Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores • Hacker News Board

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#21

Post by taurath » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 12:15 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #19

taurath wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walgreens could easily respond by putting up historical store revenues and profits that show year over year increasing tear from each store they closed. The DA put up numbers showing that in the past 2 years thefts have gone down. I’ll for now trust the one that puts up the numbers.

I have no idea who is telling the truth, but wouldn't it be fair to say that people working for the city do have more of a motivation to spin this than Walgreens? If Walgreens is doing what the city claims, then Walgreens doesn't need to blame the city. They might anyway, but there's no big incentive. If they have a lot of stores that aren't closing, wouldn't it even be potentially harming their business for no reaso…

I also am not strongly on one side there, but I can think of a few incentives for Walgreens to not say admit that certain stores are being closed due to lack of profits (indicating perhaps to investors that they've overbought in many areas and that their overall revenue will be going down, and hence their stock prices and the C-suite's bonus).

However I also agree that there's not enough info here to be definitively in one camp or another - hence my ploy to say hey these folks at least have data, to try to get the other side to put up their data. The interesting part would be how far off that data is, and then someone's got some 'splaining to do, either to voters or investors.

1. Walgreens is correct - the SF DA is vastly undercounting thefts. This is very much of the public interest

2. Walgreens is lying - this is very much in the interest of walgreens investors

3. Middle ground (probably likely here) - those particular stores had a lot more theft than the average in SF and were particularly targeted. Neither is lying, but walgreens assertion that theft is rampant is somewhat weasel words.

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#22

Post by LurkingPenguin » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 12:38 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #13

robbedpeter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So stores should just accept being stolen from, creating highly unsafe situations for employees and customers, in the middle of economic conditions already hurting profit and supply chains? Or maybe the stores should hire private security, sufficiently armed to deter theft? That's probably a minimum cost of $500k per year for wages and insurance and licensing. I'm truly curious what the endgame is with this line of b…

A society where people don’t need to steal to survive, if you are truly asking. A Walgreens takes money from a community and gives it to their shareholders. They pay minimum wage. The desperation people have across this country should be responded to with policies that lessen desperation, rather than jailing people like we have been for the last 60 years - 25% of the prisoners in the world are in the USA which has 5%…

> A Walgreens takes money from a community and gives it to their shareholders.

Walgreens buys goods and sells them to the people. To the extent that it does so profitably, it can distribute some or all of those profits to shareholders.

Notwithstanding the fact that Walgreens doesn't "take money from a community" (its customers freely exchange their money for goods Walgreens offers), if you compare Walgreens' earnings per share to its dividend history, you'd see that Walgreens does not pay out 100% of its earnings to shareholders.

So your odd characterization of Walgreens, which implies that Walgreens is engaged in some sort of theft from the communities it is present in, is wrong in every aspect.

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#23

Post by timbo1642 » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 1:22 AM UTC

Of course the leftists once again don't want to take responsibilities for their bad policies and failures. This is always the case

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#24

Post by timbo1642 » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #11

leoh wrote: post #4

Walgreen's is not in the business of morality. They are in the business of making money. Walgreen's could say just about anything they wanted about closing up shop in San Francisco and it doesn't really make good business sense for them to say something provocative. It seems to me they're telling the truth. On the other hand, the San Francisco DA is acting in a highly defensive manner. It's pretty offensive of them a…

Walgreens could easily respond by putting up historical store revenues and profits that show year over year increasing tear from each store they closed. The DA put up numbers showing that in the past 2 years thefts have gone down. I’ll for now trust the one that puts up the numbers.

You trust the numbers because you've been condition to trust lies.

When the cops don't show up for a crimes, the crime numbers look lower.

So you're trusting lies. Keep trusting liars

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#25

Post by dave78 » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 1:30 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #13

robbedpeter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So stores should just accept being stolen from, creating highly unsafe situations for employees and customers, in the middle of economic conditions already hurting profit and supply chains? Or maybe the stores should hire private security, sufficiently armed to deter theft? That's probably a minimum cost of $500k per year for wages and insurance and licensing. I'm truly curious what the endgame is with this line of b…

A society where people don’t need to steal to survive, if you are truly asking. A Walgreens takes money from a community and gives it to their shareholders. They pay minimum wage. The desperation people have across this country should be responded to with policies that lessen desperation, rather than jailing people like we have been for the last 60 years - 25% of the prisoners in the world are in the USA which has 5%…

> A Walgreens takes money from a community and gives it to their shareholders.

So does that mean that you're happy that they're pulling out of these communities then?

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#26

Post by lubujackson » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #20

sjwalter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are building the assumption that the thieves are super-poor and starving. Food distribution is already very good for the poor and hungry. It is possible some of these thieves are just down on their luck. But when there are zero consequences to stealing, many folks will just steal in order to get more stuff/make more money. You seem to believe the world is populated by nice, well-meaning people who would never ste…

> Food distribution is already very good for the poor and hungry. It is not. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/11/14/tho... https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-un... > But when there are zero consequences to stealing, many folks will just steal in order to get more stuff/make more money. I don't think there are zero consequences to stealing, even under a "cops won't show up for…

The problem is that the solutions that SF is doing to reduce poverty and inequality are blind to unintended consequences, even when they cause the opposite of the intended goal.

Sure, less prosecution means less ruined lives for convicted criminals... but it also leads to much more crime, and it is hard to argue that (unless you change the definition of crime/crime reporting, which is exactly SF's move here).

Anyone who has lived in SF for 10+ years can see the marked difference across the board for things like car break-ins and store theft. This isn't just one-off "anecdotal" evidence but across the board changes.

Walgreen's is a good example - the store near me had very little crime at one point, then crime increased: brazen theft, roving groups of teenagers locusting the store repeatedly, holdups at gunpoint, more and more things put behind glass, employees quitting after being threatened repeatedly, a security guard getting hired by the store... next is store closing and I am not surprised so many in worse areas have closed and are closing. But we measure reported crimes so they optimize for that, not actually making anything better for anyone.

If the DA won't prosecute, the cops don't arrest anyone - no reason for them to bother. And if the cops won't show up, the store won't bother reporting it. And because the gov't can play the media game with fudged numbers, hey our plan is working. But anyone remotely close to the situation can see the causal reality of this whole mess.

Most of this comes down to arrogance of policymakers/sympathizers who think they know what people want are need. It is a lot of white knighting. If you haven't actually been poor or been part of a poor environment, you end up looking at stats and trying to "save" people with policy, but ignoring people's desire for independence.

People do not steal apples from Walgreen's because they are starving. How things actually work is people go rob Walgreen's for razor blades and shampoo, then go sell them to neighbors at a discount - cash is the goal and cash is freedom. People buy stolen goods because they are cheap and they need cash for other things.

What nobody wants is to fill out forms in triplicate to be told which government shampoo they are allowed to have for free - that makes people feel like shit across the board.

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#27

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

dave78 wrote: post #25

taurath wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A society where people don’t need to steal to survive, if you are truly asking. A Walgreens takes money from a community and gives it to their shareholders. They pay minimum wage. The desperation people have across this country should be responded to with policies that lessen desperation, rather than jailing people like we have been for the last 60 years - 25% of the prisoners in the world are in the USA which has 5%…

> A Walgreens takes money from a community and gives it to their shareholders. So does that mean that you're happy that they're pulling out of these communities then?

[deleted]

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#28

Post by gremIin » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 2:45 AM UTC

leoh wrote: post #4

Walgreen's is not in the business of morality. They are in the business of making money. Walgreen's could say just about anything they wanted about closing up shop in San Francisco and it doesn't really make good business sense for them to say something provocative. It seems to me they're telling the truth. On the other hand, the San Francisco DA is acting in a highly defensive manner. It's pretty offensive of them a…

If Walgreens is in the business of making money, what is the San Francisco DA in the business of?

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#29

Post by rufus_foreman » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 3:00 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #11

leoh wrote: post #4

Walgreen's is not in the business of morality. They are in the business of making money. Walgreen's could say just about anything they wanted about closing up shop in San Francisco and it doesn't really make good business sense for them to say something provocative. It seems to me they're telling the truth. On the other hand, the San Francisco DA is acting in a highly defensive manner. It's pretty offensive of them a…

Walgreens could easily respond by putting up historical store revenues and profits that show year over year increasing tear from each store they closed. The DA put up numbers showing that in the past 2 years thefts have gone down. I’ll for now trust the one that puts up the numbers.

The DA did not put up numbers showing that thefts have gone down. The DA put up numbers showing that reports of thefts have gone down.

Those are different things, don't you think?

Why would someone report a theft of under $1000 in SF when going outside and yelling at the sky would be precisely as likely to result in something being done?

Re: Analysis of Walgreens' stated reasoning for closing SF stores

#30

Post by rufus_foreman » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 3:14 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #13

robbedpeter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So stores should just accept being stolen from, creating highly unsafe situations for employees and customers, in the middle of economic conditions already hurting profit and supply chains? Or maybe the stores should hire private security, sufficiently armed to deter theft? That's probably a minimum cost of $500k per year for wages and insurance and licensing. I'm truly curious what the endgame is with this line of b…

A society where people don’t need to steal to survive, if you are truly asking. A Walgreens takes money from a community and gives it to their shareholders. They pay minimum wage. The desperation people have across this country should be responded to with policies that lessen desperation, rather than jailing people like we have been for the last 60 years - 25% of the prisoners in the world are in the USA which has 5%…

A Walgreens takes money from the community and gives it to its employees, its suppliers, the government, the utility company, many other entities, and, if there is anything left over, their shareholders.

But if the Walgreens is being robbed blind, there's nothing left for the shareholders, so it gets closed. Makes sense to me. Not to you?

I stole food when I was poor and hungry, the answer was not for people to give me food. The answer was for me to get a job. A minimum wage one, at the beginning.