They act like “shoplifting is up” is some mystery of human nature and not literally the free market doing exactly what it’s designed to do. Squeeze wages, jack prices, gut every safety net you can find, then act shocked pikachu face when people start taking matters into their own hands. This ain’t a morality crisis it’s a pricing signal. Crime stats are just capitalism’s blooper reel at this point.
No one has ever shoplifted food… ever.
If you see someone stealing groceries or basic hygiene products, you have not seen anything.
I honestly don’t care what they are stealing, it isn’t my problem. The Walton Family steal my money in taxes to feed their employees. If someone takes a TV or video game back on occasion, I’m not saying a word. They’re worth a combined 520 billion by the way.
If you see someone shoplifting… No you didn’t.
Yeah I am sure they really need that £40 jar of honey, bottle of fancy wine and the finest steaks…
I don’t see people stealing potatoes, but I see quite a few stealing the expensive stuff.
Oh hi Korhaka’s new account, this discussion has already been had and you embarrassed yourself there too. Complaining about luxury thefts on a story about some bacon.
The danger is the same, so you may as well treat yourself.
I would rather not live in a society full of rampant theft.
Yet you do, from the top to the bottom. Don’t see you bitching about that, just poor people.
Didn’t you read?? People were stealing organic avocados and fresh multi grain toast, not gruel and powdered milk.
Edit. Apparently it wasn’t clear that this was sarcasm.
Oh no, they’re stealing a variety of things instead of subsistence living! How dreadful and awful! Let’s blame them for not just taking beans and rice instead of a corrupt system that forces this to happen!
Seriously, fuck your mentality. It’s the same as those reactionaries who parrot “well eat beans and rice!” when people are on hard times.
My comment was actually just sarcasm, which apparently didn’t translate well.
I’d rather not live in a society where theft is necessary to survive
I agree with that. But stealing luxury products? That isn’t necessary to survive.
Let’s end this argument by you telling us where your line is on what people are allowed to steal to survive. Because that’s all this argument is about.
Where I live its always luxuries that people steal, like fancy wines. If someone is stealing bread or vegetables that is actual food.
What is the endgame if we just let everyone steal everything? A lot of theft here is done by gangs to resell for profit and I am absolutely not OK with encouraging that kind of behaviour.
So what are you doing to advocate for higher wages, universal healthcare, free education?
Well I live in the UK so we got that already
So in other words your personal anectode is completely worthless in a discussion about US shoplifting. Thanks, gtfo.
Maybe the higher wages has something to do with the discrepancy, innit? Fucking wanker.
Then tell all the corpos to stop it.
Imagine how much we would progress if everyone shoplifted for a week as protest.
weird, seems like there’s an easy way to avoid most of this - just sell things are fair prices
It’s not stealing if it’s food.
Locking up baby formula is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in a grocery store. And yes, I’m including the time I witnessed someone using aisle 5 as a toilet seat. The baby formula was locked up in that same aisle and as a new father without sleep, I had to let it go right then and there. One person came by and was grossed out; but was immediately pulling down their pants to let out a turd as soon as I pointed to the disgusting site that is baby formula locked behind glass. They took it to another level and started smearing their shit on the glass screaming “If I cover this window in shit, no one else will have to see it!”
Shoplifting is a drop in the bucket compared to wage theft. Every one of these articles that doesn’t mention wage theft is a new reason to not trust the publication.
For me it’s just so obvious that if you bring up theft you should talk about all theft and the context of theft especially if the whole articles about economic impact of theft. Wage theft doesn’t sell advertisements I guess.
can you explain more in detail about wage theft?
Howdy, Wage theft is the idea that employers keep a lot of money they should rightfully giving to employees. This can be seen in small things that are often presented as common place, and big things that many employees don’t have the time or resources to seek compensation for. One example is rounding policies on clocks. I used to work at a large retail chain that would round our times down to the nearest 15 minute mark. So if you worked until 4:14 and clocked out, you would only get paid as though you had worked until 4:00. Something one of my siblings experienced at a different workplace was a manager telling her she needed to stay until the next person showed up since said sibling did not have keys to secure the building and the manager needed to leave early. She agreed, expecting to be paid for her overtime. She never was, despite lodging a formal complaint with payroll and HR. Hope this helps! Cheers.
I’ve seen hourly employees converted to salaried as if that’s some kind of promotion for them, but when you do the math they are actually paid less and suddenly they are asked to work all kinds of extended hours with no tracking. What would you call this?
I’ve never seen it. Nope. I see nothing.
If I don’t have money to buy food there is no fucking way I’m going to starve to death. If I have to steal to feed myself then so be it. I’ll do my best and take from the big corps but if I’m in the middle of no-where I’ll kick your door down just to get some food. Survival and rational thinking take two different paths.
I shoplift groceries constantly. At least once a week. One or two hundred dollars worth of stuff at a time. Sometimes more. I’ve mentioned it to my therapist but i don’t think he grasped how much i was moving.
I just fill a cart and walk out. I don’t think it’s unreasonable stuff. Regular, wholesome food. No steaks or prime rib, etc. I don’t hit the same places that much so if they’re building a case against me it’d be hard to follow without colluding with other stores. But i have little choice. I have little regret but i know it’s risky. The people who depend on me need to eat.
But God Damn is it easy.
I’m absolutely positive I saw you pay at the self-checkout. The receipt printer must not have worked, and the employee managing the self checkout was too busy handling the other 5 checkout lanes to help you.
I hate what society has made me, but i appreciate you, friend.
Understandable; people are stressed for money. However, the costs of shoplifting are passed on to the other customers, which in turn increases inflation. it’s a short term fix for a bigger problem, and will create bigger issues when you are caught; a better idea is to vote for the right party (one that actually cares for people) or to become politically active.
This is a common myth spread by capitalists. They use the excuse of “shrink” to justify 10xing prices, when in reality there was never more than a miniscule amount of that 10xs total value stolen.
If they want people to stop stealing, they need to provide a better product.
To quote one of the more tolerable capitalists "The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
If they want people to stop stealing, they need to provide a better product.
Like… people will stop stealing if the food is better?
People will stop stealing food if they have reasonable access to food.
So what’s the “better product” here? What are the stores supposed to do?
Shoplifting is not the same as piracy. The causes and solutions are different.
Stop making record breaking profits every year, cut prices to something reasonable. Hire enough employees.
Stop using slurs while we’re at it.
Autocorrect, fixed
The stores pay their employees a living wage and stop price gouging food.
Offering a product cheaper doesn’t really make the product better. With piracy the argument is that people don’t steal content because they can’t afford it but because it easier to download it for free without DRM than to buy it and watch on official channels. It happened to me many times that I was unable to buy and open a book because of the DRM but managed to download pirated epub in minutes. I would gladly pay for them if I could. The “better product” here is content that is easier to access.
With food people steal because they can’t afford it, not because it’s more convenient to carry food in your pants than in your shopping cart. Lowering prices and raising wages would be great but it’s not the same as piracy and it’s not “offering a better product”.
UK has both, and yet shoplifting is still rising.
It sounds like you have a very particular experience and relationship to the subject, HerbGrower? At a glance, the data seems to suggest something different. E.g., according to Uk food foundation prices for groceries in the UK have been rising (albeit more slowly recently), and many people in the UK experience food insecurity.
