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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."
Banking, on the other hand...
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I RTFA but I didn't see any reference to the general intelligence of the robbers. From what I've always understood, intelligent bank robbers are generally not caught while those who just wandering into a bank with a paper sank and a finger gun end up getting busted quickly. You know, because they make it obvious who they are.
If you're doing any bank robbing it only pays if you're working for the bank.
If you're going to steal, steal big. The punishment is often nonexistent, and at worst you end up in a nice minimum security facility.
The best way to rob a bank is to own one. And it's only gotten better for the robber barons over the past 30 years.
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Usually when I hear about bank robbers getting caught in the US, they were doing it to pay for their meth addiction. People on meth are extremely erratic - the tenant I had tore apart a giant teddy bear and tried to flush its head down the toilet and then ran around throwing bear innards everywhere. She lied that she had a job, didn't pay her rent until evicted, and left the place a mess. She also refused rehab (according to her mom, a coworker of my wife). Last I heard she was arrested for shoplifting.
Know what you are doing.
In the US there are very few large scale organizations that are not businesses, and violence is bad for business; there is not that much of it. A good example of this kidnapping, extortion, protection rackets, are usually small-scale. There are other occupations that are safer and easier to gouge people out of money so it never reaches the scales that it does like in Mexico.
If the poverty line gets low enough combined with severe cuts in local services, it would not surprise me to see this trend be reversed.
Read How to rob a bank: A social engineering walkthrough, the more modern way. (Maybe this was on slashdot?)
I remember a french DA on TV saying something like "if bank robbers were intelligent they'd go into the confidence trick business: more reward, less violence, less jail time if you're caught".
I feel certain all persons considering robbing banks will study this statistical data and after due and sober consideration, be dissuaded from such high-risk, low-reward enterprise.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
How many British bank robbers declare the money they steal as income and pay income tax and insurance tax on it? 19K tax free is worth more than 19K before taxes.
Not any more.
Credit cards mean banks no longer have the money.
ATM machines mean most of the money is locked away in safes - and spread out over many branches, convenience stores, etc.
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Just tell them you're working for Senator Bob Dole. He takes out that much cash every couple of weeks so that nobody can track what or how he spends his money.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The vast majority of bank robbers are unlikely to have developed a career plan, and sufficient training and study to buttress it. Rather, they tend to be running on desperation. When someone(s) go on a bank robbing spree, it's usually a sign they've reached some sort of crisis in their lives, and aren't really thinking things through.
Pervasive video surveillance makes life difficult for the modern retail robber, just as it would for traders making heavily leveraged bets at trading desks in the CBD offices. But, who'll hit the silent alarm when they see someone make a trade that's almost certain to lose a couple billion (your unit of currency here)?
Successful robbers don't go in through the front door, that's amateur hour. The pros put in the work to tunnel in.
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Actually, if you are robbing 4 banks a year, then you have 3 month prep time for each job. If you spend even part of that time for prep work, then you are WAY above average for a bank robber. In fact, the stats around a significant number of robberies are probably around people that did VERY little preperation. On top of that, there are probably people who did back-to-back robberies like idiots.
That "economists" need to be better statisticians. How much does it pay to rob a bank that you do at least a month's prep work for?
The trouble is many criminals are criminals because they haven't got the good upstairs to support more gainful employment. Has anyone done a study to determine how the intelligence of those convicted of bank robbery and related crimes compares with society as a whole?
My guess they are below average. So its no surprise they are not terribly successful at it. Its not likely they'd be terribly at anything that requires deep analysis. Its sorta like how robbers always love guns that use clips. If you going rob a bank for heaven's sake load up your belt with revolvers. You don't want be leaving cartridges behind everywhere.
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I wonder if this study takes into account the robbers increasing in efficiency and effectiveness with each successive robbery. I know they have a 1 in 5 chance of being caught, but is their 10th robbery as sloppy as the previous 9? I tend to get better at my job, but does this apply to bank robbers? This is likely assuming they don't raise the stakes with each successive robbery, which they tend to do.
Three UK economists got access to national data on bank robberies... Average take is about $19k per person per robbery.
... getting paid off with a degree in Economy
Of course, it pays the banks more than the bank robbers. Same basic principle though.
And remember it is not whether or not you are above average intelligence, you have to be an above average criminal to hopefully not get caught.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
That "economists" need to be better statisticians. How much does it pay to rob a bank that you do at least a month's prep work for?
There's no problem with the statistics. £19,000 per person is the total average. If well-prepared bank robbers make more than average, then badly prepared bank robbers will make less than average.
So the question is bank robbery good for unskilled labor. Lets say that you pull five jobs in a year, get convicted for the last one, and get five years in prison. The robber is in jail, room and board taken care of, but the family might have 80K in unreported funds. If they are somewhat smart, they will get government assistance as well as the 13K a year average. OTOH, if the robber is less responsible they have had a lifestyle for a year that few unskilled people can have. And only worked a few weeks at most.
Sure for those of us with jobs and skills it seems a bit silly, but there a lot of people for whom 20K seems like a fortune. This is why I think that such analysis are not very useful. It does not speak to the basic root fo the crime.
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Did the same banker who calculates interests calculate the changes of getting caugh.
One raid, 20% change of getting caught, you need two raids a year, and that increases changes to over 50%, WTF!?
To do a variation on the old joke: "What? Are you crazy? Even if you plan extra hard, you can't outsmart the police!"
"No, but I can outsmart you."
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
$19k per job plus a 20% chance of winning free room and board for a few years doesn't sound so bad. Sign me up!
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According to the FBI, most bank robberies are not planned and most of the planned robberies are poorly planned. Most bank robbers get away with little and are caught quickly. Basically, there are two kinds of bank robbers, smart bank robbers who get away with a lot of money and rob many banks and the stupid bank robbers who need money and decide to rob a bank because that is where the money is.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Doesn't quite work.
A bear will quit once it has caught the slow person, while the cops will try to arrest every single person who is even remotely associated with a robbery. And those who they do catch will help the cops catch you so that they will get a shorter sentence for co-operating.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
...if bank robbing is such a terrible business then why do the banks continue doing it?
I'd argue that the quality of life for bank robber is FAR better than the average office drone. They only have to work a few hours a year for their pay check...
what you should do if you want to rob a bank is get hired as an exec at one and then get paid way to much.
Rob a Bank and the SS will be chatting with you Rob a Bank Company and .....
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Right, but a criminal can be "smart" enough to betray his accomplice and pin the crime on him.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
They do it for the lulz.
There goes my retirement plan!
Having anyone who knows you committed the crime is a liability, whether they are in jail or not.
And if you did set up your accomplice it might not just be the cops you have to look out for.
If going the pin the crime on him route do it in a way that the accomplice ends up dead, it will be harder for him to defend himself in court that way.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Don't forget healthcare. What happened to that man who wasn't given prison after purposely robbing a back to get healthcare? He said he'd do it again.
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Another extraordinary thing abt that sequence was the sound effects of the gunfire. Most movie gunfire sounds way too obviously souped-up, especially in the lower registers. The gunfire in Heat is enormously loud and cracking, echoing all over the buildings, and completely disorienting. The weapons also have a great deal of kick back, very realistic. I think what the FX guys did was load full blank charges in real guns, and let the actors have at it. Best gun sequence ever.
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Bank robs YOU!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
You can make lotsa money at fast food joints, don't be the one flipping burgers (be the franchise owner or up)
You can make lotsa money at gas stations, don't be the one behind the counter (be an executive in one of their high rise offices)
You can make lotsa money stealing cash, don't be the one handling the cash (be one of them Wall St businessmen that lie, cheat, and steal from people everyday).
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If he lived today, Willie Sutton would be on Wall Street.
Rob a country, and the cities fall into ruins, leaving the people with no hope, no education, and driving them to desperate acts such as robbing banks. The cycle is complete.
All of this has happened before, and and all of this will happen again...
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... and I am not talking about "pirates" as defined by the MAFIAA ...
The most successful pirates do not live near the Somalia coast
They live in big western cosmopolitans, and are earning much more than their counterparts in Somalia
How they made their killings?
They purchase old ships, - very very very old ships, 30+ year old ships, rust buckets, really - that barely can float
They gave those ship a fresh coat of paint
Re-register the ships
And set them a-sail, as merchant ships
These ships that barely floats, will ply in waters of Africa, or South America, or in Asia
And then sink
Of course, people die when ships sank - mainly those poorly paid sailors
But that does not matter to those pirates
What really matters to those successful pirates is the insurance claim - they bought big insurance on their rust buckets, and reap the rewards when their ships sink
Of course, the bank robbers are stupid
They are not the one really robbing the banks
It's the stripes who are doing the real robbing
Just like the most successful pirates, who do not rob even a single ship
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Or Goldman Sachs.
After all, they didn't do anything. Only "Some of the activities they undertook contributed to the prevailing mood of the time." (Shout out to the Gregory Brothers!)
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... if you need money fast, rob a bank. 1/5 chances of getting caught, as long as you don't do it again.
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True to that even if it wasn't the showiest but sometimes that just doesn't fit. It has been a while since I have watched it I think I may need to watch it again now. All in all I thought it was a great movie when I watched it last which was about 10 years ago.
Time to offend someone
and why would it be interesting to me? What do I care what a Marxist or somebody influenced by Marxism had to say?
You can't handle the truth.
There is only about ~900 billion paper and coin dollars.
There is about ~14 trillion dollars worth of credit supplied by banks.
There is about ~55 trillion dollars in total debt, again, supplied by banks.
What backs the dollar is the faith that the 14 trillion dollars will some day pay the 55 trillion dollars off.
Doesn't it sound like Ponzi/Pyramid scam on global scale?
Casteism
"Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." --Rothschild
Casteism