Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan • Hacker News Board

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

#631

Post by t0suj4 » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:04 PM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #595

monero-xmr wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s morally wrong to steal, and has been since the beginning of civilization. “Though shalt not steal” - Ten Commandments “If a man has stolen goods from a temple, or house, he shall be put to death; and he that has received the stolen property from him shall be put to death.” - Code of Hammurabi Private property is the foundation of civilization and pretending theft doesn’t matter undermines the basis of our world.…

While I agree that it's morally wrong to steal, you lost me at "All theft is wrong". I think there's a deep reason why stories about moral (or at least mostly ambiguous) thieves are so prevalent. Two major examples are Robin Hood and more recently Andor, both about stealing as a way to rebel against an overwhelmingly powerful and negative authority.

People love retribution, especially when group of people they identify with benefit. It does not matter whether the cause for said retribution is real or not.

You sleep easier when you don't know what happens to the people who won't receive the shipment a robbed grain merchant cannot pay for.

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

#632

Post by throwaway4aday » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:08 PM UTC

fosk wrote: post #587

partiallypro wrote: post #179

This is such a big nationwide problem that Target actually mentioned it during their earnings report (this is stated in the article.) Some states/cities have made it near impossible to prosecute these people, so the risk/reward is very favorable to stealing and reselling. Some stores have even closed down in certain areas because of it. When we talk about "food deserts" in some cities, it could one day be we have mas…

This is mostly a function of policies that explicitly allow and tolerate this sort of behavior as a sort of “pay back” and “release valve” for the poor, addicts or generally speaking under represented social classes. As the wage gap and opportunity gap widens in the US, allowing shoplifting is actually an intentional release valve that is being tolerated and even outright legally permitted (California Prop 47), becau…

This is an idiotic rationalization even if it is true that this is the motivation behind allowing ransacking to go unchecked. You're essentially funding the creation and expansion of criminal gangs. Training up a whole generation of people to become looters with little fear of the law. Take this a few steps further, the article mentions that retailers have begun keeping product off the shelves or even completely shutting down outlets in problem areas. What happens when this becomes general policy and there are no more easy targets to loot? Do you think that every person who has grown accustom to this lifestyle and has forgone legal work in favor of this more profitable option is just going to look around and say "oh well, it was good while it lasted. Guess I'll go get a job at McDonald's and be a law abiding citizen", fuck no, they're going to look for other targets but now they have possibly years of experience and contacts with other criminals allowing them to go after other options that they wouldn't have considered before.

This isn't hyperbole, just look at what happens in other countries that lack the ability to enforce their laws.

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

#633

Post by acdha » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

factsarelolz wrote: post #329

acdha wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the same claim at all - those people can and are being prosecuted: bail wouldn’t matter if they weren’t! Similarly, changing the threshold for a felony theft charge doesn’t prevent anyone from being prosecuted.

Stores aren't calling the police and if they do the police don't show up. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-12-09/skelton-...

That’s the claim made by someone running for office on a tough on crime platform, so I’d want a more objective source and especially comparisons to other cities.

For example, one other explanation is that police have gone on a soft-strike trying to reduce popular support for anti-police brutality laws. If that were the case, the focus should instead be on disciplinary measures for the officers who aren’t answering calls.

The big thing we’d really want would be comparisons with other cities. We hear a lot about NYC and LA both because they’re large but also because they are synonymous with liberal in right-wing media, where billions of dollars annually are spent promoting that narrative. One of the first questions should be comparing rates to less popularly-mentioned cities, especially in states where sentencing thresholds haven’t changed.

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

#634

Post by hotpotamus » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:12 PM UTC

throwaway4aday wrote: post #632

fosk wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly a function of policies that explicitly allow and tolerate this sort of behavior as a sort of “pay back” and “release valve” for the poor, addicts or generally speaking under represented social classes. As the wage gap and opportunity gap widens in the US, allowing shoplifting is actually an intentional release valve that is being tolerated and even outright legally permitted (California Prop 47), becau…

This is an idiotic rationalization even if it is true that this is the motivation behind allowing ransacking to go unchecked. You're essentially funding the creation and expansion of criminal gangs. Training up a whole generation of people to become looters with little fear of the law. Take this a few steps further, the article mentions that retailers have begun keeping product off the shelves or even completely shut…

> This isn't hyperbole, just look at what happens in other countries that lack the ability to enforce their laws.

Well, given that we seem to lack the ability to enforce our laws, what do we have to look forward to?

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

#635

Post by KingMob » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

_xnmw wrote: post #629

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I’ve also noticed a weird tendency to downplay theft lately. Happened before in history. See the Russian Revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union. Widespread moral justification for theft of private property on class-based "social justice" arguments. It's even happening right here in this HN thread, people justifying stealing.

Spoiler alert: wage theft is just as big as regular theft, if not more. https://prospect.org/economy/wage-theft-shoplifting-cost-dif...

Think of shoplifting as "inefficient redistribution".

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

#636

Post by Pigalowda » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #438

hellfish wrote: post #376

There's a simple solution to this: just leave, and take your taxable income with you. If a jurisdiction can't do a basic function of government, why the fuck would you want to perpetuate the administrative disease any further? Paying taxes to these jurisdictions is like enabling an abusive relationship

New York is where the jobs are. Just leave and get another 200k job as a banker where?

LA, Chicago, Houston

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

#637

Post by Pigalowda » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:24 PM UTC

ksenzee wrote: post #140

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 prices here vary wildly depending on where you're shopping. In a Manhattan CVS I wouldn't be surprised to see prices three or four times what you would see in a Nebraska Walmart. I live in the Seattle suburbs and $9.55 for deodorant makes my eyes bug out. I don't think that's normal.

In seattle Greenlake and Safeway had deodorant at $9+ around me. Pretty annoying. I guess i need to buy it stolen on Amazon for a decent price?

And if all this thieving is going on why aren’t grocery stores just doing what Costco does and have membership cards and employees checking entrance and then receipt checkers as well?

The target at northgate has laundry soap locked up. I get Seattle has a terrible fentanyl addiction, weak politicians and poor policing but why can’t the corps make some changes? I guess they’re still making money and I’m still spending

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

#638

Post by public_defender » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:28 PM UTC

rullelito wrote: post #533

public_defender wrote: post #159

Expert in stolen goods here. I was talking to a NYC colleague the other day about how there are trends in favor of not punishing people for certain criminal activity in the city. We were talking about driving with a suspended license, but I asked about shoplifting. She said, "Oh, no. That's on the opposite trend. Not only are they prosecuting it to the maximum, but they just changed the law to make it easier to hold…

Expert in making stuff up perhaps.

In polite company we say "lawyer."

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

#639

Post by hotpotamus » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

Oxidation wrote: post #553

public_defender wrote: post #159

Expert in stolen goods here. I was talking to a NYC colleague the other day about how there are trends in favor of not punishing people for certain criminal activity in the city. We were talking about driving with a suspended license, but I asked about shoplifting. She said, "Oh, no. That's on the opposite trend. Not only are they prosecuting it to the maximum, but they just changed the law to make it easier to hold…

The other thing that's interesting from their state graph is that it disagrees with the "people fleeing anarchist California to orderly Texas to escape rampant crime" meme. Not only does Texas have higher rates of larceny theft[1], it is the biggest outlier on the graph in terms of lack of prosecution for it - no other state is further below the trend line. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/232583/larceny-thef…

It probably doesn't help that our Attorney General has been under indictment for securities fraud for years now.

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

#640

Post by joenot443 » Fri, Nov 25, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

KingMob wrote: post #635

_xnmw wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve also noticed a weird tendency to downplay theft lately. Happened before in history. See the Russian Revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union. Widespread moral justification for theft of private property on class-based "social justice" arguments. It's even happening right here in this HN thread, people justifying stealing.

Spoiler alert: wage theft is just as big as regular theft, if not more. https://prospect.org/economy/wage-theft-shoplifting-cost-dif... Think of shoplifting as "inefficient redistribution".

This is one of those talking points I see progressives use that has just never made sense to me.

So we can agree people's time is stolen from them, this is wrong. The part that has never made sense to me is why this means stealing as a whole something that society should encourage?

If someone is abused by their parents we would agree they suffered injustice, like people who had their wages skimmed by their employer. We would never tell someone that was abused by their parents it's now okay to abuse their own children, so why would we tell someone who's been stolen from that it's now okay for them to loot bodegas?

I sometimes can't tell if I'm being gaslighted, or if people really do look at the world in such broad strokes. When I see my local owner, Sol, have his shop trashed and stuck up by a couple 19yos, I certainly wasn't thinking about how they're probably hardworking minimum wage workers and this is just an 'inefficient redistribution' of wealth which is rightfully theirs. Some people are just dishonorable thieves, there doesn't have to be more to it than that.