while this is pushing the 50% economic content rule of Dollar Den, I felt it was worth posting because it clearly indicates a potential future trend across the country which is economically related.
(snip)"Welcome to Tiburon.
Click.
Your presence has been noted.
The posh and picturesque town that juts into San Francisco Bay is poised to do something unprecedented: use cameras to record the license plate number of every vehicle that crosses city limits.
Some residents describe the plan as a commonsense way to thwart thieves, most of whom come from out of town. Others see an electronic border gate and worry that the project will only reinforce Tiburon's image of exclusivity and snootiness.
"I personally don't see too much harm in it, because I have nothing to hide," commodities broker Paul Lambert, 64, said after a trip to Boardwalk Market in downtown Tiburon on a recent afternoon.
"Yet," he said, "it still has the taint of Big Brother."
Tiburon's camera idea is a marriage of technology, policing and distinct geography.
Situated on a peninsula, Tiburon's hillside homes and waterfront shops are accessible by only two roads, allowing police to point the special cameras known as license plate readers at every lane that leads into and out of the town of 8,800
The readers, which use character recognition software, can compare plates to databases of cars that have been stolen or linked to crimes, then immediately notify police of matches, said Police Chief Michael Cronin.
If someone burglarized a Tiburon home at 3 a.m. one morning, he said, detectives could consult the devices and find out who came to town in the hours before - and who rolled out soon after."(snip)
from
In other words, local communities that are predominantly the homes of the very rich are continuing to prepare themselves for an expected 'onslaught' of crime. The very rich obviously serve as supposedly juicy targets for would-be robbers / burglars / muggers ... but they are also in a financial position to protect themselves. The de-facto 'big brother' monitoring of every vehicle entering and leaving the Tiburon peninsula sets an important precedent of establishing an 'electronically' gated 'compound' as a safe haven for the very rich.
The flip side of this development, of course, is that as the number of potential robbers / burglars / muggers continues to increase as the economic situations worsen and gov'ts cut back on spending via firing police / prison guards and releasing criminals from prisons early, the total 'demand' for robbery / burglary / mugging related stolen dollars will increase. At the same time, as illustrated by this news story, the very rich ( who can afford to pay high local taxes thus employ exotic security measures as well as lots of competent local cops) are taking strong measures to reduce the likelihood of themselves being targeted. But this really means that would-be robbers / burglars / muggers are likely to substitute an easier target instead ... i.e. people living in middle class neighborhoods whose local gov'ts can't afford equal levels of security / police protection. Unfortunately, in order to glean the same number of robbery / burglary / mugging dollars, they will need to commit 10 times as many robberies / burglaries / muggings against middle-class victims !
Maybe there IS a good reason that Smith & Wesson stock is rising like a rocket !



Reply With Quote
Bookmarks