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More Americans are shoplifting food
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Re: More Americans are shoplifting food
#72More Americans are shoplifting everything . Crime is up across the board this year. In my locale, it's an open secret that most retailers will not detain you if you shoplift. And it's widely known that you wouldn't be prosecuted if they did anyway. So yeah. Shoplifting is up.
This is not just your locale. Retailers do not detain shoplifters because of liabilities. This has always been the case across the United States.
Re: More Americans are shoplifting food
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Congress refusing to do anything. Senate. House has passed stimulus packages. IMO further delineation is deserved, but contentious, so I'll leave it at that.
Before the election the roles were reversed; it's not as black and white as you're letting on. https://www.newsweek.com/pelosi-says-she-backs-smaller-stimu...
The House passed the HEROES Act in mid May. The GOP Senate sat on it (and did nothing else either) for the past 7 months.
Oh, except for a hearing pushing hydroxychloroquine in November, months after multiple studies had shown it ineffective, and a hearing promoting an anti-vaxer just last week. And I guess a bunch of hearings a few months ago wherein various GOP senators heaped ignorant abuse on public health officials.
If your favorite small business goes under, if your local hospital collapses, if your town goes bankrupt, etc., the institutional GOP and its donors are to blame.
We can all keep our fingers crossed for Georgia Senate runoffs, and for some real leadership come January.
Re: More Americans are shoplifting food
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are starving, stealing food is at the very least perfectly acceptable, and many would say just. I'm not aware of any ethical frameworks, even the most hardcore libertarian ones, which would claim otherwise.
The point is you don't need to steal food to survive. You just need to go to one of food banks or shelters that will help. I volunteer at one of them. Lots of really good down on their luck people; and they are busier that in the past due to COVID job losses. Those stealing are ones with something to prove. We recently had a situation here at the Giant where two adults were stealing ice cream and when the staff tried…
Food banks and shelters might be in good shape wherever it is that you live, but in many parts of the country they’re stretched to and beyond their capacities. Food banks are simply not a scalable solution to poverty. No form of charity is. Government aid programs are a proven solution to getting resources (like food) into the hands of folks in need.
As to your argument that poor people are morally corrupt, it’s laughable, below contempt, and not worth responding to. Someone is morally bankrupt, but it ain’t the poor.
Re: More Americans are shoplifting food
#75The US is probably inches away from a serious catastrophy caused be the extreme inequality that's only gotten worse this year. Inequality is one thing, but when you're forced out on to the street to starve to death and there's nothing you can do to improve your situation that's totally different.
In the Bay Area there has been a big uptick in thefts and break-ins. My sources are local people and first-hand knowledge (such as seeing broken glass everywhere on the street). I'm in the Oakland area, but friends in other places have experienced and witnessed some crazy things this year.
It just blows me away that (part of) Congress has stonewalled any attempts to get people money, given the lockdowns. Reportedly there are millions of people going on public assistance soon. This could get really, really ugly after that.
Re: More Americans are shoplifting food
#76More and more cities and even states are adopting laws that essentially decriminalize shoplifting below $500 or $1000 worth of merchandise. Open air shoplifted-products markets now exist in major American cities. This is purely a political decision, not some pressing economic need. This is the result of the agenda of these DAs elected on aggressively progressive platforms.
Re: More Americans are shoplifting food
#77The US is probably inches away from a serious catastrophy caused be the extreme inequality that's only gotten worse this year. Inequality is one thing, but when you're forced out on to the street to starve to death and there's nothing you can do to improve your situation that's totally different.
Nobody is starving to death in the US. Food stamps and food bank help with that. The situation may be bad, but not as dramatic as you paint it.
Starving to death on the street might be extreme, but, being exploited, being raped, being used a slave, I've been there, and it's real and I assume it hasn't gotten any better.
Re: More Americans are shoplifting food
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s the pandemic that is tripping the scale and Congress refusing to do anything.
It’s scary that civil unrest might be exactly what the Republican party wants.
This is exactly what worries me. Unrest is used to energize their base and do crazier and crazier things.
Re: More Americans are shoplifting food
#79yeah but the stock market is doing great and isn't that really what matters?
Re: More Americans are shoplifting food
#80As an American, I'm furious that we (American people) failed these people. I want to help - I've been blessed with a great job and I want find a way to help these people. The food bank in my region is distributing 2x the food they did last year. The director of the site mentioned how important it is to find ways to reach those who are food insecure in dignified ways. Find me more groups that want to/are helping with…
Donate cash to your food bank. Mortgages, rent and utilities are all suspended almost everywhere, so are student loan payments. So hopefully people won’t be evicted and not have to worry about bills right now. But I wonder if an instacart app for food bank delivery would be a good idea. Kind of like meals on wheels. Dunno.. it would beat queuing in cars for miles. Maybe there’s a way to do crowd funded UBI... it coul…
Mortgages, rent and utilities are all suspended almost everywhere
No, they are not. Not even close to almost everywhere.
Evictions are theoretically suspended in many places, but rent is definitely not and many suspect land / property owners are evicting people despite moratoriums on them due to local governments that are severely underfunded, understaffed, and/or overwhelmed that are not enforcing the moratoriums.
Ultimately, this situation can almost entirely be laid at the feet of the anemic and mismanaged response by the federal government. Most of this could likely have been prevented if stricter measures had been taken immediately. And even if they hadn't, most people could be far better off if it wasn't for the extreme levels of obstructionism and denial being exhibited by parts of their federal government.
Financial assistance should have been sent directly to individuals across the country instead of being absorbed by corporations that just wanted free money.