Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 763 posts

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#161

Post by axutio »

Most of the comments here are ignoring the difference between regular old shoplifting and the trend driving the increase discussed in the article, which they're referring to as "organized retail crime".

I think it's very fair to have differing attitudes/moral thresholds for an impoverished mother shoplifting a week's worth of baby formula versus "a couple in Alabama [which] pled guilty to shifting $300,000-worth of stolen baby formula on eBay".

My reading of the article suggests that the trend discussed is a result of the latter, which is more recent and problematic, and not the former. Comments here discussing the morality of crime or a desire for policy change are missing this distinction.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#162

Post by refurb »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #69
MichaelCollins wrote: post #33

> "The stores are insured bro, why do you care if people steal from them? It's not your problem maaan." This is why I care. Criminals degrade society and we all suffer for their greed.

That’s one perspective. Another is that the truly greedy thing is to construct a society such that some people can’t afford basic necessities, and that inflicts far more suffering than people stealing what they need to live.

This ignores reality. At least in SF most of the auto break ins and shoplifting is organized crime.

These people could get a job, they just don’t want to be a “sucker” and work 9 to 5 like some chump.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#163

Post by subradios »

mbreese wrote: post #148
nostromo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming Amazon is misplaced. Blame the people stealing and the system that refuses to prosecute them.

You can tackle a problem from multiple directions. So while direct prosecution is important, cutting off a method for converting stolen goods to money is also important. As soon as that method become unprofitable, the activity will either stop or switch to something else.

Regulating legitimate business activity out of existence to support progressive prosecutors ideas about shoplifting and street crime is the opposite of a solution.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#165

Post by ALittleLight »

nostromo wrote: post #124
fragmede wrote: post #53

I've lived in the same city now (not NYC) for 10+ years, so I'm moderately connected with all sorts of people and not just a bubble of affluent tech people. So I'll be real, I know some sketchy people that probably do drugs or at least know where to find some. What I don't know, however, is any "fences". That is, someone that traffics in stolen goods. Or maybe I do, they don't exactly advertise their services. I've n…

Blaming Amazon is misplaced. Blame the people stealing and the system that refuses to prosecute them.

But also blame Amazon. If you ran a store that repeatedly sold stolen goods do you think local police and prosecutors would ignore you?

Trafficking in stolen property is a felony. That's true whether you definitely know it's stolen property or if you definitely should have known (recklessly trafficking). You, if you repeatedly did it out of your small business and ignored complaints, would face prison. Why does the law apply differently to Amazon?

My guess is, if you told Amazon's CEO that he had one month to substantially reduce trafficking or face felony prosecution and prison time - I bet you'd see severe reductions.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#166

Post by nverno »

psychphysic wrote: post #91
compiler-guy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article claims that the BLM protests made little difference, and include a graph of various states comparing the amount of shoplifting with the amount of prosecution. Generally there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between states with large BLM protests and reduced prosecution. For example, Oregon had huge protests and weak government responses, and yet prosecutes large amounts of shoplifting. Blaming this on th…

Invariably people will blame BLM there's a lot of latent disgruntlement.

People love simple explanations. BLM obviously wasn't a causal factor, but general mayhem/disorder certainly facilitated things like shoplifting. There were a lot of people doing what sublime did back in '92 [1].

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ttchToDa7Y

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#167

Post by Gigachad »

ipnon wrote: post #125
yalogin wrote: post #118

Piggybacking on this thread, is stealing a common thing across the whole of the US or is it restricted to some areas? I keep getting asked how people in n San Francisco are living with crime so rampant and they send a video of gangs stealing from a store/mall.

Organized retail theft is common in big cities. Most Americans do not live in big cities. This is not an issue for most Americans, and the stores they shop at do not have restrictive shelving nor go out of business do to "shrinking."

Meanwhile in Tokyo you have self serve 24/7 convenience stores. And I’m not talking about vending machines. This is where you grab the item, enter on a screen what you got, pay for it, and walk out. No staff needed.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#168

Post by cratermoon »

kmstout wrote: post #67
cratermoon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

curl -s ' https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/11/24/why-its-h... ' | grep articleBody | jq -r .articleBody 2>/dev/null | paps --font=ETBembo | open -fa Preview

Instead of `paps`, you could also try ... | sed -re 's/$/\n\n/' | uniq | man -Tps -l - | ... If you have groff, you can also have `man` go straight to PDF.

I chose paps over enscript or groff because it handles utf8. With groff you get garbage like âshrinkâ, and enscript generates "Buttons marked â\200\234call for assistanceâ\200\235".

Fun times

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#169

Post by notch656a »

coredog64 wrote: post #122
fragmede wrote: post #53

I've lived in the same city now (not NYC) for 10+ years, so I'm moderately connected with all sorts of people and not just a bubble of affluent tech people. So I'll be real, I know some sketchy people that probably do drugs or at least know where to find some. What I don't know, however, is any "fences". That is, someone that traffics in stolen goods. Or maybe I do, they don't exactly advertise their services. I've n…

Chains in Manhattan put stickers on the merchandise that tell you where it came from. While you could remove them, it’s a PITA and cuts into your margins. If you don’t remove it, there is a clear signal to Amazon that these are stolen goods.

Is it illegal to sell deodorant you got from the store after they put a tag on it?

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#170

Post by blululu »

nostromo wrote: post #124
fragmede wrote: post #53

I've lived in the same city now (not NYC) for 10+ years, so I'm moderately connected with all sorts of people and not just a bubble of affluent tech people. So I'll be real, I know some sketchy people that probably do drugs or at least know where to find some. What I don't know, however, is any "fences". That is, someone that traffics in stolen goods. Or maybe I do, they don't exactly advertise their services. I've n…

Blaming Amazon is misplaced. Blame the people stealing and the system that refuses to prosecute them.

Nope. In most states (CA for example) it is a felony to sell stolen goods when the amount exceeds a pretty modest threshold. If, as alleged in the parent comment, they are committing a crime on a large scale then the blame is very well placed.

*of course this does not exonerate the original thieves, but as a matter of practicality it is going to be easier to hit a single large offender than a myriad of small ones.

Post reply on HN