Lydia was only exporting part of the product that Walt was making. The lion’s share was being distributed by that Declan guy (beard, curly hair, “Say my name,” remember?) who worked out of Arizona.
Secretary, I am not sure we can say with certainty which outlet was getting the lion’s share of Walt’s product, once he got up to speed.
Thanks for the NYT excerpt, Crawlspace–very interesting!
I’m not 100 percent convinced on this. There is a pretty powerful logic behind the idea that if Walt is no longer an active drug lord, is going to die before he’d ever go behind bars, and thus the only effect of busting him would be to destroy the family, that Hank might just hesitate after all. I mean, why not? I could see Hank wanting to see evidence that Walt is “out”, and that his prognosis is grim. With those two conditions satisfied, it would be almost perverse for Hank to push the issue.
So if Walt was making the meth for the Southwest and the Czech Republic… Can Walt by himself, with just one assistant, really cook that much meth?
I guess so. Walt and Jesse were the only ones cooking for Gus.
How much sense does this make, though? Or even that he would want to keep doing the cooking himself? If Walt really wanted to “grow his business exponentially”, I’d think the first thing he’d want to do would be to train a few cooks, and then sit back, delegate and smoke his cigars. Basically, do whatever Gus was doing when he was on top. I guess that didn’t happen.
And how did the quality drop to 68%? I mean, as Lydia says, a drop was to be expected, but 68? Come on. This indicates to me that Walt didn’t train any cooks, not even Todd, or at least not well enough.
Walt tells Lydia that he “left a viable business”. Well, no, if the business model hinges on Walt’s super-meth, then that’s obviously not the case.
I’m suspecting that Walt’s attitude of “no one else gets to cook my product! It’s mine, mine, all mine!” got the better of him, and he simply refused to train anyone to do it.
In that case, yeah, Lydia, the Czechs and Declan should all come knocking pretty soon. And Walt must/should have known that.
Jesse’s meth was nearly as good though but Jesse is a smart guy. Todd is an idiot so it doesn’t matter how well he was trained.
That seems way out of character for Hank. And in the moment he didn’t seem persuaded by that plea for mercy- after all Walt is asking him to take his word about his prognosis even though Hank just found out Walt is a druglord and a killer with a double-digit body count. That’s why Walt quickly escalated to threatening Hank. I can imagine Hank pausing to try to talk Walt into surrendering, but he’s not the type to take it on himself to let Walt go. Not after everything he’s been through trying to catch him. And Hank would know that any time he wastes is time Walt can use to cover his tracks or escape or kill him. It’s not in Hank’s best interest to drag this out.
It I were a ruthless mobster, I guess what I might do at this point would be to kidnap Walt and Jesse, and have them cooking at gunpoint, with a couple of chemists of my own taking notes.
And then leave them in a ditch.
We already saw Gus try that. It didn’t end well for him.
Hank actually explicitly rejects both the family and the cancer excuses.
Walt: “These wild accusations could destroy our family.”
Hank: “Like you give a shit about family.”
Walt: “Hank, my cancer is back.”
Hank: “Good. Rot, you son of a bitch.”
Good point.
I see what you did there. 
Doesn’t she live/work in Houston?
He did the same thing at the Car Wash–really playing up the “Respectable Overly Courteous Business Owner” angle as he pushed off Lydia.