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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

#481

Post by toast0 »

notch656a wrote: post #442
_carbyau_ wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply trying to rent a house here in Australia requires submitting a goldmine for identity theft. ID's, bank statements, workplace statements to prove you have a job and the list goes on. And that simply gets you an application. No guarantee of being picked. I have zero problems with a business having to prove - to whatever degree - they are legit. Finance institutions have a KYC thing. Maybe Amazon needs a KYTrader…

AFAIK in the US you can buy/sell a house with an anonymous LLC. It's not clear to me you would even need an ID in the process, although that may vary by state. Definitely wouldn't need the rest of the stuff, except the money.

Buying a house doesn't require much ID. Borrowing money for it probably requires KYC, but maybe not exactly ID. Selling a house usually wants a notarized signature and notaries check ID (or are supposed to).

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

#482

Post by [deleted] »

internetter wrote: post #398
RussianCow wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you have to buy 4... So not exactly an apples to apples comparison if you only want one.

What a nonsensical argument. Deodorant is a consumable good. In scenarios like this, 40$ for 4 == 10$ for 1, because you consume it at a steady rate, and what you don't buy now you will pay for later

[deleted]

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

#484

Post by prvit »

woodruffw wrote: post #480
prvit wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not the law, you’re just making up things out of whole cloth. > Given that Amazon has repeatedly been supplied evidence of fencing on its platform, it would be difficult to accept a defense from ignorance That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, Amazon being generally aware that there is fencing activity happening on their platform does not make Amazon liable.

> That is not the law, you’re just making up things out of whole cloth. Every US state that I'm aware of makes it a crime to knowingly receive stolen property. Most additionally make it a crime to re-sell stolen property. On top of that, it's a Federal crime if the stolen property crosses state borders. Here, for example, are NY's statutes on stolen property: Penal Law Ss. 165.40 through 165.65[1] (you'll need to nav…

> Every US state that I'm aware of makes it a crime to knowingly receive stolen property

For mens rea you’d need to know that the specific property you are receiving is stolen. Not that some of the amazon-scale quantities of property you’re receiving is inherently going to be stolen.

> This implies passivity, when the relationship is an active one

Doesn’t matter, Amazon still isn’t aware.

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

#485

Post by woodruffw »

prvit wrote: post #484
woodruffw wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is not the law, you’re just making up things out of whole cloth. Every US state that I'm aware of makes it a crime to knowingly receive stolen property. Most additionally make it a crime to re-sell stolen property. On top of that, it's a Federal crime if the stolen property crosses state borders. Here, for example, are NY's statutes on stolen property: Penal Law Ss. 165.40 through 165.65[1] (you'll need to nav…

> Every US state that I'm aware of makes it a crime to knowingly receive stolen property For mens rea you’d need to know that the specific property you are receiving is stolen. Not that some of the amazon-scale quantities of property you’re receiving is inherently going to be stolen. > This implies passivity, when the relationship is an active one Doesn’t matter, Amazon still isn’t aware.

Mens rea is a sufficient condition, not a necessary one. You can also be found culpable under the standards of reckless action or criminal negligence. This is also true in every state that I'm aware of.

"We run such a large and haphazard business that we inevitably do a little crime" is textbook culpability via negligence.

Edit: And, to be absolutely clear, I do not believe for one moment that it isn't within Amazon's technical capabilities to detect at least some percentage of likely stolen goods on their site. This is merely the weakest possible argument for responsibility on their part.

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

#486

Post by prvit »

woodruffw wrote: post #485
prvit wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every US state that I'm aware of makes it a crime to knowingly receive stolen property For mens rea you’d need to know that the specific property you are receiving is stolen. Not that some of the amazon-scale quantities of property you’re receiving is inherently going to be stolen. > This implies passivity, when the relationship is an active one Doesn’t matter, Amazon still isn’t aware.

Mens rea is a sufficient condition, not a necessary one. You can also be found culpable under the standards of reckless action or criminal negligence. This is also true in every state that I'm aware of. "We run such a large and haphazard business that we inevitably do a little crime" is textbook culpability via negligence. Edit: And, to be absolutely clear, I do not believe for one moment that it isn't within Amazon'…

It’s literally impossible to sell goods from third parties at scale without inevitably accepting stolen goods.

There’s no amount of vetting that could solve this.

> "We run such a large and haphazard business that we inevitably do a little crime" is textbook culpability via negligence

Accepting goods for sale from third parties is not negligent.

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

#487

Post by abvdasker »

chriscjcj wrote: post #472

443 comments as I write this. I searched for the word "boost" and "Fentanyl" and was surprised that neither word had been mentioned. There is another engine driving this phenomenon: addicts "boosting" to feed their addiction. Drug use is another crime that society seems uninterested in prosecuting or punishing as of late. Add illicitly manufactured Fentanyl (1) to that recipe and you have an absolute onslaught of ret…

We already tried this. It was called The War on Drugs and it failed totally, completely and unambiguously. If there's one thing to understand about the last 60 years of United States drug criminalization and enforcement, it's that those policies have utterly failed to curb drug abuse and addiction. There are a mind-boggling number of studies which show that criminalizing drug use doesn't create fewer drug addicts.

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

#488

Post by woodruffw »

prvit wrote: post #486
woodruffw wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mens rea is a sufficient condition, not a necessary one. You can also be found culpable under the standards of reckless action or criminal negligence. This is also true in every state that I'm aware of. "We run such a large and haphazard business that we inevitably do a little crime" is textbook culpability via negligence. Edit: And, to be absolutely clear, I do not believe for one moment that it isn't within Amazon'…

It’s literally impossible to sell goods from third parties at scale without inevitably accepting stolen goods. There’s no amount of vetting that could solve this. > "We run such a large and haphazard business that we inevitably do a little crime" is textbook culpability via negligence Accepting goods for sale from third parties is not negligent.

That's why the standard is negligence and/or recklessness. Nobody expects Amazon to catch every single illegal use of their platform: the expectation is that they apply reasonable effort to doing so, including demonstrating a response to publicly known incidents of crime rings operating on their site.

I said exactly as much in my first comment.

Edit: This is at least the second time you've minimized an important piece of context: the problem is that they're accepting stolen goods, with multiple municipalities repeatedly warning them about it. Treating that as a "scale" issue doesn't wave the crime away, any more than throughput at a meatpacking factory would be a defense for the occasional employee being caught in the slaughter line.

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

#489

Post by zarzavat »

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).…

The US is a much richer country than the UK. Wages are higher and thus the market can bear higher prices. For example experienced nurses in the US can make six figures whereas in the UK nurses start on a poverty salary and through experience can upgrade that to mid five figures.

Moreover the UK has undergone dollar deflation in recent years that we are only just catching up to. The pound dropped from $1.70 to $1.20 in the last decade. But £ inflation over that period was low. So prices were in fact falling in dollar terms until the recent inflationary period.

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

#490

Post by [deleted] »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #297
axutio wrote: post #161

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 s…

> 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". I’ve also noticed a weird tendency to downplay theft lately, either through projecting a theoretical moral justification on to the shoplifter or by insinuating that retail…

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