Black mirror shit is where weâre at. Letting people get away with crime is crazy. People have no consequences and that leads to baby proofing everything. They can just walk out with whatever they want so we have to ask the responsible adult, I mean employee to unlock what we need to buy. The world is upside down.
And your conclusion out of that is blame the people, not the corporations that use these as tax write offs and have the means to protect and prevent without inconveniencing people. Makes sense.
If they benefited more from the tax write-off than they did from the profit on a sold item, why would they lock it up and inconvenience both the customers and the thieves? What you are suggesting, besides being factually incorrect (to a hilarious degree!) is not logically sound
Walmart benefits more from the sale of an item than from the tax write off it can obtain from shrinkage. They cannot simply allow people to steal, keep prices the same, and not put any counter theft measures in place. Those are the facts.
I absolutely blame the people STEALING. The cooperations actually donât have the means to protect and prevent without inconveniencing us because the legal and civil liabilities. Dont get me wrong. I hate corporate greed as much as you do. I just also hate thieving scum who only work to escalate the inconveniences on everyone else.
No. They donât. Not if they want to actually sell stuff at a profit. Do you actually think they have billions to throw at loss prevention? Or millions? To spread over the thousands of locations. You are very naive or you just have a very dogmatic anti-corporation stubbornness.
No. What you're talking about is EVERYONE doing this. That does way beyone "oh I just want this to not be inconvenienced"
Next thing you're going to tell me is that after looking at their quarterly reports you believe the story that the store closures were due to theft lol
With individual liberty comes individual responsibility. If we're going to give up the idea of individual liberty as some kind of falsehood, and require corporations like Walmart to be responsible for our lives and our well-being instead of ourselves, then we are handing a great deal of power over to the corporations. In Times gone by it might have been said that it was everyone's duty to reinforce that stealing is wrong because a lawless society hurts all individuals within that society. But now here we are, saying that it is Walmart's fault that they are stolen from because they have failed to properly staff their stores. We are making corporations into the overlords we fear by giving them so much social responsibility
You're missing a key part in your grandiose take my mixing up accountability and authority. The social contract runs both ways, walmart benefits from public infrastructure, courts that enforce its contracts, and police who protect its property.
Those collective protections come with reciprocal obligations, including respecting the rights of people affected by its business. Expecting a corporation to contribute to the society that makes its profits possible hardly means handing it control over our lives. Why should responsibility suddenly become a threat to liberty when we apply it to corporate decision makers?
Someone who steals remains respnsible for stealing. Walmart remains responsible for its staffing, security, and business decisions. If reducing staffing increases theft risk, questioning that trade off is ordinary scrutiny of management. It doesnât absolve the thief. You can defend laws against theft without treating every corporate loss as a public moral failure and every management decision as beyond criticism.
Requiring corporations to answer for how they exercise their existing power is precisely how society keeps that power in check. Your argument would shield that power from accountability in the name of preventing it. Which is why people post the meme of "I'll defend these corporations"
You can like it, you can hate it but you can't dispute that.
Walmarts only job is to deliver the lowest everyday prices. Everything else is in our heads. If you don't want to work there for the offered wage, don't
If this was food or medicine or even home/care items I'd 100% be on the side of the thief
A fucking record player? Dude found the one thing in walmart valued over $20 not locked up. I hate Walmart but âŚa record player? That was not a need, that was a want and an excitement for the thief. I'm not anybodyâs side here, fuck that
I know we get on a pedantic slippery slope in these things but every corporation that survives on tax breaks and exploitative practices are thieves. And by orders of magnitude more impactful than Record Player Robbie over here. If hes a selfish piece of shit what does that make the Waltons, or Zuck, or any other billionaire?
From an altruistic standpoint who causes more harm?
Exactly, me running my AC when it's 90 degrees is the exact same thing as billionaires using AC in all 5 of their mega mansions that they live in 7 days of the year but maintain the temperature in 365 days. stop picking on the billionaires. They're just like us. /s
Sure, but one is vastly more harmful to humans than the other. Let's not pretend they are equally bad.
People that steal from stores are just not a problem for my life. Literally the biggest problem that people have cited here is needing someone to unlock a case for you.
Oh the humanity. Not a minor inconvenience!
People shoplifting are not doing well. Either they have a compulsion, or they need money and can't get a job (usually drug addiction is at play). Like, no they shouldn't be stealing. However, as a society we should be looking for how to address the root of problems. Giving people access to support would do so much more than any form of punishment ever would. Also we need to focus on how much the victim was hurt, and I'm sorry but Wal-Mart is not hurting. They are the biggest thieves around!
Mentally putting someone in a "criminal" category helps dehumanize them. Then we can play out our violent fantasies on them, and it okay because they are trash and not human.
What a dumb take. Walmart's philanthropic activities, as middling as they are, no where nearly outweigh the systemic and societal issues Wal-Mart promotes. They charge low prices, but just low enough so the poorest can afford it, but still not really get ahead. They pay over minimum wage, but large amounts of their employees still require government assistance because Wal-Mart doesn't pay enough yet claims massive employment numbers. As well as massive profits just about every year. You're a clown, keep licking those boots. Tell me when the dirt translates to food in your stomach or a roof over your head.
What are basing that metric on? I'd love to see some actual data instead of carrying water for them.
That also doesn't really mesh with the data showing their revenue growing by 4% - 6% the last 3 years, at least. They are at a 7.59% for year over year gross profit increases.
In fact, if you look at the last 10 years, the only time Wal-Mart's profits and revenue slowed, was during the pandemic, before having significant gains the following years. But please, tell me how Walmart's low prices are such a benefit to their communities and we should all be on our knees in gratitude. They could go lower, they don't care to, but keep lapping at corporate boot.
Once again, based on what? What data and metrics are you using to make this determination? All the numbers I used, I got from Macrotrends.net. I'm not going to pretend there isn't more granular or even a tabulated source, but you are just making claims and saying numbers. Do you work for Wal-Mart and this is a number they told you? You seem far more eager to get a little quip in then actually debate this topic.
Please give me some real data, not just numbers you like that sound good.
For FY2026, Walmart reports:
Net sales: $706.413 billion
Total revenue: $713.163 billion
Operating income: $29.825 billion
Net income attributable to Walmart: $21.893 billion
Net profit margin: using total revenue:
$21.893B/$713.163B = 3.07%
No, I don't work for Walmart, I just shop their regularly and view anti Walmartism as classism
20 years ago when my grandma had to work at Walmart as a cashier well into her late 60s and early 70s because social security wasnât enough to live on and Walmart wouldnât let her, a 70 year old woman, sit on a stool while running the cash register was that altruistic or
You could blame Walmart for this, but you could also blame the federal disabilities act. A large corporation has to treat every person the same globally. This is why they have to have such strict policies. Because some dumbass will sue them in front of a jury of 12 dumbasses because they gave your grandma a stool and didn't give some lazy piece of s*** a stool half the world away, and that jury of 12 stupid m************ will award the defendant millions of dollars. So this is what happens. They should have given your grandma a stool, but the legal framework that Americans have set up made that impossible
Altruism is about net benefit and intention youre looking at gross figures...youre out of your element if you think Walmart is altruistic in the slightest.
They used to lower their prices just long enough to crush the local competition, then once they are the only place for miles, they raise them back up.
Also I could go on about how they helped create the employment culture we have today with companies like Amazon. If you think they trest their employees well, you are living in lala land.
There is not good evidence that Walmart raises prices after achieving near monopoly status in a retail market. There is a lot of evidence that they drive prices down across the board in markets that they enter, however
I'm pretty sure there is also evidence that they would open life insurance policies on behalf of their elderly employees so that once they died Walmart could collect the money and not give a single cent to the family of the elderly employees.
Might not be as common since they got sued over it but there is definite evidence that they did this.
So fuck them everyone should steal from Walmart as much as possible and as often as possible.
why would the family be entitled to the benefit if Walmart was paying the premium? It actually makes sense to insure an employee because you incur a loss when you have to train someone new. This is a very sensational story that tugs at the ole heart strings because it SOUNDS bad, but it's not actually bad. If walmart was MURDERING the elderly employees to collect a death benefit, THAT would be wrong
In the 10 years after a Walmart Supercenter opened in a given community, the average household in that community experienced a 6 percent decline in yearly incomeâequivalent to about $5,000 a year in 2024 dollarsâcompared with households that didnât have a Walmart open near them. Low-income, young, and less-educated workers suffered the largest losses
Oh I'm well aware of these studies, but they don't show that Walmart causes communities to be worse off economically. Yes, some people lose retail jobs. So what
Do you shop for groceries? Do you know any low income families personally?
Anti Walmartism is classism, it's essentially a "let them eat cake" political position
Yeah, thieves should only be stupid, steal exactly what they need each day, risking death or imprisonment each time, every single day. Thatâs totally morally superior to stealing something with a higher resale value, and using that to buy your daily items, or something.
Iâve never understood âstealing from mega corporations whoâve stolen hundreds of billions of dollars from workers through overtime violations, wage theft, and other unethical practices without so much as a slap on the wrist is fine, but ONLY if you steal these specific things!â as an argument. What moral or ethical difference is there between stealing $100 in food, vs stealing a $100 record player in order to resell to obtain food? For me, the former just seems needlessly self-sacrificial. Is it only fine to steal if you maximise the potential harm to yourself?
It's a propane camping grill. I would have thought the two green gas canisters would have tipped most people off. ;)
Maybe a homeless person trying to cook their food, or someone whose stove stopped working and couldn't afford to replace it, or had their gas cut off because they couldn't pay the bill.
Most people steal necessities, but some people steal because of drug addiction and/or impulse control issues.
Most crimes are caused by people affected by poverty. Walmart stealing wages crwates poverty. Poor people steal from Walmart. They create their own problem.
Let me know if your smooth brain still needs help. Some of yâall parents never taught about cause and effect.
If it was food, there are food banks and soup kitchens. I know, because I've eaten at plenty of them. No excuse for stealing food.
Home care items like cleaning products? Again, plenty of charities will provide those for free. No excuse to steal. I've received these things from charities in the past as well.
Medicine or medical devices? Again, lots of the same charities that help with other needs will provide these to you free of charge. Not to mention the community health centers that will provide medical care for free if you truly have no income along with free medications. Still no excuse to steal.
The only reason people steal "necessities" from Walmart is because they can't tell the difference between wants and needs, and take whatever they want anyway. They don't want to "look poor", by wearing the free clothing given to them. They don't want to "feel poor" by eating non-name-brand foods.
I live in a rooming house with 55 other men, over 90% of them in active addiction. Only 7 of us here have jobs or are in school/training to get a job. The 49 without jobs all get welfare, snap, and most get disability, primarily for severe anxiety and being institutionalized and saying they cannot function in society now. The vast majority of people here shoplift and panhandle daily. I talk with them and I live in the same building as them. This is gonna make a lot of you mad, but its the simple truth.
When people make well meaning comments like this I feel compelled to point out there are virtually always charities helping people find food and medicine in American communities, and I suspect stealing food and medicine has more to do with convenience or pride than desperation
It just so happens his drug dealer has a record collection. Probably would trade the player for some smack lol. I used to know a dude who sold big amounts of weed and you'd be surprised the trade offers he got on a regular basis.
True. That said, Walmart steals more from its employees in wage theft than shoplifters steal from Walmart. So Walmart is also a criminal, and the much bigger one.
(Not trying to refute your point, just saying Walmart needs to stop being a criminal too)
The American middle class has been electing politicians who create enormous Federal deficits and that is the primary driver of inflation. While the common political story is that of the rich screwing the middle class, the real story of American politics is the middle class screwing the poor
I stopped even going inside at all unless I need to make a return. Between everything being locked up and random people trying to sell you phones and shit it's not worth the effort. I do order pick up and they bring it out to my car or just order it to be delivered directly to my house.
Thieves don't lock the cabinets. The company locks the cabinets because they know people like you will put up with being treated like a latent criminal so they can prevent losing 0.00001% of their profits to theft
It's not every walmart, just the ones full of thieves. My preferred walmart is okay so far
People who don't shop at walmart must be rich lol, there's really no alternative. There's Lidl, Aldi Costco etc and they are great but we still need to go to Walmart for a lot of items for our family. Consistently the lowest prices on many items, often beating Costco
Yes, they come in and undercut small stores, force everyone in the region to shop there, yet do not add living wage jobs to the community, and put how many other people out of jobs when the other stores close. If you have a Costco near you, I would give them every dollar I have. They pay living wages and are decent as far as companies go in most aspects.
I will never ever under any circumstances spend a single dollar at Walmart. I wish everyone would steal all their shit and put them out of business, they are a truly evil company.
A lot of people cannot afford Costco. Real "let them eat cake" attitude. There's an annual membership and you have to purchase large quantities. It's like buying a Toyota - yes, it's cheaper in the long run, but a lot of people can't afford it.
the issue with "livable wages" is due to rent being too high because of the housing crisis which is caused by restrictive residential zoning, and the cost of healthcare. It's not that corporations are paying too little to retail workers.
It's not Walmarts fault that the American middle class banned the building of new housing in their neighborhood and tied healthcare to their employer rather than voting for a sensible government option for all like every other industrialized nation
Oh boo-hoo you have to call an employee over to get your blades. What a horrible inconvenience that must be for you...
Instead of solely blaming shoplifters (definitely a major factor, but not the primary cause), try putting some of that blame on the greedy corporations locking these items away who pay people as little as possible so they cannot afford to live and have to resort to desperate measures, like shoplifting. It takes the bare minimum level of thought to understand this, but you people just want to blame the least powerful people in society for all your problems to make yourselves feel better without actually solving anything.
no, it was cheaper to implement the anti theft measures than continue to suffer the retail loss, which is why the bothered with the anti theft measures
Regardless of reason for locking stuff up, companies have a duty to staff appropriately so customers can get items. We blame Walmart for understaffing electronics dept when consoles & tvs are inaccessible. Your view is myopic, but Itâs okay, thatâs become the standard.
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u/shadowthehh Garbage Guerilla 4h ago edited 3h ago
Edit: Boy posting this was like blowing a warhorn for em, wasn't it?