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Bank Robbing a Terrible Business, Statistically
isoloisti writes "Three UK economists got access to national data on bank robberies. The conclusion is that robbing banks pays, but not very much. Average take is about $19k per person per robbery. But, there's a 20% chance of being caught per raid. To make an average income, a robber needs to do two jobs per year, and has greater than 50% chance to be in the slammer after 2 years."
Yep. I recall a TV interview with I believe an ex-FBI agent discussing the "does crime pay?" topic. His answer was short and simple. "If you're going to do it, do it once and do it big." The smart criminals that do one and only one big job that sets them for life or years are rarely caught. It's the smaller-time ones that keep going back for more that end up getting caught.
Even at 20% odds, it probably makes sense. If you have a 80% chance of being set for life, vs a 20% chance of being locked up for a few years, it's easy to see where those with an obviously poor future consider crime.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
My suspicion is that the white collar or "intelligent" robberies are not included in the statistical sampling the authors were allowed to draw upon. Things like electronic fraud, employee skimming, loan fraud, etc - which net the culprits millions and are not made public because they impune upon the bank's integrity far more then some guy with a gun in his pocket.
Yes, because banks never collapsed before the FDIC. There were never any bubbles before the creation of the Fed.
If you actually look at history, the period between the great depression and the 1980s were among the least financially turbulent in history. We learned our lessons after the great depression, and that served us well for 50 years until "free market" types like yourself decided banks didn't need to be regulated.
Were there bubbles in the meantime? Yes, but they were far milder than they would have been otherwise.
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