Indian police hunt gang accused of stealing a bridge | Hacker News Reader

Indian police hunt gang accused of stealing a bridge

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24 pointssamber11 comments

As the average wage divided by the average living costs continues to go down, while the price of commodities stays the same or goes up, we will start seeing more and more ridiculous thefts like this all across the world.

In a few decades I don't doubt that Limestone, aggregate material etc. theft will be equivalent to today's copper and iron thefts.

I hope that the person paying the price for these crimes isn't the average person, or a very local government.

People allegedly don't make as much as they did last year so they pull off a multi million dollar theft of public infrastructure?

Minus the hyperbole/sarcasm with the dollar amounts and time period, yeah - pretty much. Opportunity cost is the primary driver of these moderately profitable but high risk crimes, and the amount you earn from a regular job will steadily shrink when compared to the amount you could earn by stealing 10 miles of chain-link fencing.

I also think that "multi million dollar theft" is a great exaggeration here - the amount stolen appears to be about 500 tonnes. Assuming that 80% of that is pure Iron, the price would actually be about $36,000. It would certainly not be worth doing for someone born in the U.K. with the skills of a tradesman, but it's worth it in India and may be worth it in the future for people over here too.

Taxes are paid by the average person, so yes, the price is paid by the average person.

On the subject of bridge whimsy ... an American (Rpbert P McCulloch) bought London Bridge for $2.46m. The rumour was that he thought he was buying Tower Bridge. This seems to be a debunked theory. however.

https://www.onthisday.com/articles/why-an-american-bought-lo...

https://londonist.com/2013/04/londonbridge

India feels like one of the last countries on Earth that's truly wild, almost in the spaghetti western sense.

People steal scrap metal in the poor areas here too, but it's usually just pipes from abandoned buildings. I've never seen an entire bridge go missing, abandoned or otherwise. It's actually kind of impressive.

Funny. I could make the same statement for USA. If I pick weird Florida man kind of news happening in remote corners and use it to generalise the whole country

Sounds like you took my comment as an insult. It was a compliment, if anything.

I figured you, the reader, would be smart enough to make the distinction you're looking for in your own head without me spelling them out. Everyone already knows India is full of modern and developed areas, but that's not what the article was about. My comment doesn't exist in a vacuum, so maybe it would be fair to afford me the same nuance you seem to be after.

i took your comment as on literal value and nothing else. I get the same wild wild west feeling in deep areas of USA, maybe west virginia. How I as a reader would understand your intentions if you write like NYT or BBC about how "exotic" this foreign land ?

Interesting. They literally have a bridge to sell you.

Abandoned Bridge.

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