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Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

economist.com

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

#381

Post by hellfish »

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.

> to construct a society

Did anyone in particular construct this society, or was it just given?

You can't judge society at large by the same ethical standard that you judge an individual

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

#382

Post by pitaj »

lupire wrote: post #239
meanmrmustard92 wrote: post #184

Some speculated that prosecutors had gone soft on looting after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. But it is hard to see any such trend in the data: generally states with more shoplifting prosecute more shoplifters The claim is about the time-series comparison, and the rebuttal is about the cross section comparison. Is the journalist in question stupid, gaslighting, or both?

The rebuttal was explaining the trend that does exist.

Where do they explain that the trend doesn't exist? They make no statement that applies over time.

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

#383

Post by public_defender »

bhk wrote: post #358
public_defender wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It clearly is true. I can actually watch it happen. You can too, if you go to arraignments in NYC. The line ADAs have no discretion to dismiss petit larceny (shoplifting) at arraignment. They need supervisor approval. There are other cases like driving under suspension (VTL 511 -- mentioned in GP) where they do have this discretion. There is a reason for the difference, which is that petit larceny is a priority. Also…

So on the one side I see news reports of dozens of cases of serial shoplifting offenders out on the streets, and the NYC DA informing his staff and letting the public know that if you steal less than $500 you will not go to jail. But you're claiming that the DA actually intended to send them to jail. So he was baiting them to commit the crime? I don't buy it. And you're claiming that his prosecutors have no discretio…

I am speaking of the perspective of having seen about 200 cases of this type in the last few years (this is a moderately low sample size among practitioners) in the place in question and from having discussed the issue with colleagues who have more experience than that over longer time periods in the same place.

You are free to disregard my "word of mouth" claim in favor of an elected prosecutor's press releases and true crime sensational stories in one of the country's most infamous tabloids. I just wanted to put some ink on the statement that what I described is "clearly not true."

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

#385

Post by birdman3131 »

lisper wrote: post #211
notch656a wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course not. But it is really hard to turn a profit reselling a product you purchased at retail.

The trick is to get it on clearance. Some local stores will sell for a massive discount off amazon.

I do more ebay as I won't touch selling used on amazon but in the past I have bought pallets of new stuff at local auctions and sold them on amazon for significant profit. Ended up with several cases of Ember mugs once. Forget the price per mug but think I paid ~$600 and sold em for ~$2400 on amazon.

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

#386

Post by analog31 »

silisili wrote: post #54
jakelazaroff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Walk around the city and you see more cops than ever. The issue is that police don’t actually prevent crime. Putting more cops on the street is like trying to use water to extinguish a grease fire.

Well, if law enforcement proves useless, give shopowners protection for handling it themselves. Our current attitude of just deal with it/ignore it is not only insanity, it's infuriating.

In a sense they are. The article talks about putting deodorant behind a locked panel. I'm hoping you're not talking about something like an physical confrontation, since that would strike me as dangerous and unmanageable. That's the last thing I'd want to expose employees and customers to.

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

#387

Post by oaktrout »

z9znz wrote: post #276
xwdv wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shows that she’s an outsider, and it foreshadows the kind of doctor that she will eventually be.

Seriously? Perhaps I really am missing something obvious. What kind of doctor will she be?

Well, she was unlocking small pigeon holes so that they could read the labels (reveal the mystery inside), clearly she will do gastroenterology or gynecology.

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

#388

Post by balderdash »

mancerayder wrote: post #319
brutusborn wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish that DA had added some references to the studies that support less incarceration. It just doesn't make sense to me, he admits that Manhattan is the worst burrough for crime, then states that it is over incarcerating. How does one determine that? Also he mentions social programs as an alternative to incarceration, but are these programs actually available? The crime rate suggests they are not, so reducing incar…

>It just doesn't make sense to me, he admits that Manhattan is the worst burrough for crime, then states that it is over incarcerating. How does one determine that? It's tied in this foundational belief (and it's mentioned as one of the points) that incarceration leads to more recidivism. How one can reach this conclusion by taking overall violent crime stats into account (also all but one out of seven felony types a…

seems like the problem is not too much incarceration, but the wrong type of incarceration (i.e. not having prison be a dangerous and dehumanizing experience). if you didn't have a broken prison system that leads to recidivism, then you could safely use incarceration as a deterrent to crime

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

#389

Post by greggman3 »

balls187 wrote: post #373
c_hackett wrote: post #133

As someone not from the US can anyone shed some light why deodorant and other personal care goods are so expensive in the US? The prices are so ludicrous compared to the UK that on my trip I had to take a photo as friends would have thought I was exaggerating when telling them! Take for example Dove Men+Care antiperspirant. In the US what is a rather compact can 3.8oz/107g was on the shelf at $9.55 (plus sales tax).…

Prices are based on what the market will bare. In 2004 I spent part of my honeymoon in London. At a pub, I paid £10.95 for a burger. At the time it was ~$2 to £1, so it was effectively a $20 burger. My friends thought I was full of it when I said I paid $20 for a burger.

Paid $20 for a burrito and a coke in a dive taqueria in the SF mission. Just a few years ago that would have been under $10. Curious if they give a discount to the local Latino population who's average income is fairly low.

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

#390

Post by mlyle »

prvit wrote: post #374
mlyle wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban Amazon and eBay? No. We haven't banned pawn shops, either. But we do understand that they are a conduit for theft and can induce other crime, and so we tend to impose a certain amount of regulation upon them to reduce the scope of the harm. What exact form that would take is up for discussion. And, of course, there's other secondary markets-- sketchy people with tables illegally selling gray market consumer goods…

Quoted post unavailable.

> So you want that the government do something, but don’t know what?

Actually, I pretty well know what, and I'll explain despite your bad faith.

* We have a century-old toolkit of ways to deal with legitimate businesses that often end up as fences. Mostly record-keeping requirements and a degree of secondary liability to encourage vetting of where they buy merchandise from. You see this toolkit applied to pawn shops, scrap metal dealers, etc...

* We also have pretty good ways, in major municipalities, of shutting down sellers of goods who open impromptu businesses on street corners with dubious goods. Increased amount of retail theft may be a signal to redouble these efforts.

* And, of course, enforcement against the actual frontline shoplifters is important, too.

Of course, all of these things are tradeoffs that impede some legitimate businesses to some extent to protect other businesses from illegal activity. The exact amount and form is open to discussion.

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