Wizard of Id by Parker and Hart for November 23, 2014

My original thought to this strip was “That only works if people can afford to pay your prices for the replacements”.

Judging from the other comments and it’s clear from the non-scientific straw poll that criminal damage related to crimes of theft and burglary generally costs more than the profit made from the intended crime.

The fact that business owners’ behaviour is to allow criminals to profit slightly as the threat of ‘encouraging’ extra damage is high is a very sad state of affairs.

What were they rioting about? Higher taxes, limited food supply, or were they hired by a Fink who owns the glass plate factory?

Ahhh I knew it wouldn’t take long for this to come up. You must work for that newspaper that featured headlines and pictures during the “Katrina” floods that showed two black guys exiting a store with contraband as looters, and then featured another picture almost exactly the same with two white people exiting a store with contraband as just out seeking food…

Lowlifes like that would have smashed the window anyway, for not leaving more.

That seems to be what stops the looters best.

gmartin997: Because, of course, breaking windows is so much worse than chasing someone down and shooting him in the head.

There’s an old Sergio Aragones cartoon of a riot, with people smashing windows, and a window salesman in his truck paying off each one as they come by after breaking the windows.

You better hope life doesn’t imitate this comic come Monday!

Small Shop Owners leave the tills open at night alright, completely empty and open to show that it’s empty.

It sounds like rick means that the paper ran fifth grade yearbook pictures of the twenty five year old guys what got shot.I’d say that those were probably the most current pictures available at press time.

“open tills reduce the need for costly repair”.Absolutely true, and also the open tills being visible through the windows indicate to potential thieves the drawers are empty…

There are those who gather in large crowds (ie sporting events and such) with the sole purpose of theft. If they have to start a riot to get what they want – they will. Then there are the metal thieves. Digging up cables and stealing the copper wire. Climbing poles and cutting into cables to steal copper wire. Breaking into electrical boxes to steal the copper wire. Getting electrocuted and not being able to reach 911. Because they cut into the cables and stole the copper wire. something about can’t cure stupid

Rioting and the resultant looting never made any sense to me…

I always left the doors unlocked on my MGB. There was nothing in the car that would be more expensive to replace than the convertible top!

When I worked in The People’s Republic of Angola, we were advised to leave our cars unlocked so citizens wouldn’t have to break the windows to steal from us and to leave nothing in them worth stealing.Concepts of “worth” vary, of course, but my vehicle was never damaged, nor my apartment robbed and I met some interesting people..The benefits of poverty..Friends from the United Nations were broken into and assorted possessions changed to the possessions of other citizens. When they told the police what all was stolen, the police kept muttering the Portuguese variation of PROVOCATION..If you didn’t want to be robbed, you shouldn’t have had anything worth stealing. It matched economic theory of the nation so it makes sense to apply it on the small scale too and is just as satisfying.

Maybe too the King is planning to move to Ferguson.

That is why I never keep anything of real value in my car and I leave the doors unlocked. I tell my kids the same thing it isn’t worth it for them to smash a 150 to 300 dollar window to steal a few dollars in change or a cheap something or other….