Comment on No one could have seen this coming
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 9 hours agoI’m glad you’re willing to have a respectful debate, and I’m certainly not trying to be disingenuous, but this is a complex topic and it warrants some measure of diligence. We’re talking about people’s lives here, after all.
Almost no large corporation experience a level of theft that requires them to increase prices.
Sorry, but this claim is going to require some evidence.
Many large stores have been having record profits, while the value of stolen goods amounts to less than 1% of the generated profits.
First of all “many” may be doing a lot of heavy lifting here, but even without that, you do understand the difference between a single store turning a profit, and the entire company doing the same, right?
It is certainly possible that the company as a whole was only profitable because they closed underperforming stores, because that would free up a lot of expenses if they can let go of all the employees and either sell the real estate (or stop paying rent for it), so unfortunately the company as a whole making a profit does not prove that theft isn’t hurting them. You can survive a fight while bleeding from a head wound as long as you get first aid soon enough, but that doesn’t mean you won the confrontation.
your_dead_pet_goldfish@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Here is a link to an article from the Brookings institue where they dig into research about this. It goes through basically everything that i have said.
Also, yes I understand that an individual store can be unproffitable while the larger company still makes a profit. I would argue that if these stores are in areas that would become food deserts then there is a responsibility to keep them open even if they are not profitable. I think either government subsidation or, even better, government run grocery stores would be a better option than letting companies decide this.
I do find it interesting that you have not addressed the things i have brought up about the causes of shoplifting. Most people who steal don’t do it for fun or profit but because they are desperate. If so many people feel like they need to steal to survive that it is driving stores under i would blame the systems that create this scenario not the people. You are acting like we can examine shoplifting without looking at the context surrounding the issue. It doesn’t just happen. If you really want to stop shoplifting so bad then we need to bring people out of poverty and provide the resources they need. So once again i will say blame thw companies and politicians that create these conditions, not the poor people who have to survive these conditions. These ideas cannot be disentangled.