called "legal state" marijuana that winds up being for export, which would have a positive and stabilizing effect on the illicit economies in other states, ending a NAFTA-esque "giant sucking sound" on the economy
there.)
At best marijuana is good for the economy like casinos are good for the economy, a revenue band-aid of questionable long term value for real people, a provider of relatively few and low quality jobs and a purveyor of negative general economic externalities. No matter what the actual gross receipts are, or how much money is derived from taxes, etc., it's not a (stable, good, livable) job-creator and it's not, at the end of the day, good for the little guy, really. The marijuana industry out there is already getting, well, industrialized, corporatized, and, accordingly, is going to fuck over the little guy as much as possible in the interests of the bottom line, including by distributing more potent, addictive, and potentially harmful products
*.
Also, this was good for a chuckle:
I'm no broker manager but I like to think I can read a chart enough to recognize that this is a tenuous situation here (the preposterousness of the fact that there's a marijuana stock index/ETF is pretty fucking preposterous as it is. I hope you don't have your retirement in these. Although part of me would like to short the
shit out of them (I'm also short BTC.) But what Dorito-stained, pizza-delivery-specialtist, underage potbro cares about retirement? Blaze it, bro, because Frito-Lay Corp. is going to reap more economic benefits from any changes in the marijuana market than your retirement is. The only fungible and liquid asset literally goes up in smoke, and once the smoke stops getting blowed up the collective asses of people who think that the current patchwork legislative situation is a stable one,
pop, that's the sound of that bubble bursting after a couple of quality raids and press conferences.
Now, where it's underground, it can and does help out some people in need, from growers to small-time dealers (whether this is full time or just economic gap-bridging, more power to them if they have to) but it's not exactly a boon to the economy on paper. It's just like any of these other little off the books hustles people have. Most non-serious pot dealers are basically Avon ladies these days anyway, and do about as well for themselves
†. And is certainly not helping anyone's retirement ... unless of course the counter-economic practicioners invest their money ... but all that money really is is a drain on the pocket of the consumer for little benefit to him (legitimate medical indications excepted, of course) except for the hedonic ones, and is thereby redirected from more constructive sectors of the economy into the hands of drug dealers. Which I have no problem with, really. That's the game.
That will still the game when it's legal, only the government will get it a share, and the overall price probably won't change all that much (and it's not really that cheap; pot is a huge portion of a lot of you youngsters budgets); but when we're in the bizarro-world situation that we're in now, it creates all sorts of economic disequilibriums, fucks people over by sheer accident of geography and creates a weird nexus of organized crime, exploitative agriculture, multi-tiered products with a "race to the bottom" in terms of consumer safety both at the top of the bottom, and half a dozen other negative externalities now mixing with capitalists and U.S. state economies in states of ruin, all hanging by a cunt hair of federal see-no-evil.
But hey, blaze it.
I cannot
wait to see the level of butthurt once [if
‡?] the DEA starts kicking down doors with Sessions @ DOJ dot gov. Because the whole 'legal state' shit is just hubris of the first order and the people involved aren't really a very sympathetic bunch to me, and aren't good for most people's bottom line except for their own. Like, you know, most people I guess. But they really, really hurt a lot of fragile illicit economies elsewhere, and fucked up a bunch of shit including quite possibly leading to increased violence in Mexico. But hey, blaze it! Legalize it! Anyway, seeing the downfall of arrogant fuckers is always a good show.
* If this tickles your 'harmless-plant' reflex, I'd consider you to actually, you know, review some medical evidence, combined with current market trends, which are bad juju.
† Or Amway, or any other MLM bullshit; but my point being here rather that they're basically just acting as drop shippers for some corporate ass grow op somewhere else (which a genuine number of actual professional pot dealers are now in 'illegal states') and unless they hustle their assess of don't make much, and most of them smoke it away.
‡ It's unlikely to be a priority or a focus, but some midsized to serious raids may go down as a way to make a point, and that point will be taken.