101–110 of 121 posts
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There are 8 people in the Netherlands. I doubt the country can properly represent bike theft.
There may be only 8 people, but those 8 people have 16 bicycles. (and btw, there's more than 8 people)
Each.
As a cyclist, N+1 is real :)
William Stanley Jevons, Money and the Mechanism for Exchange (1876) discusses many of the characteristics of money and exchange, including in chapter V, the properties which make money useful: utility and value, portability, indestructability, homogeneity, divisibility, stabilityof value, and cognizability. The merchandise stolen for use as "street coin" as described in the article meet most or all of these character…
Wow, what an interesting book. > stability of value Yes, soap has phenomenal storage value! Depending on its ingredients you can keep soap bars indefinitely, and they will maintain 100% of their value. If necessary, you can (re)pack it with food storage tools to ensure it stays dry, like vacuum-sealed mylar bags in plastic bins, but as I understand it, soaponified oil won't go rancid even with moderate O2 exposure. F…
The Safeway in the San Francisco Castro neighborhood is especially... exciting... relative to the surrounding area. It even has its own full time police officer. One time as I was leaving I asked the officer why Folgers crystals of all things were locked up. His reply was "[ethnic group] gangs steal essentials in bulk, and sell them to the homeless." From that point forward it clicked in my head, retail theft is abou…
The article could have quoted you and cut two-thirds of its length.
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FTA > Thieves can sell items for around a third of their retail value, according to the report, or for roughly half their value if they sell them to second hand shops. I think even with no name brands, they'd still have to sell at a loss to be competitive with that kind of markdown. Hard to compete when the other guy's cost is $0.
>I think even with no name brands, they'd still have to sell at a loss to be competitive with that kind of markdown. Hard to compete when the other guy's cost is $0. Corollary: for a big store, selling at a loss could still be more profitable than having stuff stolen. Actually just giving stuff away could still be more profitable if it cut big store security costs. Of course you'd have to ration or otherwise control…
you discourage it by fixing what is wrong in the local area and that requires an effort by the support agencies of the government understanding what is wrong and wanting to fix it. it also requires those who need help knowing how to get it, seeking it out, or accepting it, which is not always the case
The Safeway in the San Francisco Castro neighborhood is especially... exciting... relative to the surrounding area. It even has its own full time police officer. One time as I was leaving I asked the officer why Folgers crystals of all things were locked up. His reply was "[ethnic group] gangs steal essentials in bulk, and sell them to the homeless." From that point forward it clicked in my head, retail theft is abou…
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What value do you see in identifying the specific race? (I think that including it struck the perfect balance between flavor and a refusal to propagate racism. Without it, there's a simple report of information that was relayed. With it, I can better put myself there.)
So you're saying it's purpose in the comment was to accuse the officer of 'racism.' That's silly. What purpose is served by accusing the officer of racism in the comment? Is it some kind of weird virtue signalling, like "she's racist! but not me, I'm a good guy!" Furthermore, if we agree that the subtext is the officer is being accused of racism, there is in fact no basis for that accusation. Noticing a facet of real…
It seems to me as though you're looking in every nook and cranny to find people doing this!
I wasn't there, so I don't know if it was racism. But the author's inclusion communicated to me that the police officer was racist. The author could have made that more clear by writing "[racial epithet]" rather than "[ethnic group]" but following the principle of charity makes me think the author found it relevant, and I think we agree that that shows the author thought the officer was racist.
If the officer had just said "black gangs" or "Mexican gangs" or something like that, then maybe the author read too much into it. But the author was the one that was there, and who heard everything else the officer said, and clearly thought that the racial bit was worth communicating. So why automatically dismiss that?
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FTA > Thieves can sell items for around a third of their retail value, according to the report, or for roughly half their value if they sell them to second hand shops. I think even with no name brands, they'd still have to sell at a loss to be competitive with that kind of markdown. Hard to compete when the other guy's cost is $0.
Hm Do you have a reference as to the prices of branded vs no-name items? I don't have any specific knowledge but I suspect the brand markup is quite significant.. might be interesting to check that (I don't think there is any no-name shop around here or I'd go out and have a look at soap for instance) Also, the other guys cost is not really $0 .. he also has to make the money to cover his costs, which could be anythi…
The Safeway in the San Francisco Castro neighborhood is especially... exciting... relative to the surrounding area. It even has its own full time police officer. One time as I was leaving I asked the officer why Folgers crystals of all things were locked up. His reply was "[ethnic group] gangs steal essentials in bulk, and sell them to the homeless." From that point forward it clicked in my head, retail theft is abou…
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What's there to be worried about? And why would it be relieving that it is 'not necessarily racial'? It is 'racial' in the sense that it is a finer distinction of races. It fits in a hierarchy like -- people --> races --> ethnic groups For example: Whites --> Danes, Basque, Serbs Blacks --> Yoruba, Luo, Kalenjin It is strange and concerning that because there is so much walking on eggshells around these matters there…
Why is it strange and concerning? Given the tragic history of race and the way it still informs the way people think about race, it's really unsurprising it's still a delicate matter. Think about how the 'one-drop rule' still applies to whom considers themselves black. If that weren't enough there is a large body of scientific evidence that supports the fact that race makes little biological sense and is mostly a soc…
Does it?
> there is a large body of scientific evidence that supports the fact that race makes little biological sense and is mostly a social construct
Given the topic, I'd be skeptical - a large body of evidence might still not be conclusive. However, maybe a more relevant question is why it matters - you are what you might be perceived as, so far it might affect how you are treated.