Hernando’s Rapidly Deteriorating Economy Pushing People To Steal Appliances To Survive
by John Ubele
Earlier today I came across a St. Petersburg Times story about recent appliance thefts in Hernando county. The story did nothing to address how bad the area’s economy is so I felt the need to write something about the economic situation here.
Hernando county’s economy is literally dying on the vine. Just a few years ago the county was doing great because of the real estate boom. During that time several new subdivisions were constructed which created tens of thousands of construction jobs for the area. After the boom the majority of the construction jobs went bust.
The elimination of tens of thousands of construction jobs has contributed to one of the highest county unemployment rates in Florida. The official unemployment rate is over 16%. I’m confident the rate is much higher than the ‘official number’ because I know the Hernando area very well since I’ve lived here all my life and know many business owners so I have a firsthand knowledge of how bad the local economy is.
What do all these unemployed people do when they can’t find work? Many of them will resort to theft which brings me to the main point of this article. It’s a well known fact that stealing in Hernando has been steadily increasing right along with the county’s rapidly deteriorating economy. The theft has become so widespread that people are taking appliances from foreclosed homes and then selling them on Craigslist.
In an effort to combat the stealing the sheriff’s office has been planting GPSs into appliances to track the thieves and recover the goods. So far this operation has been successful. However in the long run the sheriff’s effort will prove to be in vain because too many people are out of work here and there aren’t enough law enforcement personnel to successfully arrest all the thieves which the sheriff’s office will soon be facing.
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Comment from British Invisibles
Time March 20, 2010 at 5:15 am
Translated into Wall Street vernacular, “Some say the entrepreneurial spirit is dead, but they don’t say that at the publicly-traded AppliTrade.com in fact business is booming! The “business as they speak of it is in discounted merchandise, primarily appliances. Tod Butraper from CCCP Capital Fund even claims that in Hernando a new form of free market capitalism has emerged and one the whole world should embrace, “anti-personal property laws” especially when they impede the flow of capital. I haven’t seen anything this good since the American Mafia, AppliTrade can offer the same Westinghouse washer and dryer Home Depot carries for seventy-percent off!”
Greyson Ford of investment bank Stealers Right Fund had this to say about Hernando,
“Let’s face it, there are no jobs and people in this county need to survive so why not support them in their efforts to feed their families while steering the Nation to embracing free-market capitalism at its’ best? My fund has returned 47% on its’ investment in AppliTrade so far this year! People really DO want to pay less than the cost of producing products and honestly someone always loses in the equation so why not the employer-producers? I admit this may not work for the whole country but for right now, I GOTTA GET PAID NIGGA!”