Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts • Hacker News Board

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#471

Post by leetcrew » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

khm wrote: post #437

Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys. Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state la…

they could start by shutting down the free car wash at president and fayette...

in all seriousness, this is a problem I've thought about a lot, and I have no idea what the answer is. baltimore has a lot of the building blocks for a wonderful place to live, but it is a deeply sick city.

it has infrastructure built for a million plus, but less than 600k actually living in the city limits and fewer than that paying any meaningful amount of taxes. and like you say, what tax base exists is fleeing across the county line every year.

it's a cool and affordable (for the east coast) city to live in through your mid to late twenties. but between the crime, high taxes that kick in early, and abysmal public school system, there's a very strong incentive to leave once you have kids and can't afford private school. while boring af, the county is simply way more appealing for middle to upper-middle income families, which ought to be the core of the tax base.

with BPD having utterly failed to earn trust with the community and a political class more interested in grandstanding and stuffing their own pockets than doing anything that might be called "governance", I really don't see how the city pulls out of this nosedive anytime soon.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#472

Post by KennyBlanken » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

maeil wrote: post #454

khm wrote: post #437

Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys. Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state la…

> Where is Baltimore supposed to get the funding to meet this increase in demand for city services? That is for American politics to figure out. This is an American political issue and blaming Korean car makers is absurd.

They have to include the anti-theft systems in the vast majority of other countries. They made the conscious choice to save a few dollars per car not including it in US models...with predictable impact on US society...because it wasn't required here. Because car companies have fought legislation to mandate it, via lobbyists.

How would you feel if in the rest of the world kids pajamas were made of fabric that didn't burn easily / melt onto skin, but in the US due to lax regulation, companies were making them out of cheaper fabric that is practically tinder and easily melts to the skin, but slightly cheaper?

Would you still bleat about how it's "American politics" and not reprehensible, immoral cost-cutting?

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#473

Post by soerxpso » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:31 AM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #465

maeil wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is Baltimore supposed to get the funding to meet this increase in demand for city services? That is for American politics to figure out. This is an American political issue and blaming Korean car makers is absurd.

Once you’ve had a gun pointed at you from a car, taken down the license plate, then been told there’s nothing they can do because the car was stolen —- you’ll realize that car theft isn’t some individual problem. We’ve had the tech to solve this problem for decades, but car manufacturers decided to save a few bucks.

The tech to make it impossible to start a car without the owner's consent, even when the attacker has hardware access? Are you also selling magic beans and snake oil?

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#474

Post by TheCaptain4815 » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:33 AM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #462

mjx0 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you care to elaborate what you believe this problem is, and how you've deduced it?

The poster wants to imply the population is black Americans even though similar ethnic groups in other countries don’t have nearly the same violent crime rates. Either there are structural factors at play or black Americans are somehow a specific distinct population from people of that diaspora around the world. This is where the analytical skepticism of people who insinuate these ideas tends to fall apart.

Wow, almost like culture matters.

Structural factors for a single population out of dozens of distinct ones to kill, rape, rob, loot, riot, at rates 10x+ higher than others.

Funny how the same factors end up applying in Brazil, Europe, and even Japan.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#475

Post by nxm » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:33 AM UTC

dgfitz wrote: post #463

khm wrote: post #437

Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys. Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state la…

I’ll cite sources if needed, but googling “Baltimore corruption” will explain the financial issues facing the city.

A Baltimore mom recently learned her high school senior had a 0.13 GPA yet ranked 62/120 in his class. The student had flunked all but three classes during his first three years of high school.

-4th highest per pupil spend in the country. Definition of money not well spent?

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#476

Post by nullc » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:34 AM UTC

bluescrn wrote: post #363

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself a liberal, but while I think pretty much all drug possession charges should be dropped and decriminalized, violent crime? Robbery? Those folks should absolutely be in jail. I don't care if we have to build tent cities to incarcerate them. You hurt someone intentionally, you should not be breathing free air for a while.

The problem area seems to be property crime without direct violence. It can ruin the victims life just as much as non-lethal violence (taking away a person's source of income, or transport required to keep a job, or wrecking a business they've spent many years building), but many take the 'it's only property, it's probably insured!' attitude. And many at least see stealing from 'big nasty corporations' as relatively…

> 'it's only property, it's probably insured!'

Insurance increases the expected cost of loss! -- the insurer would go broke if they were charging less than that.

So yeah, sure, it can save you from the boundary effect of it instantly wreaking your life but only by putting you at a constant disadvantage to people who live in less crime prone areas or whom are wealthy enough to self insure against such loss.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#477

Post by nxm » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:35 AM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #434

bluescrn wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem area seems to be property crime without direct violence. It can ruin the victims life just as much as non-lethal violence (taking away a person's source of income, or transport required to keep a job, or wrecking a business they've spent many years building), but many take the 'it's only property, it's probably insured!' attitude. And many at least see stealing from 'big nasty corporations' as relatively…

'it's only property, it's probably insured!' I wonder why insurance is so high...

O why there are food deserts when stores continue to get robbed without any meaningful repercussions for the thieves

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#478

Post by throwaway57443 » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:45 AM UTC

bluescrn wrote: post #363

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself a liberal, but while I think pretty much all drug possession charges should be dropped and decriminalized, violent crime? Robbery? Those folks should absolutely be in jail. I don't care if we have to build tent cities to incarcerate them. You hurt someone intentionally, you should not be breathing free air for a while.

The problem area seems to be property crime without direct violence. It can ruin the victims life just as much as non-lethal violence (taking away a person's source of income, or transport required to keep a job, or wrecking a business they've spent many years building), but many take the 'it's only property, it's probably insured!' attitude. And many at least see stealing from 'big nasty corporations' as relatively…

"it's only property, it's probably insured!"

People who say this don't have real jobs; not the type of jobs where they'll end up on pain killers when they retire. They have laptop jobs on the softer side of intellectual rigor.

Money is time traded from your life, health traded from your body to your employer. Stealing property is literally stealing the purpose of hours of grueling work.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#479

Post by throwaway57443 » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:46 AM UTC

nullc wrote: post #476

bluescrn wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem area seems to be property crime without direct violence. It can ruin the victims life just as much as non-lethal violence (taking away a person's source of income, or transport required to keep a job, or wrecking a business they've spent many years building), but many take the 'it's only property, it's probably insured!' attitude. And many at least see stealing from 'big nasty corporations' as relatively…

> 'it's only property, it's probably insured!' Insurance increases the expected cost of loss! -- the insurer would go broke if they were charging less than that. So yeah, sure, it can save you from the boundary effect of it instantly wreaking your life but only by putting you at a constant disadvantage to people who live in less crime prone areas or whom are wealthy enough to self insure against such loss.

And very often small mom and pop shops aren't insured

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#480

Post by nogginjoggin » Sat, May 13, 2023, 2:48 AM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #462

mjx0 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you care to elaborate what you believe this problem is, and how you've deduced it?

The poster wants to imply the population is black Americans even though similar ethnic groups in other countries don’t have nearly the same violent crime rates. Either there are structural factors at play or black Americans are somehow a specific distinct population from people of that diaspora around the world. This is where the analytical skepticism of people who insinuate these ideas tends to fall apart.

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