What all that stealing (shoplifting) says about America ("wealth inequality" barf alert)

Yahoo Finance ^ | October 1, 2022 | Andy Serwer with Dylan Croll

[DoodleBob]

Maybe...I dunno...I'm just riffing here...MAYBE it has to do with tacit governmental encouragement of shoplifting. In the past 10 years, nearly half of all states have boosted their thresholds for retail felony theft. Thirty-eight states now don’t consider shoplifting a felony unless $1,000 or more of merchandise gets stolen. A 2020 National Retail Federation report on organized retail crime found that two-thirds of retailers in states that had raised their felony shoplifting minimums reported growing retail theft.

The unintended consequences of other government policies have also contributed to the problem, retailers say. Changes to bail laws mean that increasingly, those who engage in misdemeanor property crime — considered a nonviolent offense — are quickly back on the streets, where some go right back to stealing. Mask mandates allow criminals to cover up their faces in stores without attracting attention. Bans on single-use plastic bags have made it acceptable for consumers to walk around stores with their own non-transparent reusable bags, enabling thieves to load up in the aisles and head for the exits.

[No name given]

I won’t be surprised if I start seeing things locked up at my local Walmart, target or Safeway.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I have an idea!

Let’s turn the ENTIRE WORLD into a FOOD DESERT!!!!

Coming soon to grocery shelves everywhere!

[Sarcazmo]

“It certainly affects the bottom line.”

Neh... I don’t think it does so much. I’m pretty sure the bottom line stays the same, and the prices we all have to pay increase.

[AbolishCSEU]

Meanwhile:

https://www.kpbs.org/news/local/2022/10/31/san-diego-city-council-declares-housing-a-human-right-discusses-further-tenant-protections

[quikstrike98]

Clearly, what is needed is more Communist redistribution of income, comrades.

[quikstrike98]

Remember the scene in Dr Zhivago when he comes home from the war to find the Communists have turned his family home into a slum dwelling for dozens of people, complete with their own political officer? Coming soon to a country near you.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

There’s another factor at work, IMO, and that is that people constantly hear of government officials enriching themselves handsomely at the public trough, and very, very few of them ever face any consequences. And these are people who are paid into, sometimes well into six figures, with pensions and perks and per diem expense accounts normal people never get.

[Gay State Conservative]

OK,wealth inequality....sounds good to me. So now I can demand the same standard of living that the kid who lived next door to us when I was a kid. He spent all his time studying while I was out in the yard playing football. He was going to college when I was in the Army. He was admitted to a major medical school while I held a middle management job

He now lives in a multi million dollar home while I live in a nice,comfortable...but far from luxurious...home.

Thankfully, I can now demand equality!!!

[Paladin2]

Turn the stores into vending machines.

Pay, then open the temporarly unlocked, small, armored door to retrieve.

[metmom]

I think wealth inequality has everything to do with all this.

Wealth inequality has NOTHING to do with it.

A breakdown of morals due to abandoning faith in God has everything to do with it.

[leaning conservative]

Mississippi changed their felony law from $500.00 to $1,000 several years ago.

[P.O.E.]

Ancient civilizations quelled pirating in defense of private property.

Thousands of years ago.

Not all cultures bought into the theory. The “sea peoples” devastated the Bronze Age.

[PA-RIVER]

My brother worked in a county prison for about 10 years. He said about half the people in the prison were arrested for shop lifting at Walmart.

I’m walking out of Walmart tonight, and the cop stops a woman from leaving. Pretty sure it was a shop lifter. About 30 years old, a little wild looking.

[central_va]

I would say 50% of the inflation at the grocery stores is to cover profit loss do to shoplifting.

[neverevergiveup]

Wealth inequality has NOTHING to do with it. A breakdown of morals due to abandoning faith in God has everything to do with it.

It's that, and also the years of class warfare and race hatred pushed by the left. There are now many people who feel justified in stealing, cheating (including vote fraud) etc., because THEY believe they have been 'put upon'. Whatever they can get away with is justified to them. When you believe that you are entitled to 'pay back' you are not bound by most societal rules and laws.

[EEGator]

Then get jumped by 6 blacks.

[blam]

"I would say 50% of the inflation at the grocery stores is to cover profit loss do to shoplifting."

So...when do we start doing our 'fair-share' of the shoplifting just to even things out?

Years ago my brother worked at Home Depot...he was the manager of the tool department. He was called into a meeting where he was told that he was catching to many shop-lifters. He was told that the company already knew how much was going to be shop-lifted in each of their stores and that the prices listed on the products on the shelves already covered those losses.
They were fearful that something violent would happen.

[Paladin2]

That’s for them.

I no longer have to go to Big Box Stores, in general.

Plus we are an open carry State with a low population density.

I’m getting prepped for the Zombie Apocalypse.

[9YearLurker]

Most of it has to do with an educational/cultural establishment that pounds away at

1) society being blatantly racist and unfair, and

2) money/flash/materialism being everything over any kind of personal character or accountability.