Say Anything Blog

An interesting report from NPR:

All Things Considered, March 11, 2008 · Burglary is one of the most ordinary of crimes. More than 2 million Americans are victims of burglary every year. But underneath this common occurrence is a strange trend. For most of the past 30 years, burglaries have declined, according to the Justice Department.

During that same time, murders, rapes, assault — and just about every other crime — have peaked and plummeted with three major crime waves. Criminologists have a lot of theories why burglaries are so different. Barry Mathis exemplifies one of them.

“I was a salesman. I could sell anything,” Mathis says, as he waits to see his probation officer at a city building in Washington, D.C. “Go get me some toilet paper, and I could sell it.”

For almost 20 years, Mathis burglarized homes to support a drug habit. He only got caught a few times. Mathis says he stopped breaking into homes because there’s just no money in it anymore.

“If you’re going to do a burglary, you need to have some buyers,” Mathis says. “Everybody has everything now.”

Mathis says there’s just too much on the street already. Everyone he knows already has a digital camera, iPod knockoffs and pirated DVDs shipped in from China.

“And if it’s not new, a lot of people don’t even want to fool with it,” Mathis says.

Forget about last year’s video games and old laptops, Mathis says. And don’t even bring a VCR or boxy TV to the street.

So why don’t people want to buy cheap, stolen merchandise?  Well, there are probably two good reasons.

First, our economy is actually pretty good.  Americans, at least for the last 5 or 6 years, have had plenty of disposable income to burn.  Sales for things like iPods and DVD’s have shot through the roof, and with most citizens able to satisfy their desire for “stuff” through legitimate sales why turn to fenced goods?

Second, free trade has driven the cost of just about everything down.  Protectionists like to talk about free trade in terms of jobs lost and businesses moved overseas, but the real impact trade has on our economy is in making goods and services cheaper.  One big reason why Americans have so much disposable income is because things cost less.

If we had the trade policies most protectionists want a lot of us wouldn’t be able to afford our iPods, and that extra laptop for the kids.