Crime Follows the Speculators...
April 01, 2008
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So, when housing speculation made the get-rich quick promise, it became lousy with crime.
Now that houses are bust and speculation in the financial world has moved to commodities like copper, guess what one of the victims is? Yup, the houses that were formerly getting the hot money.
Real estate brokers and local authorities say once-proud homes coast-to-coast are being stripped for copper, aluminum, and brass by thieves. Much of it ends up with scrap metal traders who say nearly all copper gets shipped overseas, much of it to China and India.
In areas hit hardest by foreclosures, such as the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, copper and other metals used in plumbing, heating systems and telephone lines are now more valuable than some homes.
Note to Reuters Editors: You should be flogging your writer about now for that gratuitous and laughable "once-proud homes" line. Homes are never proud. They're buildings, and in this country, they're no more than piles of sticks covered with thin planks of plaster.
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