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More Americans are shoplifting food

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Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#111

Post by 1024core »

nostromo wrote: post #82
jacobolus wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 offici…

This is false. The Senate introduced the similarly stupidly named HEALS act. It takes two to tango. It was politically driven: Democrats were afraid of giving Trump a win. Perhaps it was good politics, since it seems to have worked. From Newsweek: "Despite a refusal for roughly the past six months to advance a smaller aid package that she deemed 'half a loaf,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now willing to support a bi…

Since you seem to follow these things, do you know the difference between "introduced" and "passed" ?

Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#112

Post by nostromo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #96
nostromo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. The Senate introduced the similarly stupidly named HEALS act. It takes two to tango. It was politically driven: Democrats were afraid of giving Trump a win. Perhaps it was good politics, since it seems to have worked. From Newsweek: "Despite a refusal for roughly the past six months to advance a smaller aid package that she deemed 'half a loaf,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now willing to support a bi…

> The Senate introduced the similarly stupidly named HEALS act. It takes two to tango. It didn't pass it, unlike the House and HEROES. The Senate could have acted on the passed House bill. The House had no bill from the Senate to take up, since the Senate bill died in (Republican-led) committee. The House is the only one on the dance floor. And Nancy Pelosi may have opposed the Republican position in negotiations, bu…

Passing a bill you know is dead on arrival is pointless. It's virtue signaling, which is what the house did.

Suddenly, after the election, Pelosi is fine passing the same amount she opposed before the election as only half what was necessary.

This isn't some right-wing talking point -- Bernie Sanders has sad as much. This was a political game.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-did-berni...

Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#113

Post by randycupertino »

nostromo wrote: post #12

More 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.

I weirdly found the micellar water under lock and key a few weeks ago at CVS. They lock the deodorant and tide detergent because those are highly shoplifted items. Didn't know makeup remover is now also included in that subset!

Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#114

Post by jacobolus »

nostromo wrote: post #112
dragonwriter wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Senate introduced the similarly stupidly named HEALS act. It takes two to tango. It didn't pass it, unlike the House and HEROES. The Senate could have acted on the passed House bill. The House had no bill from the Senate to take up, since the Senate bill died in (Republican-led) committee. The House is the only one on the dance floor. And Nancy Pelosi may have opposed the Republican position in negotiations, bu…

Passing a bill you know is dead on arrival is pointless. It's virtue signaling, which is what the house did. Suddenly, after the election, Pelosi is fine passing the same amount she opposed before the election as only half what was necessary. This isn't some right-wing talking point -- Bernie Sanders has sad as much. This was a political game. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-did-berni...

If the GOP had been able to even get their own caucus to agree on a bill, they would have brought it to a vote. But they couldn’t.

Putting even the milquetoast HEALS act up for a vote would have put some of their members in a conflicted spot trying to both appear to care about the crisis while still appeasing hard-liner donors/supporters.

If the Senate had brought the HEROES Act as passed by the House to the floor, it might well have passed. But McConnell & friends didn’t want to see a relief bill passed, so they were satisfied to leave it off the agenda altogether.

Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#115

Post by nobody9999 »

just-juan-post wrote: post #83
matthewmacleod wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state governors could choose to end lifestyle restrictions at any moment but choose not to. This is a gross misrepresentation that proves you have no interest in serious comment on this matter.

Nah man that's just how I see it. How do you see it? Do you think it's impossible to remove the restrictions now? Let me hear your side.

>Let me hear your side.

In the absence of any support from the Federal government. many states and localities have re-opened in the face of growing numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths (more than 3,000 people in the US died yesterday from COVID).

Note that states and local governments are forbidden from running deficits, which is why many have reopened and stayed open even though cases/hospitalization/deaths have skyrocketed.

If they want to continue to pay police, fire fighters, EMTs and keep public hospitals open, they need revenue.

Implementing another stimulus as we did last spring, with support for state and local governments would allow us to stabilize the economy while limiting the risk to the populace.

The outside review board for the Pfizer vaccine approved it today. The FDA will likely give emergency approval for it in the next few days.

However, it will take at least six months to vaccinate enough people to limit the carnage.

With a stimulus from the Federal government, we can save lives while we vaccinate as many as will take it.

Not GP, but that's my side.

Edit: Fixed incorrect reference to the Pfizer "virus". That should (and now does) have read Pfizer "vaccine."

I'd love to hear from others who disagree with my take. I think it would be a good discussion. I hope someone who does disagree goes that route rather than other, less expressive ones.

Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#116

Post by AnimalMuppet »

brundolf wrote: post #92
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians magically decide to ignore the needs of their constituents whenever they think they can get away with it, unless they're saints - and not many saints are politicians. The better question might be, why do they think they can get away with it? Why do they get away with it? (By the way, note that this is not just a problem with one party...)

Whenever they can get away with it and it's in their best interest (thanks to lobbyists). If they don't get anything out of it, they may as well take the free goodwill from voters.

Yeah, maybe I'm too cynical, but I suspect that there's always some lobbyists willing to make it worth any politician's time to do what's not in the voters' interest.

Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#117

Post by just-juan-post »

sjg007 wrote: post #103
just-juan-post wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah man that's just how I see it. How do you see it? Do you think it's impossible to remove the restrictions now? Let me hear your side.

Well if we open up with no restrictions a lot of people will get very sick very quickly. This will overwhelm hospitals. I mean we are almost at a complete ICU collapse right now already. And a lot of people will die, not just of covid but of other treatable diseases. Not to mention we will run out of PPE and medical supplies. Care will be rationed even more than it is now. More doctors and nurses and respiratory ther…

> Well if we open up with no restrictions a lot of people will get very sick very quickly. This will overwhelm hospitals.

The problem is that the public has been hearing this for almost 9 months now and with the exception of a hospital or two it hasn't happened. You can only cry wolf so many times.

> I mean we are almost at a complete ICU collapse right now already.

Besides a few one off stories could you please provide HN readers with some links?

> And a lot of people will die, not just of covid but of other treatable diseases.

They already are and do you know why? Because hospitals stopped doing "unessential" procedures for months and continue to do so.

> Not to mention we will run out of PPE and medical supplies.

Could you please share an article or three with HN readers where a single hospital has run out of PPE in the USA?

> More doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists will get sick and die.

If Covid is so powerful then why haven't tens of thousands of nurses and doctors died? They are exposed to do multiple times per day.

Look forward to your reply!

Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#118

Post by schwartzworld »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #7
Serious_Cheese wrote: post #2

>“People will say, ‘I was just hungry.’ And then what do you do?” People stealing food to survive while the super wealthy and rich becoming richer and richer[1]. What a great time to be alive. [1]( https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/11/18/elon... ) EDIT: I don't particularly dislike Elon (the man has done alot of good), but he was the easiest example I could think of. Stock market is a better indicator…

Not that Elon Musk doesn't have plenty of flaws that people online will be happy to spill much ink about, but what does that have to do with widespread poverty on a national level? Does the US not have a government and state-level and federal-level representatives whose job it is to take care of their citizens and keep them out of starvation? Elon Musk and his pals seem like a convenient distraction from holding acco…

No. We have representatives whose job it is to serve their campaign donors. Musk is a leech, but someone with that much money has political influence.

Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#119

Post by nostromo »

jacobolus wrote: post #114
nostromo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passing a bill you know is dead on arrival is pointless. It's virtue signaling, which is what the house did. Suddenly, after the election, Pelosi is fine passing the same amount she opposed before the election as only half what was necessary. This isn't some right-wing talking point -- Bernie Sanders has sad as much. This was a political game. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-did-berni...

If the GOP had been able to even get their own caucus to agree on a bill, they would have brought it to a vote. But they couldn’t. Putting even the milquetoast HEALS act up for a vote would have put some of their members in a conflicted spot trying to both appear to care about the crisis while still appeasing hard-liner donors/supporters. If the Senate had brought the HEROES Act as passed by the House to the floor, i…

If you think HEALS was milquetoast at $1.1T, you must be pretty upset that Pelosi has now agreed to pass a bill at $0.9T... after months of demanding no less than $3.0T.

Gee, I wonder what happened in November for her to change her mind...

I'll stop responding now; it's pretty clear a number of folks on HN think that only one party can play political games and this has gotten trite.

Re: More Americans are shoplifting food

#120

Post by crx07 »

e40 wrote: post #75
swiley wrote: post #14

The 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 t…

I live in an area elsewhere with essentially zero crime, 24x7 security, cameras, and a well-lit parking garage. Someone stole the catalectic converter off my 2008 Prius last week, a part whose street value is only worth ~$100 and that requires equipment and professional-level skill to steal, likely by someone whose day job generates $70-90/hr.

Gotta be pretty damn desperate to risk a felony for a little over an hour's wages, especially when that theft requires actual work.

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