This is how it is these days in most of Mexico, most of Nicaragua, much of El Salvador – in fact in every one of the impoverished Latin American nations where the top few have all the money and power while the people at the bottom struggle desperately to survive. Here’s travel authority Rick Steves talking about it:
The saddest thing about visiting Managua and San Salvador is experiencing the fear caused by the violence that comes with extreme poverty in a big city. Every major hotel and nearly every business has an armed guard. It's unwise to walk around after dark, especially with a big camera. While you're unlikely to be hurt, the risk is that groups of young thugs might just rob you at knifepoint. I found that, rather than whole safe neighborhoods, there were mostly small islands of safety around malls and fancy hotels. A wealthy tourist (and nearly all tourists here are wealthy, in relative terms) happily pays triple for a taxi that works with the hotels so you know you're safe. You generally hop from one safe zone to another by cab.
The future of super wealth in this country will be a future filled with fear of kidnapping. Fear that gangsters will surround your car and shoot your driver, drag you into a truck, chop off your thumb and send it to your family to show that they are truly sincere about wanting all the cash your relatives can put their hands on.
If it's not you who gets kidnapped, then it will be your son. Or your daughter. Or your wife.
Believe me, the “kidnapping tax” rate will be higher than any income tax that any Democrat has ever called for.
Depressing. But we're not too far out from this here in the US. The problem with class wars is that eventually they always turn into wars of attrition, and one side always has the advantage in sheer numbers. You can only keep the plebes fighting amongst themselves for so long before they realize that there's nothing left to fight over. Literally.
And that's when the pitchforks come out.
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