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Ardent Listener
Administrator
USA
4841 Posts |
 Posted - 09/06/2007 : 15:47:13
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Copper thieves, ask yourselves: Is it worth 5 years?
THE ISSUE
A state judge has imposed the maximum five-year prison sentence on a man convicted of stealing copper from a city facility.
CIRCUIT Judge Steve Alm has sent a strong message to copper thieves by imposing the maximum five-year prison sentence for criminal property damage in such a case. The sentence should be a signal that future cases will be treated severely under the terms of a law enacted by this year's Legislature.
The new law makes theft of copper a felony but it was not used in the case of Michael Handy, whose offense occurred in May 2006, before its enactment. Handy was accused of stripping copper siding and rain gutters from the Honolulu Board of Water Supply's Kapahulu facility. Instead, Handy was sentenced for his conviction of criminal property damage, which carries a maximum five-year prison term.
Lee Hayakawa, a deputy public defender, said Handy was a "sacrificial lamb" for a increasingly common crime. Indeed, Alm, a former U.S. attorney for Hawaii, said the stiff sentence was partly intended to deter others from stealing copper, a growing problem nationwide as copper prices soared from 80 cents to $3.60 a pound on financial markets since 2003, although dipping to $3.26 this year.
Thieves stole $10,000 worth of brass toilet flush valves from Honolulu parks last year and caused $300,000 in damage to state freeways by stealing copper wire. The theft of copper wiring forced cancellation of a football game last month at Campbell High School because the lights would not work. The football field's damage was estimated at $25,000.
Hawaii was among 20 states this year that passed laws to curb the problem. In addition to making copper theft a felony, the new law requires people who sell copper to scrap dealers to provide a notarized declaration that they have a legal right to sell the copper.
Alm pointed out that the theft of copper harms taxpayers. While the copper stolen by Handy was valued at less than $100, the estimated damage and replacement costs were $23,000. "People think it's just a theft crime," said city Deputy Prosecutor Franklin Pacarro. "It's a public utility, and it affects all of us."
The danger of stealing copper from utility lines has not deterred thieves, some of whom have been electrocuted in the middle of committing crimes. In March, a 54-year-old Waipahu man fell 40 feet to his death from a utility pole near Honolulu Airport. Police said the man had been cutting wires between a transformer and transmission lines at the top of the pole when he probably lost his balance and grabbed a live wire carrying 11,500 volts.
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Some unrented stores in my town just got broken into and all the copper pipes and wiring taken.
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Fanaticism is doubling one's efforts, yet forgetting one's purpose.
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192 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 19:35:45
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This is part of what I call, "the cost of busnisess as usual".
When a nation flushes its middle class down the toilet, and leaves itself with only rich and poor, the cost of business goes WAY WAY WAY up as compared to the cost of doing business in a fully functional society.
Catherine Austin Fitz calls it the "popcycle index"
She asks this question,
"what percent of the people in your (neighborhood, town, state, nation, family, house, apartment building, etc) think it is okay to send a first grader to the nearest, "popcycle stand" to buy a popcycle and return home without adult supervision?
Where I live, the index is around 5%.
That means that about 19 out of every 20 people I ask, say that it is not okay for a 6 year old to walk to, "the nearest" popcycle stand and come home.
This is sad.
A society that is so divided and afraid that they can't let a kid walk to the popcycle stand is a society in which the copper will be ripped out of the walls.
We are throwing away our middle class as fast as we can.
We all agree that this is a real shame.
We disagree on what to do about it.
That is a shame too.
I think that Thom Hartman is right when he says that we should first and foremost reverse the Ronald Regan notion that enforcing the Sherman Anti-trust act is passee.
Regan and his ditto heads think that there is no price to pay for throwing away the Sherman anti-trust act, but this is not so.
Throwing away the anti-trust laws leads us to trusts.
So now we have these HUGE trusts, bigger than the Carnegies or the Rockefellers of 100 years ago.
By allowing them to accomeulate power without any checks and balances, we are throwing away the middle class.
By throwing away the middle class we are throwing away civility itself.
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Don't believe everything you think. |
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horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
 Posted - 09/06/2007 : 21:00:15
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Throughout history whenever a great society collapses one of the things that happens is that the people in their desperation gut the infrastructure of the country. Anything of value is stripped apart and sold to the highest bidder.
I am not saying that is happening here yet, but the fact that people are tearing apart our infrastructure (making a buck and causing 10X to 100X in damage) is a bad, bad reflection on the current state of union. Having to replace stuff over and over again because of looting destory wealth (as is blowing stuff up, but that is another story.) Each time it happens the whole world becomes a tiny bit poorer for it.
What is going on now is just a small glimpse of what could happen if the dollar becomes worthless and the police and miltary have no more motivation to do their jobs...
IMHO |
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deleted
192 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 21:24:20
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Doing 10x or 100x damage for survival has a historic name.
It is called "eatting your seeds".
In normal times people harvest in the fall and set aside 95% of the harvest as food and 5% as seed to plant the following year.
You don't eat your seeds until AFTER the sh!t has already hit the fan.
Eatting your seeds is a sign that the sh!t has already hit the fan,
at least for those who are eating theirs.
Ripping our infrastucture at a 10x or 100x cost is (imho) proof that at least for some element of our society,
the sh!t has ALREADY hit the fan.
I am still able to heat my home and feed my family,
but the guy ripping copper out of the wall is not.
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Don't believe everything you think. |
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Ardent Listener
Administrator
USA
4841 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2007 : 19:39:56
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quote:
Originally posted by me2
Doing 10x or 100x damage for survival has a historic name.
It is called "eatting your seeds".
In normal times people harvest in the fall and set aside 95% of the harvest as food and 5% as seed to plant the following year.
You don't eat your seeds until AFTER the sh!t has already hit the fan.
Eatting your seeds is a sign that the sh!t has already hit the fan,
at least for those who are eating theirs.
Ripping our infrastucture at a 10x or 100x cost is (imho) proof that at least for some element of our society,
the sh!t has ALREADY hit the fan.
I am still able to heat my home and feed my family,
but the guy ripping copper out of the wall is not.
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Don't believe everything you think.
Most of those who are caught ripping other people's cooper out of their homes are not using the money to feed their family. Maybe I could understand it if that were the case. Drugs and plain greed for a quick buck are their motives. But I agree, sh!t is hitting the fan, but for most of those people it always has and always will.
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Fanaticism is doubling one's efforts, yet forgetting one's purpose.
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Realcent.forumco.com disclosure please read
All posts either by the members, moderators, and the administration of You must be logged in to see this link. are for entertainment purpose only. It is not the intent of realcent.forumco.com to provide investment, medical, legal or tax advice and nothing posted here should be considered to be so. |
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Gresham
Penny Pincher Member
184 Posts |
Posted - 09/08/2007 : 11:51:29
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The point that I see is that this type of theft is getting more common. So if it's people that are always having sh!t hit the fan, why do we seem to have more of those people?
What is a popcycle stand? |
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Ardent Listener
Administrator
USA
4841 Posts |
Posted - 09/08/2007 : 19:01:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Gresham
The point that I see is that this type of theft is getting more common. So if it's people that are always having sh!t hit the fan, why do we seem to have more of those people?
What is a popcycle stand?
Gresham, my theory or opinon on that is that there are too many people who have allowed themselves to be taken in by both the goverment welfare system and the Hollywood hype in that the world owes them a quick and easy living. Duing the great depression such crimes did not increase to the degree that one might have expected. Consider that there was not the goverment "safty nets" back then except mosty for some charities such as soup kitchens. The W.P.A. was work camps not welfare distribution centers. There was still a sense of individualism were the individual was responsible for his or her own destiny. Society built itself out of the great depression. If it would have given up we would never had recovered from it. I understand that WWII and the destruction of our money came along with that recovery, but that was not the doing of the people in general.
Please don't get me wrong, I deplore what is happening to our society by so called "leaders" of business and goverment. But one man stealing copper pipe for what ever reason is at best pathetic, but an army of such men means the total destruction of society as we know it.
As for the popcycle stand, I don't know. That was before my time.
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Fanaticism is doubling one's efforts, yet forgetting one's purpose.
*********************
Realcent.forumco.com disclosure please read
All posts either by the members, moderators, and the administration of You must be logged in to see this link. are for entertainment purpose only. It is not the intent of realcent.forumco.com to provide investment, medical, legal or tax advice and nothing posted here should be considered to be so. |
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horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
Posted - 09/09/2007 : 09:48:19
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I have a theory with no evidence to back it up (those are the best kind  ).
As we all know by know, the real-estate market has betting getting kicked around pretty good. As such, there has been an expectation for a while now of this impacting the jobs numbers in a negative way.
However, the jobs numbers have not been effected until just recently. One explanation for this is the high number of unregistered workeds in the construction industry. 10s of thousands of these works gain or loss jobs and go completely undetected in the jobs numbers, but still impact the economy.
So my theory is that there is a huge group of currently unemployed construction workers out there struggling to pay their bills and that many of them are not getting any type of government support because of their unregistered status. These unemployed workers also happen to have "inside" information on scrapping construction materials, construction site security (or lack there of), and how to strip a house... |
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deleted
192 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2007 : 00:08:10
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Horgad's Theory is not his alone.
I read basically the same idea elsewhere recently.
I agree that the govMint's numbers are false. The undocomeented workers who have been laid off and do not have any means of support are doing exactly what any of us would do in their shoes. We continue to feed our families for as long as possible, not as long as practical, or as long as it is easy, or as long as it is safe. They are doing what they have to do to survive.
Joni Mitchell said:
"I guess it's been too long a time since I've been scrambling down in the street."
It is hard for me to understand a guy killing or stealing or joining the army in order to feed his family, but then, I guess I'm just a priviledge old white guy.
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Don't believe everything you think. |
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Is it worth 5 years?
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