Crime can be looked at as a tax that is applied in a random manner.
Taxes are extracted via coercion. Taxes suppress economic activity by reducing monetary incentive and by increasing uncertainty. Taxes involve the transfer of resources from producers to non-producers.
Crime does all those things with "...increasing uncertainty" being the most pronounced. Crime has the additional characteristic of being able to destroy you as a functioning, biological organism.
The additional costs of crime are not just what is stolen or destroyed, it includes the cost of security or "protection money" paid.
Gasoline and diesel
Gasoline and diesel are keystone resources. Access to many other resources are highly dependent on the availability of gas and diesel. "I will just burn wood!" you might say...but what are you going to put in your chainsaw? How are you going to haul the wood off the mountain and into your urban apartment?
If you can only look at one commodity as a canary-in-a-coal-mine, you are well served if you look at the price of liquid fuel.
Mogadishu is the main port into Somalia. Prices of imported goods should be least expensive there as compared to cities in the country's interior.
According to Expatistan website*, if you can find gasoline for sale in Mogadishu, a liter of gas will cost you $26 (USD) or a cool $99 a gallon. The price in Cape Town, South Africa, which is farther away from the refiners and it should be more expensive, is $1.30 per liter or about $5 a gallon.
Said another way, the gangs and thugs of Mogadishu are adding a $94 per gallon "tax" to the price of gasoline over-and-above what South Africans are paying.
But wait, it could be worse!
It was estimated that it cost $400 to deliver a gallon of gas to Forward Operating Bases in Afghanistan. You can scoff about Pentagon inefficiencies, but there are not a lot of data-points in the public domain regarding the cost of providing fuel in those kinds of environments.
During the siege of Sarajevo, many people started burning wood because LP, natural gas and liquid petroleum fuels were not available.
Blue-hive politicians like to paint property crime as "victimless". Nothing could be farther from the truth. Food needs to be cooked to kill pathogens and inactivate some toxins. Water for baby formula needs to be boiled. Spaces need to be heated in the winter if only to keep the pipes from freezing and leaking. Food needs to be transported from fields to tables and so on.
If there is a hiccup in EBT cards or the availability of goods inside of urban areas, it seems likely that thugs and gangs will take wholesale redistribution of property into their own hands.
Importing thugs and gangs from cities like Mogadishu into US cities is like blowing the internal columns out of a high-rise apartment building. No other external stresses will be required to have the building collapse.
*At the time this essay was written.
You highlight what I believe will be the biggest problem at the end. It will be epic, as in, decades later stories will still be coming to light.
ReplyDeleteIt's been well known to those of us living outside cities, that inside will become literal hell the instant EBT stops. That portion of our society doesn't even keep condiments in the refrigerator. They take their gov-issued EBT card from their gov-issued housing using gov supplied transportation to the gov-subsidized Kiwk-Mart to purchase a prepared food item made by a gov subsidized worker.
The day the free-shit stops, it's all going to go to hell. In the cities. You have roughly 1/3rd of the population that is incapable of feeding itself in any way shape or form...
A couple years ago, EBT payments were late in one state, I think either Mississippi or Louisiana. People walked out of Walmart with full carts by the dozen without an checkout let alone payment. I suspect it's a foreshadow of when the system goes down. If Internet goes down it will effectively be the same thing.
DeleteJonathan
The Hell in the inner cities is self-limiting. The population will die quickly in random violence, disease, and starvation. Most of these stories will never come to light. There won't be people left to tell them.
DeleteThe first wave of raiders from those locations will be poorly armed, poorly organized, and unfamiliar with areas outside their neighborhoods. They will be killed off fairly quickly once they venture outside of them. Any sort of injury to a raider is likely to be fatal, even minor infections from scratches or cuts. There won't be doctors or medicines available for treatment.
The subsequent waves of raiders who survive will be smarter and more dangerous, but much fewer in numbers and lacking transport. No gasoline. No working cars. Out of ammunition. Well, clubs and knives are still dangerous.
A big problem comes if city politicians make alliances with local gangs and provide them with gasoline for cars.
"Humanitarian Assistance", such as food or medicine, will create problems too, as it will all be taken by young men who have weapons. "Good intentions" will extend the survival time and capabilities of the raiders.
I keep several old logging saws and axes. I can, and have felled trees for fire wood just to know I can do it. I would prefer using a chainsaw, but... We can survive a societal collapse especially if the offspring an theirs can get here to the farm.
ReplyDeleteThe lost Antarctic Scott expedition* perished because their trials in Greenland didn't properly assess the caloric energy requirements needed to fulfill the tasks. The largest starved first, until all perished.
ReplyDeleteHaving enough strength and skill and tool is not enough. You need the extra food energy to replace the gas energy. In other words, plan for considerably more than 2000 calories a day. Plan for storing fat, you will need it. (Hint, Lard)
*"The Worst Journey In The World" by Aspley Cherry-Gerard is the best book on this expedition, and a beautiful read.
I’ve long said that if we ever have a grid down situation my last gallon of gas will be used in the chainsaw. My chainsaw does more work per gallon than any other tool that I own.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. When I had a wood stove, I could cut an entire winters wood in less than 2 days with one gallon of gasoline. The splitter took another gallon.
DeleteJonathan
Crime is as old as mankind is and is just part of the game.
ReplyDeletedie! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die! die!
ReplyDeleteI detect a trend here but am having difficulties reading between the lines.
DeleteI wonder how much income they are able to generate with this one simple trick?
DeleteAnything and everything leads to "supply chain issues". Then chaos and "issues".
ReplyDelete