Yeah that sounds ridiculous to me. Yes I can understand that high interest rates come from periods of iresponsible borrowing by capitalists who have become complacent due to low interest rates continuing for a long time. However, to act like this complacency, which is caused by a deep understanding of the economy and business-minded spirit, would also affect the lower classes in some way even though they are largely unaware of the details of the economy or lack the ability to exploit it, is a strange stretch. Even more of a stretch is saying that the lower class equivalent of risky borrowing because of a feeling of security is... doing crime because you feel so secure in your employment?? Why would anyone in their right mind be compelled to do crime because your life is just going too well and you have too many opportunities to better yourself legally? The claims of the article make much more sense.
> > your life is just going too well and you have too many opportunities to better yourself legally?
Internalized concerns about time opportunity cost and sense of urgency and the aforementioned poor impulse control and irrational exuberance, a mix of all of them too.
Test it on yourself, when you are in a good mood or in a 'let's go after it' mood you are more likely to be speeding, the higher the mood, the lower the impulse control, it can drive you up to 120-130 mph maybe while your favorite song is playing and there is a stretch of open road ahead. Even 140 if your car is powerful, and you don't notice it. You are breaking a bunch of laws in that moment without realizing.
It comes from within, it has nothing to do with finances, job market, savings or any reasoned thought. Thank God! Being irrational and getting away with it, and then looking back in a moment of rationality is an emotion that makes us human.
I think you would need to prove to me that most of these crimes are poor impulse control in everyday activities rather than large life decisions that most people don't do when they have other oppurtunities - like joining gangs.
Have you ever lived in bad neighborhoods? There is no interview process to join a gang, a person starts with something mundane like moving drugs for some very low ranking affiliate from some area of the city to another. Literally just driving, nothing life changing.
You could rebut, why not become an Uber driver, to which I reply: same amount of money that Uber driver makes in a whole day in about 1-2 hours tops.
When you hear news reports saying "X or Y joined Z gang in 2016 and climbed within the criminal organization" , you can be sure that the first mundane task he made for some low ranking affiliate back in 2010 perhaps even earlier.
And do you not think that the problem with the gang giving you way more money is caused by minimum wages being well below the living wage (so legal work keeps you in poverty), social mobility being low (so working hard never gets you an improvement in your lot), unemployment being high, and people's only choices being jobs where they have zero hours contracts and reduced workers rights like Uber (making again, it seem less worth it and still sorta risky as a choice). Deciding to run drugs for a gang is again, not something you do on impulse like pushing harder on the accelerator pedal. You do it based on cost-benefit analysis. This cost benefit analysis comes from you being exploited my capitlists making record profits. They are having a great time and are borrowing recklessly. The people at the bottom of society do not see any sort of benefits proportional to the labour they would have to put in to participate. They are clearly not just happy campers suffering from poor impulse control from having it too good.
