51–60 of 763 posts
> "The stores are insured bro, why do you care if people steal from them? It's not your problem maaan." This is why I care. Criminals degrade society and we all suffer for their greed.
If you want law enforcement to deal with petty crimes, you're going to have to contend with the externalities of cops operating anywhere. How many bystanders and innocent people reported by paranoid suburbanites are you willing to see injured or killed to protect that deodorant shelf?
Manhattan is getting the law enforcement it demanded.
Not really. Walk around the city and you see more cops than ever. The issue is that police don’t actually prevent crime. Putting more cops on the street is like trying to use water to extinguish a grease fire.
Anyway, to get to my point; turns out I do know fences - basically anyone with an Amazon account, and I know a lot of fuckers with Prime. For the low investment of polyfill bags and other shipping materials, and this one weird trick called stealing, you too can make money online! Just take your stolen goods, send them to Amazon, and they'll take care of selling them for you. All you gotta do is some computer shit, and some packaging, and then send it off to Amazon. Because your supply costs are cheap, you can undercut your competitors (but not by too much) and rake in the profit. Amazon supposedly is cracking down on this but I have yet to see any meaningful evidence of any real enforcement.
The economist article avoids naming names, but what you're looking for to get started is Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
Manhattan is getting the law enforcement it demanded.
Not really. Walk around the city and you see more cops than ever. The issue is that police don’t actually prevent crime. Putting more cops on the street is like trying to use water to extinguish a grease fire.
> "The stores are insured bro, why do you care if people steal from them? It's not your problem maaan." This is why I care. Criminals degrade society and we all suffer for their greed.
That sounds a little like you think criminals aren't a necessary symptom of "living in a scarcity society" itself...? As long as it's easier to take something than it is to pay for something, there will be people who take, and there will be groups that organize around taking. Pretending that crime is some kind of quirk that you can get rid of if only [fill in reasons here], and that the grey and black markets wouldn'…
That economics has a just-so story to explain why this is exactly what I should expect doesn't change the fact that I didn't used to have to do this, and now I do have to do this.
> "The stores are insured bro, why do you care if people steal from them? It's not your problem maaan." This is why I care. Criminals degrade society and we all suffer for their greed.
That sounds a little like you think criminals aren't a necessary symptom of "living in a scarcity society" itself...? As long as it's easier to take something than it is to pay for something, there will be people who take, and there will be groups that organize around taking. Pretending that crime is some kind of quirk that you can get rid of if only [fill in reasons here], and that the grey and black markets wouldn'…
One of the basic functions of the state is to make it difficult for people to steal things.
> "The stores are insured bro, why do you care if people steal from them? It's not your problem maaan." This is why I care. Criminals degrade society and we all suffer for their greed.
If you want law enforcement to deal with petty crimes, you're going to have to contend with the externalities of cops operating anywhere. How many bystanders and innocent people reported by paranoid suburbanites are you willing to see injured or killed to protect that deodorant shelf?
Paywall, can't read anything past the summary of the problem
$ curl -s 'https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/11/24/why-its-hard-to-buy-deodorant-in-manhattan' | grep articleBody | jq -r .articleBody 2>/dev/null | fmt
> "The stores are insured bro, why do you care if people steal from them? It's not your problem maaan." This is why I care. Criminals degrade society and we all suffer for their greed.
That sounds a little like you think criminals aren't a necessary symptom of "living in a scarcity society" itself...? As long as it's easier to take something than it is to pay for something, there will be people who take, and there will be groups that organize around taking. Pretending that crime is some kind of quirk that you can get rid of if only [fill in reasons here], and that the grey and black markets wouldn'…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Walk around the city and you see more cops than ever. The issue is that police don’t actually prevent crime. Putting more cops on the street is like trying to use water to extinguish a grease fire.
The cops are generally part of the crime problem in NYC. They also don't go after people for anything short of attempted murder (even when it's done in front of their faces), so lots of crime goes unreported.