The problem with that argument is that prices can’t be raised indefinitively without negatively impacting revenue. If prices go up, demand goes down. So, yeah, basically all arguments that increased costs get handed off to consumers are flawed, if a business can increase its profit by raising prices, they are going to do so sooner or later, anyway. They might wait for an excuse to do so, but even then they won’t wait forever.
Agreed. Your reasons and their appropriateness isn’t my problem. Nor the cops’ problem. Nor either lawyers’ problem. Whether your reasoning justifies the crime, that’s on the judge to set aside a verdict if a jury returns a guilty verdict.
I’ll go one further and say that people who steal, claim it’s for a noble purpose but run from the cops, didn’t commit.
I’m already paying extra because shitheads don’t want to buy the products they use. It’s like paying extra tax that goes to benefit the undeserving directly
It comes from Walmart the billion dollar corporation.
Walmart, which steals from the pockets of all their employees in the form of wage theft, and steals from us in the form of tax avoidance, paying employees just enough so they qualify for foodstamps and Medicaid (programs which come from our tax dollars) and pay to show them how to sign up for those programs instead of paying them enough money for groceries and insurance (which they have way more than enough to be able to do). Money they have by stealing customers from small business by underpricing for a loss until Walmart is all that’s left so they can raise money and steal from those customers by inflating prices for profit of the owners.
You only think it’s simple because you don’t actually know the problem.
If you hold a light in a dark infinite room, with all the things you see being the things you know and the circumference of the circle of dark around you as the things you don’t know that you don’t know,
Your light would be a dim candle that doesn’t even let you see enough to know what the problem is, let alone that light being bright enough to know the answer.
Could use the benefit money for it. Which they do. Welfare benefits in Finland are top notch, but yeah there’s never enough money for (enough) drugs. So lot of them do crime, burglaries, stealing from stores, stealing bikes and whatnot to get more money for (more) drugs.
It doesn’t make me very sympathetic to them stealing from a store though. It’s not like they’re stealing to not starve or something.
You probably are getting a few downvotes from people in places like the US, who are more sympathetic to food theft because we have ridiculously thin social systems here that don’t care about peoples’ struggles but are first in line to dish out punishment.
If Finland’s welfare is that good, you’re probably right. Drugs are a cruel master and are never satisfied. :(
Yeah, it’s a situation where I feel for them being addicts and all, but with there being housing, access to rehab and all sorts of programs, food aid, ample benefits and so on, it’s harder to feel for them stealing to finance buying more drugs.
A long time ago, I lived in a trailer park, and a homeless guy would come by once a week selling steaks at a lower price than you could buy at the store. Some people would buy them. Needless to say, everyone there was in a pretty bad situation, so a luxury like cheap steaks was tempting.
Lol. Forgot about that episode. Yeah, my story was real. I think that episode came out a year or two later after I got out of the park. The TPB really nailed trailer park life (real life being more depressing and violent of course).
Here (the Netherlands) the supermarket stuff is usually not great. For good cheese you go to a specialty shop or to the market and they’ll cut the cheese to order.
If it’s stolen the same day then there’s no huge risk, if you prepare it soon after. With cheese even less risk. But of course there’s always some risk buying stolen shit from junkies.
Often from what I know it goes like this: they owe money to someone, can’t pay it back because naturally all the money goes to drugs so instead they’ll steal shit for you. So you’d be sending them to steal specific expensive shit and would be waiting for it and know it’s stolen the same day and whatnot.
Though it’s fucking idiotic to loan money to junkies in the first place but I guess this way you’ll recoup some of it at least.
I just don’t understand why you’d steal stuff that easily spoils in order to resell it when there’s durable goods that don’t need an uninterrupted cooling chain, I guess.
Placement in the store, how easy it is to steal, how easy it is to offload etc. Food stuff like that is easy to steal and it’s not too cheap to not make it worth the effort but also not too expensive to make it harder to offload. Also even corner stores have that stuff so you can go to multiple places in one go, I’ve been told that’s an important factor. And those corner stores are often busier and less guarded.
My brother in law used to work in an off licence (booze store) so got to know a number of customers, some of which were drug addicts. They would steal from the local supermarket which was right next door. Things like expensive meats, cheese, coffee, spirits, etc. high value products which are easy to shove in a bag or jacket. They then go and knock on the door of anybody they remotely know who lives nearby, ask if they want to buy some cheap goods. Often about 50% off.
I know people who would buy this stuff. It’s usually stuff straight from the shop but I suppose you can never say for sure.
Streetfood vendors mostly don’t care about sources as long as the goods are good. I had a favorite place before that sold chocolate bars with no markup compared to nearby stores, and I was wondering why they’d even sell them given that chocolate doesnt really go well with their main offerings. Until I witnessed a junkie carry a box to them from the nearest supermarket and it all fell into place. Selling stolen product right across the road might’ve not worked in their favour though as the place changed hands not long after.
Why is this downvoted? I personally watched a local foodbank handout kick out somebody because they found out she was a local restauranteur trying to score free food in bulk lol.
If I see someone stealing food, they could be stealing to sell it for drugs or they could be stealing to feed their hungry family. Why should I worry about the former when the latter is also a decent possibility?
I'm certainly not a snitch, but my respect only goes towards people who are stealing what they need rather than what they want - the former is surviving the struggle, the other is kleptomania
Exactly, exactly - though I wouldn't judge people taking non-food items like soap, detergent, and other basic hygene products either. They're low cost goods most people need but might not be able to afford.
Whenever I mention groceries being expensive, I have a few people comment that it’s my own fault for buying name brands, and I agree, name brands aren’t worth it when you’re pinching pennies.
But I have allergies, and I have to be careful with shared equipment. I’ve had allergic reactions to certain brands of oats but not others, so even a cheap staple food like oats I may end up paying way more than the average person because I can’t risk certain brands.
Sometimes that works in the opposite direction too, in a quest to find a brand of veggie stock powder I wasn’t allergic to, I ended up riding my bike to the next town to try their asain grocers and found a huge 500g tin of stock powder for like $4, easily 5 times cheaper than any other brand at my usual store, and I wouldn’t have gone hunting for it had the previous brand not changed their ingredients as part of a whole shrinkflation/cheaper ingredients for the same price end product initiative.
But I often wonder if people saw someone like me stealing, or using food stamps today buy name brand products, would they prejudge me as being superfluous without knowing my allergies already severely limit my diet, brand restrictions limit it even more.
I’m not personally that worried, I just don’t understand how so many people in this thread are saying they would/wouldn’t judge a shoplifter based on a bunch of arbitrary criteria for what they think is an essential item. You can’t possibly know what’s essential to an complete stranger.
I doubt people are stealing directly from Nike. They would be stealing from Foot Locker or some shit, which means Nike already made their buck off the shoes. But whatever justification people need to snag a free pair of shoes, I guess.
At Walmart, or at least the one I worked at, every single case and jar of baby formula was tagged with a security strip that sets off the alarms at the door, on the inside of the container to make it difficult to remove. Baby formula was the most stolen item in the store. It's also one of the most expensive food items in the store.
Coincidentally, I would also find empty packaging with the security strip still attached in the handicap bathroom that was far away from the front doors and the alarm sensors.
Sounds like the education system should be improved to inform people of just how expensive and time consuming it is to procreate. All the time you see people do it who definitely do not have the means, and then being forced to steal and/or just suffer for years
Humans are animals. All of us. Our genetics drive us to procreate. That is our base nature. Now, you can easily argue that our Big Brains have the capacity to reason, understand, and logic our way to a path that avoids self destructive behavior. That is true. Yet here we still deal with things like drug abuse, war, violent crime, and yes…unwanted pregnancy.
You aren’t going to stop people from banging and having kids. It’s written into our genes. What you can do is make a society where those numbers can be reduced as much as possible with education (you got that part right, but that access should be from primary to higher education), cheap/free contraception, abortion access (dare I say “free” medical care?), and basic food/child care that is accessible to all. So that poor person’s kid has a shot at not following the same path.
Wagging your finger in sex ed saying “no, no…don’t fuck, it’s expensive to have a kid” really isn’t going to fix much.
But we’re also already in a situation where infertility is on the rise and people with means are culturally enticed to worship their careers so much they just skip procreation altogether.
Stable relationships in which to foster healthy children are also becoming rarer across the board.
So now all the powers-that-be that encouraged this Grand Canyon-sized, gilded-age class gap in the first place, and said “Well if you’re poor you’re obviously unfit to survive so don’t make more of you lol”, and also decided “retirement age” shouldn’t be a thing, are currently losing their minds as they read reports about our population falling “dramatically below replacement levels.” :D
Lots of people get by without wearing glasses too, but that doesn’t mean that my blind eyes don’t need them.
Lots of people get by without a therapist, but that doesn’t mean my crumbling mental health doesn’t need one.
Everyone needs different things to lean on – don’t shame others for having their own needs, even if you don’t understand what it’s like to be in their head. :-)
They don’t get jobs as flight attendants. If you already work in an industry that mandates make up use, and you’re doing it tough, shoplifting make up seems like a smarter financial choice than getting fired over a lack of make up and having to find work in an entirely new industry.
As someone who currently doesn’t even own a single article of make up (unless you count tinted zinc), yes, you can get by without it, but not everyone can, and loosing your job over other when you’re already struggling financially isn’t ideal.
The world is burning down around us, and the only people with the power to make an actual difference are throwing gas on the fire. Why the fuck should I even notice somebody shoplifting? Save your disrespect for the real criminals of society.
when you have children to feed and you’re hungry yourself - standing in line to fill in a form and wait an interderminate amount of time to be potentially denied something that comes with a huge amount of restrictions it’s just easier to steal.
There is enough food and wealth to feed and home everyone. Theft is a service issue.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I am very glad to hear it.”
In my opinion it depends more on whom you are stealing from than what. Food is okay, anything else not absolutely required for immediate survival isn’t is a somewhat cruel and arbitrary position.
Even a dirt poor person has more needs than just food sometimes, to stick with your example even a dirt poor woman or girl may want to feel pretty for a moment, and I feel that’s nothing bad either. Granted this is a slippery slope to outright lawlessness, but there certainly is a lot of room for valid needs that are less immediate than nourishment and shelter, but still important to people feeling human at all. Counts twice for people already in the extremely dehumanizing position of being poor.
My policy has become: “If you see someone shoplifting, no you didn’t.” All businesses write a little bit of theft loss into their budgets. I don’t care what shoplifters take. It’s not my concern. Let the egg heads in accounting and the beef sticks in loss prevention figure it out. That’s what they’re paid to do. Not you.
I think I might have cared in the past because “it’s against the law” but I’ve grown up and don’t care about that at all anymore… My opinion on shoplifting is now just “why would I even care?” I wouldn’t do it personally, but I have no problem with other people stealing shit (especially shit they need to live and thrive) from a soulless corporation. I wouldn’t be happy if they mugged a random person… But Target? Why would I care?
If you’re gonna cut staff and build a giant bank of self check kiosks instead, then I consider it a perk of my temporary employment at the checkout line. I’ll take pork chops and veggies in lieu of a paycheck thanks
Even if you’re not trying to steal from the self checkout half the time they don’t even have the item in the database… Like I’m not paying for a dozen doughnuts when that’s the only option, but I got one… so I guess it’s a roll now…?
Mines a bit different, but similar. "If you see someone shoplifting, no you didn't" only applies to chain stores. Walmart? Fuck 'em. Target? Get all you can. Local boutique store downtown? The fuck is wrong with you, go steal from a corporation that deserves it.
I am with you- unless it’s a small business. If I saw someone stealing from some little mom and pop shop full of Amish-made soap and jam, I’m going to say something. Because I don’t want mom and pop to go hungry either.
She may need it for an interview to improve her prospects too. As long as it’s from a big place like Walmart I see no harm in someone desperate doing it to improve their situation.
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