What is the solution here? Do trains need armed security when passing through unsafe regions?
Half-way through the article we get the point. This is just another example of how our retail supply lines are optimized at every turn to shovel maximum crap through the pipe... be it minimally-staffed stores or unsecured trains. It's all about cash flow, baby!
Let the market fix the problem.
If the market reacts by making it harder to steal, then presumably this will increase the cost of goods which will, presumably, increase the value of stealing them. The market doesn't have a lot of options that I can see.
This is not an issue for which society/government should pay the cost to fix it (which you seem to imply by saying the markets have no options).
Why must the government step in when these skeleton-crewed retail stores and supply chains have inevitable, predictable loss issues? The article itself makes this point.
I don't see why shoplifters are thrown in jail and wage thieves are not. Why do cops gun down shoplifters but won't lift a finger for wage thieves? Why don't cops bust down the doors of polluters? It's the selective enforcement of property rights I have a problem with. The enforcers already side with capital 9 times out of 10.
The original articles and discussion here on HN is surprisingly one-sided.
Obviously I don’t like railroad theft but let’s not send in the army to protect a supply chain which has perhaps been made too efficient.
These increases needn't be the same. It could be that by increasing the security budget 10%, theft decreased by 90%, and prize increased by 1%, which wouldn't be high enough to create a "theft demand". It could also be that the same security budget increase did nothing on the theft rate. My point is this is not necessarily how the market works.
This is similar to the argument that taxes increase the cost of products, which increases the cost of running the government (since the government consumes free market products), which will require more taxes. This needn't be the case.
In any case, there are and have been societies with more inequality and poverty than USA where there was less crime. Obviously nobody wants those solutions in USA but the market would find its was absent regulation in this case.
Now, in which first world country do freight train need guards across their route? And it's not like the train is being hit in the middle of the desert, Breaking Bad style. There are few spots where this happened.
It seems to me like police across the US are either scared of doing their job or simply don't care, together with a public which has been desensitized to crime.
"Efficient" in terms of what outputs, relative to what inputs?