8 ms·
Working backwards from clues in the article, thief maybe stole 200-400 ft of wire. Assuming between 3-1/8″ - 6-1/8″ diameter. Somewhere between $1,360 - $6,40
by aeonik 4mo ago
Working backwards from clues in the article, thief maybe stole 200-400 ft of wire.
Assuming between 3-1/8″ - 6-1/8″ diameter.
Somewhere between $1,360 - $6,400 of scrap value. $70k-$100k to repair...
Absurd.
- cucumber3732842 4mo ago>Somewhere between $1,360 - $6,400 of scrap value If it's a "normal" wire specification that someone else can use it was likely sold for ~50% of retail.
- bragr 4mo agoThieves typically burn off the insulation so it's not likely to be easily reused.
- tonyarkles 4mo agoIt was gas-filled presumably ultra low loss RF cable, but the thief cut it into small sections so that they could take it away. You might be right about the 50% number of they had somehow managed to steal it as a single intact spool. As-is, the station even said that they wouldn’t be able to use it even now that it’s been recovered because of fears of gas leaks.
- dylan604 4mo agoI doubt they would attempt to sell it as is. They'd break out the copper portion and trade on that alone
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- sowbug 4mo agoThat's the usual car stereo theft economics: cause $1,000 of damage to sell a $100 radio for $10.
- m463 4mo agoprobably $10 of meth to harm a body so that it eventually needs $50k of medical work, or $100k of dental work
- cevn 4mo ago10 dollars? Who's your meth guy?
- trympet 4mo agoGP is talking out of his ass - he’s probably not up to speed on meth economics like you and me.
- NewJazz 4mo agoMethenomics say that you can step on product however much you need to reach the demanded price point.
- DetroitThrow 4mo agoHN constantly undervalues meth and this has been called out since at least 2009. Horrible.
- launcelott 4mo agoSo what IS a current price of meth in some locale?
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- shrubble 4mo agoYou may need to revise your methematical model.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- xp84 4mo agoOther than those who commit grave offenses of bodily harm, I reserve my greatest disgust for the type of dirtbag who imposes these orders-of-magnitude greater costs on other innocent people for such a relatively low "reward." They'd burn the Mona Lisa for fuel, melt down the Statue of Liberty for scrap, anything if you let them. I agree with another commenter here, the overlap of this mindset with tweakers is large.
- mslt 4mo agoI’d suggest considering empathy once you get past the anger, their former selves would be equally repulsed by their behavior, and for many I expect their current selves feel similarly despite their lack of control. The villains here aren’t the broken people.
- jdross 4mo agoThe villains are the people who let these people continue to commit crimes and make life worse for others in the name of empathy instead of quickly and forcefully moving them into compassionate care where they have any chance of recovering and joining the vast majority as contributors to society.
- Blackthorn 4mo agoCompassionate care does not exist for people like this.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- alphager 4mo ago*in the US
- Blackthorn 4mo agoWhich, notably, is the place where this happened and therefore the place we're discussing.
- johanvts 4mo agoWhy hasn’t the economist of the world figured out a solution to this problem. There has to be a better way when both sides would be better off by just paying the theif double. Some kind of proof of work system to show that you really are crazy enough to do the crime maybe.
- NewJazz 4mo agoThe person needs to have a stake in the infrastructure OR there needs to be a high chance of them getting caught and losing something. People with little stake in a community will strip infrastructure bare. Inequality is a significant root cause here.
- ripberge 4mo agoThese copper thieves are almost always hardcore drug addicts. The “inequality” explanation is incorrect. A failure to recognize that has grave consequences for everyone.
- jcgrillo 4mo agoOr pay a guard a fair wage and comp them the $0.20 or whatever for each bullet.. EDIT: to be clear I'm not saying it should be that way, but there was a time not long ago when this was the normal way to handle the situation. I'd argue the present arrangement is more civilized.
- overfeed 4mo ago> Or pay a guard a fair wage and comp them the $0.20 or whatever for each bullet. I think $0.20 per bullet is far too little, considering the medical expenses the guard will face when getting the bullets removed after they are shot for copper.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4mo ago$0.20 isn't enough to cover good self-defense 9mm rounds, and no you shouldn't just use FMJ.
- general1465 4mo agoThe bigger absurdity is when thief mistakes bunch of fiber for copper wires and then whole countries can go offline https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-12985082 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-12985082
- Symbiote 4mo agoIn the Russian far east, where it's not practical to bury cables, many roadside bars have small signs showing a piece of fibre cable and how it's worthless for scrap.
- freeopinion 4mo agoConsidering that stolen wire carries a lot of risk, the market value is considerably less than normal scrap prices. I've seen thefts that required special equipment like cranes and probably 10 man hours to recon, plan, and execute. All for probably less than $200 net when it was all done. But the repairs cost tens of thousands. So some places put up Flock cameras... only to get them vandalized.
- rayiner 4mo agoTheft is a very inefficient tax on civilization.
- khafra 4mo agoSome theft is efficient. If a hypothetical thief grabs a few bills from an unattended wallet, and the wallet's owner wasn't counting on having a specific amount of money available soon after, the amount lost by the victim is roughly equal to the amount gained by the thief. Stealing copper from power lines and transformers is among the least-efficient kinds theft; it's hard to do worse without shooting a wealthy philanthropist couple to steal a wallet and a pearl necklace. I have seen a term suggested--the "rapacity index"--for the ratio of value gained by the thief, to value lost by the victim. I think it makes sense to take a crime's rapacity index into consideration during sentencing.
- rayiner 4mo agoThat ignores higher order effects--how theft changes primary behavior. In your example, fear of pick pocketing may reduce the degree to which people carry around and spend money with vendors. Your rapacity index makes little sense: by your logic, corruption has a low rapacity index, since the state has a lot of money compared to the amount of the transaction. And given the deterrent function of sentencing, the more relevant figure is the aggregate effect of a particular class of theft, not an individual instance of theft.
- khafra 4mo ago> fear of pick pocketing may reduce the degree to which people carry around and spend money with vendors. Yes, that's why I specified an unattended wallet. I agree that direct monetary loss is not the total harm to the victim. > corruption has a low rapacity index, since the state has a lot of money compared to the amount of the transaction. That's not the calculation I suggested. Corruption isn't always the same as theft--and, if it were decided so, the calculation for corruption would be the money absconded with by the taker, divided by the money lost by the victim. In many cases of corruption, as in power line theft, the victim is diffuse; it's usually harder to calculate exact numbers, but this kind of calculation is done in court all the time.