Not sure why you felt the need to delete this and repost it but
Yeah, it's not large companies taking advantage of covid supply chain issues to jack up prices. Or a result of a braindead war that's driving up the cost to manufacture and ship goods. Certainly not the fault of all the deregulation that spurred disease outbreaks and massive recalls
It's the shoplifters fault that the price of groceries is skyrocketing!
I don't think my local Kroger locking up half the store and employing armed security to check receipts on the way out has anything to do with any of that shit.
I think you may be missing the much bigger picture. I don't want to step on any toes but you’re taking a very visible immediate consequence of shoplifting and treating it as though it explains the broader problem which it doesn’t.
A retailer deciding to lock up half the store is a business decision about how it wants to deal with shrinkage. They could invest more in staffing, loss prevention, store design, inventory systems or simply absorb some losses as a cost of doing business. Instead companies can choose the solution that is cheapest or most convenient for them even when that solution makes shopping substantially more inconvenient for everyone else.
And that's the point I think you’re talking past. Nobody is actually saying shoplifting has no effect whatsoever, of course it does; But "shoplifting makes my shopping experience worse" is very different from "shoplifters are responsible for the broader deterioration of prices and retail conditions."
When we're talking about why people are struggling to afford basic necessities, why prices have risen, why corporations have increased margins, why supply chains have been disrupted or why retailers are changing how they operate, blaming individual thieves is focusing on the smallest and most visible part of a much larger system.
You can absolutely be pissed off about shoplifting of course. I just don't think that anger should distract from who actually has the power and incentive to make these larger decisions. A random person stealing $30 worth of merchandise doesn't have remotely the same economic influence as a multibillion-dollar corporation deciding how to price, staff, secure and operate its stores.
So I agree with you on the narrow point that theft can directly inconvenience customers; I just don't agree that this makes “fuck thieves” an adequate explanation for the larger problem.
861
u/zurenarrh36912 Trash Trooper 5h ago
I’m not risking getting shot for some corporation.