People kept making that point in SF about the sub-$900 CVS shoplifting rampage until they found out that the whole thing was run by organized large-scale crime rings. Those fine folks in charge of operations are not very likely to be suffering of much of anything, but you could argue that they are taking advantage of the homeless crisis to recruit foot soldiers for their enterprise.

> but you could argue that they are taking advantage of the homeless crisis to recruit foot soldiers for their enterprise.

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont... "Over the course of the investigation, $1,874,633.65 was seized from the defendants’ various bank accounts."

Yeah, if a two-million-dollar crime organization is supposed to be some "gotcha" then let's compare their possible ratio of crime-boss versus street-thug pay to the ratio of Silicon-Valley-engineer TC versus Tech-CEO TC. Do yours first :D

Not really sure in this case, but it’s worth remembering that just as people organise into groups and hierarchies for other things like business and politics, so too do they organise for crime.

While organised crime is demonstrably capable of engineering situations beneficial to their ongoing criminal endeavours… it’s important to remember that the organised crime rings involvement may just be an emergent property of crime being allowed to happen enough that the people involved in it begin to organise.

Of course the situation may devolve from that point but the organising force coming from within before being co-opted is still reflecting a different situation than one where the whole endeavour was started and run by some kind of gang/kingpin/mafia to begin with.

There's plenty of shortages caused not by capital, but by government. Like restrictive zoning and price controls suppressing housing construction. I fail to see how UP railroad is complicit in the scarcity that may be driving some to steal from trains.

> not by capital, but by government

These are the same thing though. The former is the incentive mechanism to achieve the designs of the latter. It's just filtered through enough layers like Vanguard and Berkshire and friends that people don't notice. Hands up if you've worked somewhere funded by In-Q-Tel, for example (I have!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel

there's a large class of people who have checked out of society and live in encampments while stealing to get by. I wouldn't be so quick to assume that this is because of capital misallocation; after all, in SF they allocate ridiculous sums to housing transients (far more than I spend on my own housing on a per capita basis) and the problem persists. In LA the budget is $1B annually.

If you haven't noticed, the median transient is a drug addict (mostly meth/opiates) and the typical drug addict chooses not to participate in society, inasmuch as you can accept that they have any agency at all. Some may think they are being compassionate with this victim-coddling but this only makes sense if you take the view that the victim-criminals enjoy their situation, since the coddling isn't elevating any of them out of poverty.

I just straight-up don't believe anybody would willingly be a homeless addict if they felt they had any achievable path toward a fulfilling life. Drugs are a coping method (Source: have done drugs). Of course some people will choose not to participate in a society they feel has abandoned them. Everyone has a different breaking point and the world shouldn't be set up so people fail and suffer by default unless they "'earn' a living". That's such a fucked-up concept and we even have a normalized phrase for it.

Even CDC readily admits this: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/11778/cdc_11778_DS1.pdf

"Males and females have reported using methamphetamine for increased energy and productivity, its low cost, self-medication for depression or attention deficits, and the euphoric high"

"Males have reported using methamphetamine […] increased energy to work multiple jobs"

To me it feels like your comment is the one taking "the view that the victim-criminals enjoy their situation" if you think people choose to drop out of society even when there are bootstraps by which they could pull themselves up v(._. )v

Reading HN comments on stories like this can be so disheartening. So many people seem to buy into the lies about criminality that created the situation we’re in now. Just wanted to say I agree with everything you’re saying in this thread, and thanks for saying it.

Of course there are bootstraps available. Look around you on this forum; it's full of hard working, self taught, highly motivated and successful individuals working in an industry that has some of the lowest barriers to entry imaginable.

I think when choosing between "unhoused, with access to drugs" and "housed but no access to drugs", many (not most, and not you!) choose the former. It's empirically true: most shelters don't allow drug use and so addicts turn them down in favor of camping.

You are projecting your own relative values if you think no one would ever make this choice. You are also over-weighting your own experience when you say that all drugs are a coping mechanism for all people all the time. Different drugs affect the same person differently; the same drug affects different people differently. Caffeine, Adderall, LSD, coke can all be productivity enhancers and are on average less destructive than meth. With all these tools at one's disposal, and plenty of precedent for successful straightedge approaches to life, suggesting that the meth problem is a result of people earnestly trying to survive the rat race is poorly supported by logic.

I can't even guess what you think the alternative to "earning a living" should be. The default should be to provide unlimited benefits for those who have no interest in contributing to society? Great, that's what we effectively are doing, so you must believe the status quo is ideal. But if you believe these people aren't living their best lives, then maybe consider that the current approach (extreme coddling) isn't helping them.

The scarcity is real right now because of supply chain issues and people robbing trains doesn't help. And no, these people aren't "stealing to survive" they're stealing because they can. Crime rates shot up all over the country wherever laws were slackened or police forces torn down.

> The scarcity is real right now because of supply chain issues

IMO regulations that allow such a fragile system still make it artificial, just minus all accountability. Supply chains can't be an "act of god" (in a tort sense) when it's a concept humans made up.