Oakland’s police chief Anthony Batts has announced that Oakland Police will not responded to 44 different crimes if planned layoffs occur at midnight. It was useful for Batts to announce the categories in advance for criminals to chose from a criminal dim sum list of free crimes including grand theft, burglary, vehicle collision, identity theft and vandalism.
If you are the victim of burglary, you will be told to make a report online and not to expect police to respond.
Here the list of free crimes in Oakland:
burglary
theft
embezzlement
grand theft
grand theft:dog
identity theft
false information to peace officer
required to register as sex or arson offender
dump waste or offensive matter
discard appliance with lock
loud music
possess forged notes
pass fictitious check
obtain money by false voucher
fraudulent use of access cards
stolen license plate
embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
extortion
attempted extortion
false personification of other
injure telephone/ power line
interfere with power line
unauthorized cable tv connection
vandalism
administer/expose poison to another’s
That allows ample room for most criminals to plan a life of crime without the risk of police interference.
This is the response to the planned layoff of 80 officers. That is roughly one-tenth of the force. As we continue to gush billions in Afghanistan and Iraq, our cities are returning to a state of nature. According to the city of Oakland, each of the 776 police officers currently employed at OPD costs around $188,000 per year. The city council asked OPD officers to pay nine percent of their salary toward their pensions. However, the union would only agree if the city promised no layoffs. The city refused.
Source: NBC.
mespo
Got your message that you got my message … I can now stop stalking
Byron,
If the fines are sufficient to punish a corporation as large as Massey or BP, there would be plenty of cash to do both.
Elaine:
I tend to agree but how about putting the money gathered from fines into a widow and orphans type fund and set it aside for people who lose their lives rather than putting it on the general ledger?
Byron–
“What does a fine do?”
The fines were in no way near stiff enough. The Massey mine company was cited hundreds of times. The fines were a nuisance…no more. The government should have made them pay through the teeth for each violation. Then maybe the company would have done the right thing–for monetary reasons.
B,
“There has been a massive failure of government oversight, what makes you think it will change?”
Removing the graft from the system would improve oversight efficiency enormously.
Elaine/Mike:
If they did that they should be in jail for murder.
What government agency oversaw their operation? We have all of these regulations and there seems to be no enforcement. In the construction industry lost time accidents were reduced when insurance companies gave rebates to construction companies for safe job sites. OSHA really didn’t do much to make construction sites safer but they do have some manuals on design of safe trenching excavations that I don’t use because I don’t think they are safe enough to follow to put men in a hole in the earth and so I do my own designs for earth support.
Who is watching the “watchers”? If the proposition is that men are morally corrupt and need to be controlled in order for them to do good, then all are in the same way in need of oversight. Which has been pretty much proven over the past few months with Massey Energy, BP, Bernie Madoff and others. There has been a massive failure of government oversight, what makes you think it will change?
Why not just provide for more access to the court system and let injured parties sue the hell out of companies like Massey Energy and have prohibitions against bankruptcy and compensation caps and make the owners and management responsible for criminal activities on the part of the company? What does a fine do? It doesn’t make the injured party or their family whole.
Byron, I agree with you that regulations are hobbling. But that is their purpose. And the greater the risk a particular business enterprise poses to the public, the greater the degree of hobbling that is required. I think you will agree that we have seen over the past few years more than enough evidence of the adverse effects of deregulation and of the haphazard enforcement of existing regulations, which is the same thing. That is one of the reasons that the new wish list of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, soon to be adopted as the Republican Party platform, is patently absurd.
Correction: Look at what happened in the Gulf of Mexico because BP was trying to save money.
Slart,
Do you happen to have a link to that study about effective uses of tax dollars, I think it might be germane to the discussion of “lost opportunity of money.”
Byron–
You said: “Good idea, I like it. But is that enough? I would also reduce some of the more hobbling regulations that don’t do much but cost large sums of money to both enforce and comply with.”
I happen to be of the opinion that companies need regulations to keep their workers safe. I’m not so naive as to believe that companies will always “do the right thing.” If we could trust them–we wouldn’t need costly regulations. Look at what BP! And MMS was asleep at the wheel.
**********
Have you heard about this following story?:
Massey Energy Turned off Methane Detector at Doomed Mine
By: Michael Whitney Thursday July 15, 2010 10:24 am
http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2010/07/15/massey-energy-turned-off-methane-detector-at-doomed-mine/
Excerpt:
On February 13, 2010, the management at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine ordered an electrician to disable a methane alarm that kept going off, according to NPR. On April 6, a methane explosion ripped through the mine, killing 29 West Virginia coal miners in the worst mine disaster in decades.
Why did Massey management want the alarm turned off? Because the alarm was detecting dangerous levels of methane, and when the alarm sounds, mining must stop until methane returns to acceptable levels. So instead of fixing the problem of dangerous levels of methane, Massey decided to turn off the alarm and ignore the methane.
Hogwarts student,
Tax cuts are a decrease in government revenue, therefore they impact the deficit in exactly the same way as spending increases. When we’re talking about the stimulus, we’re talking about the benefit of raising the deficit by $1 (the money that will not be available for other purposes).
Byron,
He slices, he dices, he juliennes… Um. No, he doesn’t do anything else, as it were.
Byron,
I’m asking a very simple question here: Why is spending money on a stimulus like having to buy a window to replace one that’s broken?
I mean, I get that it’s an analogy, and hugely simplified, but you at least have to have SOMETHING that’s like a broken window.
A great place for the analogy would be arguing against someone saying: “BP is helping the economy in the Gulf because of all the people needed to do the clean up work,” or “We should just pay people to dig holes and then fill them in,” or “seizing this shopping center for eminent domain to build a hotel will provide jobs for hotel workers.”
Those are whole different things than “hiring office workers doesn’t help anything.” So I’m asking, why do YOU think that this story fit for THIS type of government spending.
As to the roads thing, true free market roads are impossible in practice. Thanks to topographical, private property, and population considerations, a road is a natural monopoly, and by their very nature any such enterprise has to rely on government support. Thus no free market. See: The railroads.
Slarti:
I got on you-tube and just listened to a bunch, very funny stuff. As one blogger said a “demented Cole Porter”. He is great fun.
Does he do anything else?
Byron,
You’ve never heard Tom Leher before? I’ve known of him since early childhood (as my high school calculus teacher would say). Here are a couple more of my favorites:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8aW4YuFSiY&hl=en_US&fs=1]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmwlzwGMMwc&hl=en_US&fs=1]
(I put another one into an email that I’m writing you…)
Slarti:
I wouldnt want that guy mad at me, very biting satire and to my point. How did you happen on him?
“tax cuts generate $1.03 of economic activity per dollar spent, unemployment benefits generate $1.63 – I believe food stamps are the best form of stimulus known”
Tax cuts generate $1.03 for every dollar spent? Who spends that dollar? I can tell you who spends that dollar when it is for unemployment benefits, and food stamps.
Tax cuts are not money spent by the government. Unfortunately, there is no way to have tax cuts when the government thinks that spending is the way to go.
Bryon:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTKn1aSOyOs&hl=en_US&fs=1]
Byron said:
“please keep that our secret.”
Sorry, my bad.
Byron said:
“Velcro was discovered in 1941 by some guy walking in the woods.”
Great, one of my favorite factoids is apocryphal. Thanks a lot. Pppttthhhpt! It did become popular (and hence profitable) because of its extensive use by NASA, so my example still has some validity. The private sector certainly has a role in scientific research, but it would not and could not do the job alone.
In re your conversation with Gyges, if were going to consider the opportunity cost of the money spent on stimulus, what about the stimulative effect of different kinds of spending (i.e. tax cuts generate $1.03 of economic activity per dollar spent, unemployment benefits generate $1.63 – I believe food stamps are the best form of stimulus known). I can see extending unemployment benefits as being worth the opportunity costs, but tax cuts clearly aren’t. 😉
Slarti:
and:
transistor 1925
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor
Slarti:
Velcro was discovered in 1941 by some guy walking in the woods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velcro
teflon 1938
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene
and I might add all by individuals or companies for profit. The moon shot would not have been possible without the private sector and the discoveries made by people looking to benefit themselves. I also might add that Werner Von Braun should have been shot or hanged but was needed by the US. From here I could rant about science in service/subservience to the state but I wont, I think you probably get the idea I have in mind.