Comment by gottorf
6 hours ago
> People will do anything but work for a living. It's just engrained in certain cultures.
In fact, the lengths to which some people will go to avoid working for a living is stupendous. I've heard tell of organized crime in my area that sure sounds like a lot of work for not that much pay, i.e. no different than a low-end job.
Like that old quote about entrepreneurs being people who work 100 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week, but some twisted parallel of that.
There are a lot of perks to drug dealing for low pay versus working fast food or customer service in a store for low pay. If you work at Macy's you always gotta look decent and be smiley and friendly, if you sell cocaine you can tell bad customers to go fuck themselves and do your work hungover and wearing dirty sweat pants. If you deal near or out of your house you don't have a real commute, can work any schedule you like, don't have to ask permission for any decisions, basically the same as many 1-2 person businesses except with unusually high demand.
Often car washes or clothing stores are fronts for you know what.
Or the Freakonimics article that points out most drug dealers make less than minimum wage (Summarized in this talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_the_freakonomics_of_...)