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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

#671

Post by wstuartcl »

prvit wrote: post #310
jrumbut wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling stolen goods isn't a legitimate business activity.

Selling goods is a legitimate business activity.

Yes -- but we are not talking about that we are talking about selling goods for which you have no record of purchase and obtained through theft.

You are taking a pretty bit straw man here -- is your claim that there is no way to enforce procedures to curb stolen goods while selling other goods? I think every other seller that has been used as a fence in history would beg to differ -- just go to your local pawn shop.

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

#672

Post by mschuster91 »

danielheath wrote: post #626
prottog wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forcing people to steal to survive I really don't think these people are choosing between stealing and starving.

According to the [USDA]( https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... ), nearly 10% of americans have missed meals in the past year because they did not have enough food.

With children, it's worse. Three million children in the US are "food insecure" and 30 million (!!!) qualify for free school lunches [1], often their only source for a warm and healthy meal, and in some places where school meals aren't free parents have to go into debt with the threat of losing custody looming over them [2].

From my German POV this is an absolute insanity.

[1] https://www.insider.com/us-states-with-the-highest-number-of...

[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/20/us/pennsylvania-school-lu...

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

#673

Post by fosk »

_xnmw wrote: post #630
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…

What you are saying is literally insane.

I find Prop 47 is insane, and I find lack of law enforcement insane, but to each its own.

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

#674

Post by wstuartcl »

subradios wrote: post #560
ryan_lane wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling stolen goods hurts everyone, which is why it's a crime. It hurts the companies being stolen from, it hurts competing businesses who have a hard time competing legally, it hurts consumers, who get reduced choice due to reduced competition, and it hurts communities when their local chains shut down because organized crime has a place to fence their goods. It's mind boggling that folks are defending the ability…

I am not promoting "punishing harshly petty theft" I am suggesting that the direction current prosecutors are going is to not punish theft at all. I am also not denying that Amazon and eBay can operate as easy targets to fence stolen goods. What I am suggesting is that demanding Amazon "do something" about goods that fell off the back of a truck essentially means that any seller who doesn't get an Official Licensed D…

If local pawn shops can do it I think Amazon can do it.

You seem to have a weird position that Amazon is some innocent player in this exchange -- they are making money from every one of these illicit sales. They enjoy benefit from looking the other way -- its not that there are no processes that can halt or greatly reduce the problem.

Theft is prosecuted ffs, the issue is that it has become so lucrative (because of the easy way to convert the stolen items to money via amazon/ebay) that the system is being flooded by people stealing. In no reality can you catch 100% of shoplifters, but there is a reality where you make both sides of the act more costly with less reward (high chance of getting cought and prosecuted + hard to gain value from the goods).

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

#675

Post by prvit »

Kbelicius wrote: post #609
prvit wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what you are basically saying is that poor people should suffer more for committing the same crime as someone rich. Do you believe that rich people should suffer more because poor people can’t afford bail? If you break a leg, should everyone else have their legs broken too? That’d be fair, right?

> Do you believe that rich people should suffer more because poor people can’t afford bail? They aren't suffering more than poor. > If you break a leg, should everyone else have their legs broken too? That’d be fair, right? No.

> They aren't suffering more than poor.

But they are suffering more than they would if given the ability to post bail.

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

#676

Post by prvit »

wstuartcl wrote: post #671
prvit wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling goods is a legitimate business activity.

Yes -- but we are not talking about that we are talking about selling goods for which you have no record of purchase and obtained through theft. You are taking a pretty bit straw man here -- is your claim that there is no way to enforce procedures to curb stolen goods while selling other goods? I think every other seller that has been used as a fence in history would beg to differ -- just go to your local pawn shop.

These are criminals, they can install microsoft office and create fake proof of purchase.

Completely pointless idea.

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

#677

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

public_defender wrote: post #365
LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the street-level shoplifter will be the target of most policy interventions here, which is the least effective and least humane strategy. Getting a low-level criminal or junkie off the street, alive, is worth a lot. You can then offer them a chance to turn their sentence into rehab or something if they don't need jail. And there's no reason we can't go for the higher ups too, there's (jail)time for everyone!

> Getting a low-level criminal or junkie off the street, alive, is worth a lot. Off the street and on to Riker's Island. A jail so dangerous that it has a high likelihood of being put into federal receivership in the next year. People are safer on the street. Full stop.

That sounds insightful but it is wrong - Vancouver BC lost 3500 people on its streets last year.

But there's no reason to put people in expensive and dangerous prisons when minimum security facilities will do. When you're drying people out and have the only supply around for 50km they aren't going to leave.

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

#678

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

public_defender wrote: post #613
MichaelCollins wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are safer on the street. Only if you narrowly define 'people' to mean the tiny minority of people who are thieves, and exclude the overwhelming majority of people who aren't thieves. Thieves are safer on the street but everybody else is safer with thieves off the street. You've got your priorities skewed.

This is a reasonable comment if you're talking about stabbings or murders but not shoplifting. Allowing people to steal from retail stores with impunity doesn't make anyone unsafe. Realize that I'm not arguing for impunity, just that incarceration should be off the table.

Allowing people to commit any forceful or violent crime makes everyone feel less safe but also encourages the crime to escalate.

> just that incarceration should be off the table.

Nope. Nobody takes options off the table or the opposition adjusts. If we say we won't imprison people for X then X becomes a freebie. You see it in SF where shoplifting under $1k isn't pursued, in Vancouver where vandalism isn't pursued and you can pitch a tent up against someone's building, etc. Without involuntary incarceration you can't even force someone into detox or rehab.

We should try to have better options but we've got to stop the sabotage of our system. If you can't present a better alternative to incarceration (for everyone holistically) then you can't complain.

California is starting to clean up its DAs, a bit, British Columbia is cracking down. Eventually we'll have the use of our legal system again.

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

#679

Post by kjeetgill »

Macha wrote: post #312
kjeetgill wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how to consider the stats you're using here. Metropolitan areas aren't cities, the whole reason for the term is to include not just adjacent suburbs, but whole adjacent cities to major urban cities. Do we really consider an hour away and for cities over living in San Francisco?

I mean, from a European perspective who has been to the bay area semi-often, SF - San Mateo - Redwood City - Palo Alto - Mountain View - Santa Clara - San Jose is pretty clearly a continuous urban area and the fact that the subdivisions are considered separate towns and cities more an anomaly of historical origins and local government setup rather than something you would decide working from the definition of town or…

Hm. Maybe it's just from having grown up here but to me those cities are very different places — each with a dozen neighborhoods of their own. And they range from "urban" through suburban, to isolated neighborhoods. Especially when you want to consider them in terms of stores, crime rates, foot traffic etc.

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

#680

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

ksenzee wrote: post #491
LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the housing work? Victoria and Vancouver tried this by buying old hotels and turning them into apartments but they filled them with junkies and were surprised that they soon became worse than the outdoor camps. Any solution that doesn't segregate the sick can't work.

Depends how you define "work." It would have to be pretty damn bad to be worse than what we had. I think King County is doing the "buy hotels and turn them into housing-first apartments" thing, so I do expect those to turn into really bad places. I would also rather have the really bad places behind walls and a roof.

They burn down as Vancouver found out. Not only does it get worse inside than out but then they're back on the street.

It's not a bad solution, sorta. They should just send one to each cheap hotel in the country though. Split the problem up and spread it out so it isn't being reinforced.

By 'work' I mean, for the junkies or the residents. Junkies living together escalate and it spills out. Those walls won't contain them.

Ultimately nothing other than forcing them through rehab will turn them into anything other than drug zombies.

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