I agree that the complicit DAs and recent lax attitudes towards crime are probably a root cause, but it's almost too easy to blame "woke" everything. If everyone woke went away tomorrow, our society would still have many of these problems. Personally? I think it's just the chickens coming home to roost on the degradation of our society since the 1970s and it's acceleration since the 2008 financial collapse, but it co…
not degradation of society at large, it's typically the usual suspects.
Why should my grocery store close because people are stealing things from it? What do I do, just starve?
...because they are losing money? stores aren't in business to feed you; they are in business to make money. Would you continue to own and run a store if it lost money for you? Better have deep pockets then.
How does society function if no one is tasked with feeding the people?
Are we all supposed to own farms? How does that work with 330 million Americans? Who is going to have time to do things like design the hardware and software that power the devices you use to post on the internet--they don't have time to do that and work their personal farm for food...
Let the market handle this. Simply close stores with high theft rates, which will happen anyway since they’re unprofitable.
Why should my grocery store close because people are stealing things from it? What do I do, just starve?
The average grocery store profit margin is around 2.2%. If additional shoplifting amounts to a substantial fraction of that, then there's no reason to keep the business open. Grocery stores aren't pro bono.
Uh who could have this seen comming?!? Thing like this start to happen, if the gap between rich and poor becomes bigger and bigger. The next logic step would be just hijack random people.
so because Jeff Bezo's is rich, I can steal?
No because a class structure only has rich and poor with less and less middle ground, stealing becomes necessity to some. Even if immoral.
Let the market handle this. Simply close stores with high theft rates, which will happen anyway since they’re unprofitable.
> Let the market handle this.
Not sure I want that. When the state refuses to protect private property, the market solution tends to look more like Vito Corleone. That's especially true when it appears certain organized crime groups are perpetrating coordinated thefts like the one at Nordstrom. The big corporations can't afford to to have mafia payments on the books, but they can afford to pack up and leave or encase everything in cages. The local mom 'n' pop store will be willing to pay a bit for protection.
Why should my grocery store close because people are stealing things from it? What do I do, just starve?
I mean, if the people running the store can't profitably operate (due to theft or other factors), why should they operate? Why should the owners of that supermarket go into ruin just to give you another shopping option? Why is it their responsibility to keep you fed at all?
Why should firefighters put out fires? They make no money from it. It costs them money in equipment wear, water usage, etc.!
Already happening in SF as we speak. And the remaining stores have super jacked up prices to the point that it's cheaper to order delivery from a store in the suburbs, pay a tip for a driver, and pay them to do the shopping for you (Instacart) than it is to buy locally. It's clear that Prop 47 and the general mentality that property crimes don't matter and prosecuting them is racist has failed.
I'm sure shoplifting is to blame, and not the price of rent and lack of new construction.
They're both problems that can be attacked independently. You can crack down hard on shoplifters and reselling rings but also build lots of new housing.
Price of rent is a function of housing supply and demand. Rent control just pushes the costs to less visible things like security deposit, maintenance, etc.
Let the market handle this. Simply close stores with high theft rates, which will happen anyway since they’re unprofitable.
Absolutely not. There are actually human costs to it. My parents are old (in their 70s), and they are lucky to have a CVS near by where they can walk and get their medicine and basic needs. Pharmacies and grocery stores being forced to close due to unchecked theft inflict pain and major lowering of quality of life to people around the neighborhood, and especially to people that can't just drive to the next store. Als…
We live in a democracy, more or less, which allows the majority to dictate what is acceptable in society. The majority has decided that a subset of society is not beholden to the laws the rest of us are. Jim Crow laws were unjust and it was the victims who had to fight it. Elderly people have most of the wealth in this country, if they've got a problem then they should put that wealth to work convincing a majority of their views.