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It seems like a problem that's related to wages and consumption. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, there was just less stuff to be had. My family (8 kids, 2 pare
by RickJWagner 7y ago
It seems like a problem that's related to wages and consumption.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, there was just less stuff to be had. My family (8 kids, 2 parents) had one car for a long time. Today, it seems every high school kid has a car.
The same is true of other things. Bicycles, furniture, house size, etc. There is just more stuff today. A lot of it comes from lowest-cost retailers.
A visit to a GoodWill or Salvation Army outlet shows lots of product for very low prices. I don't remember it being this way in past years.
I'm not saying it's bad-- today's poor people seem to have more basic stuff than yesterday's-- but it is different.
- foobarian 7y agoI feel like the manufacturing complex just got a lot more efficient at making pretty much everything, so the costs are down a lot in relative terms. It's probably mainly due to offshoring and automation. Coincidentally I feel that burglaries got a lot less frequent. It's almost as if the flow of value reversed - burglars don't want any of our crap, and the equivalent to a burglary today would be dumping a truckload of stuff in someone's house.
- asark 7y ago> burglars don't want any of our crap, and the equivalent to a burglary today would be dumping a truckload of stuff in someone's house. There's a Chuck Palahniuk novel in there somewhere.
- quickthrower2 7y agoIt reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 where the fireman burn books (because there are no accidental fires anymore).
- sbov 7y agoDumpsters are relatively cheap. When we remodelled our house we got a 7 foot tall, 6 foot wide, 21 foot long dumpster for 2 weeks for just $370. You can fit a lot of junk in there.
- capnrefsmmat 7y agoI believe -- if I remember the workshop I attended correctly -- that there's a fair amount of economics literature on the types of things that people steal in burglaries and the rates over time, and yes, burglary rates for things like stereos and TVs have plummeted. The top things stolen now are cash, jewelry, and guns. The economists see connections to consumer prices in general: ordinary electronic crap is so cheap that there's not much point in setting up a black market for stolen electronics. Guns, jewelry, and cash still have plenty of value for burglars, though.
- sk5t 7y agoI've been thinking about the apparent drop in burglary too; seems like there's not too much worth stealing nowadays, aside from jewelry, firearms, and perhaps carpets, art, and sculpture at the very high end. More homes have security systems, and there appears to be virtually no market for fine china, a 55" television is very bulky and fragile relative to its market value, any laptops or other computers are likely to be depreciated to nil. Folks don't keep coin collections, nor cash on hand.
- MagnumOpus 7y ago> burglaries got a lot less frequent Burglaries are less frequent because your TV is too big and your laptop has a near-zero resale value, but cell phone robberies are up 10-20-30 times [1] in some places -- because even when sold for parts, a $1000 phone is worth some risk... [1] https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/69E6/production/_100001172_percentageincrease.png https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/69E6/production/...
- EADGBE 7y agoTVs have exponentially lost weight over the last few decades.
- tty2300 7y agoThe price of stuff is just so cheap now. I can go out and buy just about any luxury item I want while hardly thinking about the price but it would take me a decade to buy a house if I spent $0 each year.