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So thieves broke into your storage unit again

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Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#231

Post by syntheticnature »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #199
praptak wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live the "accidental" part doesn't really get you off the hook. Negligence is better than intention but still. If it kills someone or causes grievous bodily harm, it's still on you. Yes, even if it's a burglar. You also have to think about the fully legal situations when it's firefighter or a cop with a warrant. Or an edge case like a stupid kid.

> If it kills someone or causes grievous bodily harm, it's still on you. Yes, even if it's a burglar. Honestly, the laws in your locale are unjust and need to be rewritten. There should be absolutely no liability to the owner (or renter) of a property if someone burglarizing it gets hurt accidentally.

Laws against booby trapping and the like are fairly universal. Even without criminal penalties, the liability if you catch someone innocent should give you pause.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#232

Post by FireBeyond »

snozolli wrote: post #182
maxbond wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've blinded yourself by othering them. "There's only so many people criminally predisposed" - that may be comforting, but it's too naive to build a policy around. 100% of people would commit crimes under the right circumstances. As an extreme example, 100% of us could sustain a life changing head injury that renders us more violent and aggressive than we were before, and that could happen at any moment. The most k…

100% of us could sustain a life changing head injury that renders us more violent and aggressive than we were before, and that could happen at any moment Then I should be imprisoned if I present a threat to the public. I don't understand what your point is.

> Then I should be imprisoned if I present a threat to the public.

The problem with this is that's it is extremely easy for people to define "threat" in ways that are convenient to them or that support their prejudices, a la Reefer Madness.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#233

Post by UberFly »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #114
smeeger wrote: post #106

he gives a list of things to do or consider. supporting laws and politicians that catch and punish criminals effectively is somehow not on that list…

The items he listed have extremely direct impact on YOUR ability to reduce theft. You just suggested something very broad. I might make the point that punishing criminals effectively will potentially reduce overall crime, but has no direct reduction on the crime in the article. It would be very hard to show any law which specifically targets the type of crime OP posted about, but I'm open if you have seen legislation…

Property crime is so far down the list on police priorities. Criminals know this. Soft on crime - even if it's due to lack of resources and is "only" property crime - means more crime.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#234

Post by rdtsc »

istjohn wrote: post #159

The storage unit industry is one of the most awful, customer hostile industries I've encountered. It's impossible to get the local facility on the phone, publicly listed phone numbers are all redirected to a national call center where reps are unable to even accurately quote prices. TFA covers the insurance kickback scam. Then after I moved into my unit, I discovered 75% of the units in my facility could be broken in…

Sometime the storage places are not what they seem. Some are really about doing something with the land until its value goes up, hoping some developer will buy it the future. That is, it just has to be a low effort to pay for some management and property taxes, while waiting for the value to go up. They won't bend backward to "satisfy" customers, so speak.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#235

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

crazygringo wrote: post #221
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go and study the actual history of fishing territories, it invariably turns out that they all came/come with complex systems for managing yields. There wasn't ever "a big sea full of fish and anyone could just do whatever they want". For example, if you catch fish with impunity because there is nobody at sea to stop you, you still need to sell them which means interacting the people (in some way) close to wher…

I guess I don't understand your motive in what you call a "subtle shift" of trying to redefine away the concept of the tragedy of the commons. You say 'There wasn't ever "a big sea full of fish and anyone could just do whatever they want".' But to the contrary, that's basically always been the case. Fishing boats were limited by technology and the size of their local markets, but once those limitations disappeared be…

Your take on "toc" is a relatively new one. When Hardin first wrote about it, the message was (and was for some decades after it) that holding resources in common is doomed to failure and that is why private ownership/control of them is a good idea.

Even with your view, there's a subtle shift involved in talking about it as an issue of whether or not resources are properly managed or not, because the question is, quite directly, what is the best way of ensuring that this happens?

TOC has been routinely used over the last half-century of so to justify the answer to that being "privately owned", and reasonably given the name Hardin came up with: it's a tragedy of the commons, implicitly not affecting privately held resources.

> And if four countries that border a sea want to limit fishing but a fifth one says I'm going to overfish as much as I want, well then what do you think is going to happen

It depends a lot on scale. If country #5 plans to sell the fish to countries #1-4, it won't work (or at least, it may not work). If country #5 plans to eat all the fish it catches and has no effective internal population that will be able to gain control over its fishing behavior, then ... tragedy.

But notice the key point here: it's not as if country #5 is ignorant about the situation. Countries #1-4 will be quite belligerent in their objections to #5's behavior. So the problem here is not that "people just blindly take from a commonly held resource and destroy it". It's the people (in this case, country #5) willfully ignore the social structures in place to protect the fish in order to pursue their own greed and selfishness.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#236

Post by crazygringo »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #235
crazygringo wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don't understand your motive in what you call a "subtle shift" of trying to redefine away the concept of the tragedy of the commons. You say 'There wasn't ever "a big sea full of fish and anyone could just do whatever they want".' But to the contrary, that's basically always been the case. Fishing boats were limited by technology and the size of their local markets, but once those limitations disappeared be…

Your take on "toc" is a relatively new one. When Hardin first wrote about it, the message was (and was for some decades after it) that holding resources in common is doomed to failure and that is why private ownership/control of them is a good idea. Even with your view, there's a subtle shift involved in talking about it as an issue of whether or not resources are properly managed or not, because the question is, qui…

> Your take on "toc" is a relatively new one.

I don't think so. I'm just regurgitating what I learned in political science classes decades ago, and what the mainstream understanding still is today in the general media.

And what you're omitting is that while yes, the solution from the point of view of the political right is privatization, the solution from the point of view of the political left has always been more active government management/regulation, international treaties, etc.

You seem to be ignoring the entire history of solutions on the left, and treating the problem as if it's solely an invention of the right. I don't know why.

And with the fishing example, I never suggested country #5 was ignorant, or that countries #1-4 wouldn't object. I never used the word "blindly". But you're claiming that people in country #5 are "willfully ignoring the social structures in place" and that's false. There are no structures and never were. (Again, see: Chinese overfishing.) And you're admitting "then... tragedy" in my very example.

So I still don't understand why you're claiming ToC doesn't exist, except that you think it's a justification for privatization. But you're ignoring it's also a justification for regulation and cooperation. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#237

Post by mycall »

ebiester wrote: post #207
istjohn wrote: post #159

The storage unit industry is one of the most awful, customer hostile industries I've encountered. It's impossible to get the local facility on the phone, publicly listed phone numbers are all redirected to a national call center where reps are unable to even accurately quote prices. TFA covers the insurance kickback scam. Then after I moved into my unit, I discovered 75% of the units in my facility could be broken in…

I think there are three use cases: 1. You are temporarily moving to a place outside your local area, or to a much smaller place. I was moving around for a year and a half, so I left my furniture and non-valuables in a storage unit until I would be settled again. 2. You live in a small unit in a big city. $100-$150 for an extra 50 square feet a month might be cheaper than the equivalent space and is a great choice for…

4. Liveaboard who wants to keep some stuff on land just in case a boat sinks.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#238

Post by s1artibartfast »

js8 wrote: post #70
s1artibartfast wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can actually make it worse, and creates different Hazards. When it does work is when insurance has no influence on the price of goods, and is a minor consumer. For example, when fire insurance pays to replace your goods that burnt up. When it doesnt work is when insurance is the predominant purchaser of those goods. A good example would be US health insurance, which has an 80/20 rule just like your proposal. Healt…

What you're talking about is a market failure, basically admitting that markets don't decrease prices in many cases. Which is a much deeper rabbit hole. My proposal even doesn't say what the ratio should be. If there wasn't legally defined maximal price margin (say 20%), I don't see what it would change in your argument - the companies would be free to ask for even more. Conversely, there is nothing that prevents the…

I don't know if I'd call it a market failure or a regulatory failure, or where the line is defined in the economic literature.

The difference between a cap system and a uncapped system is the incentive to increase the base price as well.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#239

Post by s0rce »

ebiester wrote: post #207
istjohn wrote: post #159

The storage unit industry is one of the most awful, customer hostile industries I've encountered. It's impossible to get the local facility on the phone, publicly listed phone numbers are all redirected to a national call center where reps are unable to even accurately quote prices. TFA covers the insurance kickback scam. Then after I moved into my unit, I discovered 75% of the units in my facility could be broken in…

I think there are three use cases: 1. You are temporarily moving to a place outside your local area, or to a much smaller place. I was moving around for a year and a half, so I left my furniture and non-valuables in a storage unit until I would be settled again. 2. You live in a small unit in a big city. $100-$150 for an extra 50 square feet a month might be cheaper than the equivalent space and is a great choice for…

I've used them in situation 1, my lease was up in current city and I had a new place in the new city so needed to move but the new job was paying for the move but it wasn't organized yet. I just put everything in storage and left the key with a friend.

For situation 3 I was able to leave stuff with family but I would have paid for storage again. I lived in a few furnished places for a year.

I plan to use it again for situation 2 when my free storage situation ends. My place is tiny and I can just store something in the facility next to my office for cheaper.

They have their place. The argument that people pay more to store something then the value probably applies to all the junk in people's homes/garages. Must be billions in real estate in the bay area storing old junk.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#240

Post by s0rce »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #195
tshaddox wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The paradox is that the monthly cost of a unit will quickly exceed the value of whatever is stored there unless the items have sentimental value or are very expensive. This is a tough one to manage psychologically, although it’s almost certainly also true of nearly anything you are storing in your own home. The difference of course is that home space is bundled inflexibly—you usually don’t have the option of paying…

That's why it isn't true of your home. The cost of storing an item in your home (assuming you didn't buy a bigger house just to store the thing) is 0.

But you could downsize if you didn't store so much useless junk! I'm guessing billions in Bay area real estate is storing junk.
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