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Comment by selimthegrim | Hacker News Reader

It sure would be nice if we had an actual economy around here. That being said, I have definitely been given a speeding ticket by state police on that stretch of I-10 well before this all happened, and when I had a car crash under the Claiborne expressway on the Sundays when people drag race under the bridge I assure you these "runners" were nowhere to be found. Possibly because the local biker gang whose bikes the other party hit before me dragged him back to the scene of the accident for the responding officer to interview. I do remember someone in the crowd that helped me open my door saying “oh you hurt? Oh you got hurt you got hurt bad you got hurt in your spine, etc..” kind of prompting me and/or fishing for a response so who knows if that was them or just that the general mentality has permeated the community.

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People will do anything but work for a living.

> Tt was surprisingly easy to find locals willing to risk their lives for money. Nearly a quarter of New Orleans residents live in poverty, and the prospect of a substantial windfall for a few hours’ work apparently outweighed any fear of getting into a car that was about to take part in a high-speed accident.

> People will do anything but work for a living. It's just engrained in certain cultures.

In fact, the lengths to which some people will go to avoid working for a living is stupendous. I've heard tell of organized crime in my area that sure sounds like a lot of work for not that much pay, i.e. no different than a low-end job.

Like that old quote about entrepreneurs being people who work 100 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week, but some twisted parallel of that.

Or the Freakonimics article that points out most drug dealers make less than minimum wage (Summarized in this talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_the_freakonomics_of_...)

There are a lot of perks to drug dealing for low pay versus working fast food or customer service in a store for low pay. If you work at Macy's you always gotta look decent and be smiley and friendly, if you sell cocaine you can tell bad customers to go fuck themselves and do your work hungover and wearing dirty sweat pants. If you deal near or out of your house you don't have a real commute, can work any schedule you like, don't have to ask permission for any decisions, basically the same as many 1-2 person businesses except with unusually high demand.

Often car washes or clothing stores are fronts for you know what.

I'm not defending criminal activity here, but you seem to be completely brushing off the fact that unemployment among African Americans in New Orleans hit a peak of 52% in 2011.

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