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Comment by noelwelsh | Hacker News Reader

On one level this is a funny story, on another level it is a great example of poverty and lack of opportunity leading to choices that turn dollars into pennies: destroying a resource that can generate a huge amount of value for a much lower value but more accessible use. Same thing with ripping up train tracks to sell for scrap metal, which happens in some parts of the world.

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> Same thing with ripping up train tracks to sell for scrap metal, which happens in some parts of the world.

This happens at times in the Netherlands too, and I bet many other affluent places, which sort of half invalidates your point. It's just theft. Theft also happens in places where most people aren't poor.

I don't know a single place in the world that managed to distribute sufficiently much wealth sufficiently evenly that crime never pays.

There is nuance if you're willing to see it. That you can't get to a point where it "never pays" doesn't mean people don't become more willing to steal as situations become more desperate and vice versa. You see a lot more copper getting ripped off during a recession.

Desperate people steal food, not cooper. Turning cooper into whatever they're supposedly desperate for requires patience and business-like level of effort organization, which goes beyond what desperation can explain. People chose to steal cooper because it's likely that they will get away with it, as there isn't much security in the areas of "work" to be taken into account, and probably also (cooper being a relatively cheap commodity) because getting get caught doesn't carry that much of a penalty risk.

Selling stolen copper isn’t hard, there already is a network of scrap metal dealers that exist to purchase legitimately collected metal scrap for eventual reuse. All one needs to do is find one that’s willing to turn a blind eye to suspicious volumes, which is basically just the process of finding a fence in any other criminal enterprise. It’s not exactly rocket science.

Doing it effectively requires organization, yes. Stealing manhole covers, taking them to the forest and breaking them with a club, then selling them at the scrap yard as damaged -- only requires stupidity. Guy probably spent more on gas alone. And this actually happened if you were wondering.

People will literally rip out metal wires from reinforced brick towers making them collapse while they are still inside. You can't make this shit up.

It's not so much about poverty per se but about inequality - and there definitely is a correlation between blue collar crime and inequality: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/06/07/the-star...

Everywhere has poor people, or at least there are always people that have less than everyone else.

Not doubting your claim, but can you link to any news articles regarding this happening in the Netherlands?

https://www.nu.nl/economie/2417355/koperdiefstal-kost-prorai...

Interesting, thanks.

Definitely. It doesn't even require poverty. I worked in film & TV on the back end. My former boss was pilfering 4/O copper wiring (I managed the stock) and trying to pin me for it. The guy made over $100K CAD a year. He wasn't suffering.

He was caught loading up his pickup before operating hours and running it to the scrap metal shop down the street.

It happens in Poland too but it's only one ethnic group doing that, and most of them have moved to Western Europe already anyway.

Pennies in your pocket is still preferable over dollars in someone else's when your kids haven't eaten in a week, which is the reality in a lot of these situations.

Several years ago someone stole copper from outside a local food bank; the impact was tens of thousands of dollars of spoiled food when they broke the refrigeration.

https://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/8842842.html

I don't believe GC was trying to make a moral judgement here.

In other words, giving people pennies lets others keep their dollars. So even if you are selfish you should support social programs.

This sounds a like an argument that social programs are extortion, which everyone should support. I don't think that's a good argument to make in favor of any government program.

No, it's an argument that social programs are smart, and prevent pain in the future. Long-term benefits are not extortion.

Is eating healthy and exercising extortion? Is investing in education to get a better job extortion? Is saving money to take advantage of compound interest extortion? No, it's all just long-term decision making.

You're describing a protection racket.

Only if the people getting the pennies demanded them in exchange for not cutting internet cables. Countries in the early 20th Century that did not have social programs, Russia, Germany after WW1, found large masses of discontented and starving people were fertile ground for populist messages. If those people had been well fed history might have taken a different course.

Somehow rich elites are fertile grounds for socialist message no less than the discontented starving people.

Well, not rich elites, mainly educated but not rich elites.

For some reason, being on the winning side of capitalism seems to inoculate people against ideas of socioeconomic justice

>This sounds a like an argument that social programs are extortion

I think the point is that human behavior at scale is not really that different from natural disasters. Not protecting against poverty in your surroundings would be comparable to building in a flood zone. Fixing that problem is not extortion anymore than building dams is paying protection money to the sea - there's no poor people shouting "cover my basic needs or else", but we know enough about our own race to know the issues that emerge with poverty.

How does this keep them from taking both sets of pennies?

You'll still need police, prisons, etc. But you could reduce their size as less people will require the attention of those state organs. People usually know that what they are doing is wrong, and would rather avoid doing it. Of course some are reckless, but that's what you still have police for.

There have been studies that show a causal relationship between poverty and crime such as petty theft and robbery.

It seems intuitive to me. Sure, some people will always just be opportunists and steal because they can, but I can see how there could be a much larger subset of people to whom stealing would become an option when the other option is skipping meals or being homeless.

I mean to add to your comment, the biggest thievery happens at the very top. A lot of countries' populations would be a lot more well-off if it wasn't for the massive tax evasion schemes employed by companies. Hundreds of billions of tax income - which can be spent on socialist policies like health care, housing, benefits, etc - is carted off to tax havens and just sits there. Bernie Madoff scammed people for nearly $65 billion. The US government pumped trillions into the military, which in the end did not have much return on investment. They spent all that money while their own country's people work three underpaid jobs and go bankrupt over student debt and medical bills.

I mean I wouldn't even mind so much if the rich just kept buying ridiculous fancy cars, because at least that way the money moves around.

> The US government pumped trillions into the military, which in the end did not have much return on investment

Arguably it is one of the more successful socialist policies - certain parts of US would be economically devastated if not for the military related production.

Defense pork type projects aside military also provides trade school to a heck of a lot of the people in it. If you're not an infantry or security type MOS you are almost always leaving with training in a skill that you can roll into a better than entry level job in that field. The people who's specialized job training is almost exclusively combat related can roll that into a career in law enforcement but it is harder than (for example) a mechanic switching from tanks to combines. You could argue that the military is not an efficient way to equip these people with these skills and that's true but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people who enter as 18yos with only general labor type jobs on their resume leave as 20-somethings with a marketable skill.

How many middle class people do you see stealing copper wire? Not many, so there is some amount of money that stops people from doing that.

Middle class people don't need to steal copper because other forms of theft are available to them.

I'm not saying "most drug addicts steal". I'm saying "a small number of addicts can create huge amounts of crime".

When we look at acquisitive crime we see an over-representation of people with addiction - to substances or gambling - who are stealing money to feed their addiction. For some people that's theft of copper, for others it's defrauding the company they work for.

This is a problem that many systems find hard to fix, especially with current drug laws.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cbm.339

Free money is never enough. People in Russia stole copper wires not because they were starving but to get money for drinks and entertainment.

Bread and circuses. AND circuses; you can't just give people houses, food and money, you need to keep them busy and / or entertained as well. I think instead of just giving people money, you should give them work and purpose in life instead.

The goal should be well-paid jobs at up to 40 hours / week, so that people can get job satisfaction, don't have to stress about money, and still have time left to have a balanced life.

In Detroit thieves stripped all the wire and plumbing from abandoned houses, even furnaces were carted off. When the supply of houses ran thin they started stripping factories.

When the freeways of Detroit flooded they found the pumping stations that were supposed to get rid of the excess water had been stripped.

https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/08/13/copper-theft-a-possi...

Finally several hapless guys tried to get at the copper wiring in a power substation and were electrocuted.

https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/men-electrocuted-with-24k-v...

> When the freeways of Detroit flooded they found the pumping stations that were supposed to get rid of the excess water had been stripped.

What the... this should have been caught by some form of monitoring or other security alerts.

paid for from tax revenues, which had long since ceased to be.

Have you ever read about the chronic oil pipeline explosions in Nigeria?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/nigeria-dozens-petrol...

The solution is to get the country out of poverty. Using modern technology in the food industry, so that children can go to school instead of working the fields. And improving the child safety and health-care. The sad truths is that people get a lot of children because half will die. So by stopping over-population, you make it so that more people can survive. To solve this problem we have to give up some of our wealth. We will however git it back once they are out of poverty as we will get increased demand for modern services.

My dad used to tell me this story, In rural India in the 60s the Federal Government would lay copper cables to bring electricity to the town. Some locals would bring down all the cables overnight and sell it in black market to some quck money.

For them electricity wasn't that important compared to food on the table.

I heard that story about fiber optics somewhere on the African continent 15 years ago

so now I don't believe either story, unless this is a common entrepreneurial endeavor I've been sleeping on

Some basic research goes a long way to augmenting what you might or might not believe about the world - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_theft

I heard they were being used for fabric / fashion

I haven't thought about it for 15 years, and now with "basic research" and I couldn't find anything about either fiber optic or copper metal theft being used for fabric in Africa

nothing on snopes, nothing in your wiki page. in my prior comment I felt either was equally likely

it did nothing to augment what I might or might not believe, thank you for the contribution about general metal theft

It's absolutely a thing, even in developed countries people will steal cabling for scrap metal, even if it's getting rarer. Copper roofs on very old churches are also commonly stolen for scrap value.

The issue is that you didn't mention fabric / fashion in your first comment, and nobody can read your mind.

Your initial comment came across as saying you just didn't believe that people steal metal.

The parent comment was "my dad used to tell me this story", "in rural India in the 60s"

It wasn't about not believing the possibility, it was about noticing how I heard a similar story which featured association and no source, and identifying that this is the same way that all urban legends exist. I also said "or maybe I have been missing an entrepreneurial opportunity" completely, and clearly saying that I am open to believing when referencable information was provided, which it immediately was by the first response while ironically villifying me instead of leaving it at the educational moment.

We totally did the same in Russia!

People would also risk their lives dismantling live cables and would often die in the process.

Sad reminder about the value of life under communism.

I don't think it has anything to do with communism or capitalism...

Happens in the developed world as well I worked for a UK telco and they had internal security people dedicated to this sort of crime - its also a problem for railways.

Highly recommend the documentary “Honeyland”, about a poor Macedonian beekeeper.

Here in Greece it's common to steal power transformers for their copper.

Is it a choice if she didn't even know what it was?

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