• The circle remains unbroken: Police react with minimal investigation, numbers are logged. The insurance pays out and premiums are increased. There are ample thieves and buyers. The ports collect cargo fees, and many containers are unchecked when the vehicles are shipped away. The auto company makes and sells another vehicle. The politicians react. Some excuse the criminals and others excoriate the accused. They react and raise taxes.

    This is the effect of crumbling institutions not the cause of it, although it reinforces the feedback loop. Keep shrinking the state by putting more of its functions into entities only responsible to their major shareholders and watch it get worse. It’s been the program since the modern resurgence of market fundamentalism (neoliberalism).

    • I agree with you, and another way of looking at it is that the system is working perfectly as intended. The people who are happy with it are the ones who have the power to change it, but they don’t want to, because there’s no benefit to them.