You can buy nearly anything on the black market.
Food. Phones. Laptops. Clothes. Tools. Video game consoles.
The prices for those kinds of things are unbelievably low.
I've seen a Nintendo Switch that retails for $300 sell for $40.
A Craftsman breaker bar that retails for $35 sell of $5.
High end cell phones in the $300 range sell for $20.
And it's quite possible you have bought stuff that has been wholesaled from the black market.
Convenience store owners will pay a percentage of the value of food cards. The going rate right now is about 50%. So, $200 in food card value will sell for $100 in cash. They then often buy things for their store and then sell them to the general public.
You also can buy "singles." Those are individual cigarettes. These start to go the other way economically.
Things that can be legally bought sell for less than retail on the black market. Things that are illegal enter an entirely different value.
A single manufactured cigarette typically sells for $0.50. That makes a pack of cigarettes cost $10.
That's because it is illegal to sell single cigarettes. And most people I work with can't afford a $5 pack of cigarettes.
Roll your own cigarettes typically cost $0.25. They cost about $0.05 each to make.
If you could legally sell single cigarettes that price would plummet. But because it's illegal the price is high.
Do you remember Eric Garner?
He was confronted by police for selling single cigarettes. They ended up putting him in a choke hold and killed him.
It's that kind of harassment that drives the price of single cigarettes up.
This is when things start to get really dark, really fast.
I know a young woman who had to be rushed to the hospital because her drug dealer cut her meth with rat poison. She was found unresponsive in a room. That drug dealer just left her there to either get better or die. He didn't care. He probably had sex with her as compensation for these drugs.
Right now there is TWICE the amount of hepatitis A in Akron compared to Cleveland even though Cleveland is nearly twice the size of Akron.
That's because people can't get access to clean needles from the health department. Its not that the health department doesn't have the needles. They have plenty. They just hoard them.
The health department stopped providing needles at our building I guess out of fear of repercussions from the administration. So people just reuse needles.
I hate Donald Trump. But he has a point about cities like Baltimore. Democrats have been in charge of these cities for decades and the conditions are deplorable. The Baltimore poverty rate is 23%. That's horrendous, for sure. But the poverty rate of Akron is 26%. Akron is WORSE than Baltimore.
When a single party has complete and total control for generations it becomes more like a monarchy. You can't stand up to the government of the city because they have far too much power. They will crush you and no one will come to your aid. It doesn't matter if its Democrats or Republicans. A one party system becomes totally corrupt. There is no tolerance for a dissenting voice.
So, the food bank and the health department ran away from me because they were afraid of the consequences of standing with me. For sure, it could be bad for them. People could lose their jobs.
This corruption adds to the darkness of the black market.
If a person can no longer get food or water or clean needles from a place they had relied on for years then they have to rely on the black market.
Sometimes the black market is a dumpster.
People in our neighborhood are now walking to Ellet and West Akron for thrown out donuts from donut shops (I'm not going to name them simply out of fear the city will put a stop to this.)
That walk is approximately 5 miles each way.
Some donut shops throw away all the old donuts in the dumpster. They often bag the old donuts separately from other garbage. People know when they are thrown away and eagerly wait for them to be discarded.
They are walking all this way for donuts because there is significantly less food in Middlebury after the Food Bank closed us down. So they dumpster dive for donuts.
Hopefully by now you know that drug dealers are putting fentanyl in most other drugs. Pot, meth, Ecstasy. Anything.
They do this to open up the market. Fentanyl is cheap to get from China. So if they can hook you on fentanyl then they've got a new revenue stream.
The downside is that they sometimes don't dose the fentanyl correctly and they overdose their customer. They end up killing their customer.
As long as the drug dealer doesn't get caught the death of a customer is of little consequence to them. There are endless customers for all kinds of illegal drugs.
Anything illegal that people want becomes a pure libertarian free market place. There is zero regulation. There are zero ethics involved. It is just pure capitalism. Make money at any cost with zero oversight. You do it until you are caught or you are killed. Those are the only two forces that put any pressure on the illegal black market. And no one cares. Drug dealers have no other plans for their lives. And the rush is addictive. The power and the money and the rush of selling illegal drugs is so worth it.
Drug dealers are adrenaline junky maniacs. They'll kill you as soon as look at you. And these are the ONLY people you can buy illegal items from. Pimps and drug dealers and gangs. They control the illegal black market because there is no other place to buy sex and drugs.
And now we have a black market for sleeping.
It was reported this week that a man was beaten and robbed for trying to sleep in Grace Park here in Akron.
Four people in the park told him he had to pay to sleep in the park. When he refused he was beaten. They stole his phone and his money. It was reported here and here.
He missed the curfew of the shelter next to Grace Park. So he tried to sleep in the park.
Apparently that park is now under new management. They are running an open air hotel on the black market.
You see, it's illegal to sleep in Akron.
The first time you are caught by the police for sleeping on city property it is a trespassing violation that will cost you a $250 fine and 3 months in jail. The second time you are caught it will cost you a $1000 fine and 6 months in jail.
There is no place you can legally sleep out doors that is legal in Akron. If you can't get in the shelter you are fucked.
And apparently some enterprising black market entrepreneurs are capitalizing on that opening in the market.
In Akron Ohio it now appears that you are going to be robbed and beaten if you don't pay the fee to sleep illegally.
I know for a fact that violence is on the rise in camps all over town. There are predators everywhere because there is no place that is legal or safe to sleep outside.
I don't know if I've done a good enough job of helping the administration connect the dots of the reality of homelessness in Akron. So let me try again.
As you can see in this case: This man missed the deadline for getting into the shelter. There are many reasons you can't get into the shelter as a man, woman or family.
There are countless reasons you can't stay in a shelter. If you don't think it is necessary to sometimes sleep outdoors in Akron Ohio you are either stupid or you are cruel. Maybe you're both.
All it takes is one single call from a civilian to have the nuisance department come out and force you to move. And no one is there to help you. Not the Continuum of Care. Not one single church. And of course I'm beaten at every turn for trying to shelter people.
This is why we have begun the Homeless Underground. It is more important and more critical than ever that we develop a secret network of safe places to sleep in Akron. Everyone is attacking the homeless of our city. Civilians. Predators. The nuisance department. Everyone is preying on the poorest and weakest people of our community.
And now it appears their is another illegal product on the black market that people can sell for high prices: Sleeping.
Paid For By The People for Sage Lewis