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Author Topic:   Conversations with God
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(3)
Message 436 of 530 (895936)
07-26-2022 11:47 AM
Reply to: Message 432 by Phat
07-25-2022 11:50 PM


Re: White entitlement
Phat writes:
Most of the thieves *ARE* on drugs...we can see them tweaking as they leave, and some go into our restrooms to shoot up.
How many of your paying customers are on drugs (bearing in mind that cannabis is legal in Colorado)?
Phat writes:
That does NOT mean that I hate them.
You have a low enough opinion of them to single them out.
Phat writes:
My only gripe is with a system that would raise taxes on the middle working class in order to help the lower class...while ignoring the theft at the top.
My position is that it isn't worthwhile taxing the rich. They'll spend a million to avoid paying a million. Nobody benefits but the lawyers.

"Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."
-- motto of the Special Olympians

This message is a reply to:
 Message 432 by Phat, posted 07-25-2022 11:50 PM Phat has not replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


(1)
Message 437 of 530 (895941)
07-26-2022 1:23 PM
Reply to: Message 434 by Phat
07-26-2022 9:54 AM


Re: White entitlement
I was just mad that you somehow knew that I had inherited my condo. It really went outside the protocol of EvC.
Where would Percy have gleaned this info if you had not stated it in the forum? So you respond to perceived breaches of protocol by escalating way out of proportion? Is it may be that you are embarrassed by your gross hypocrisy?
I am not a wealthy man, apart from my home being paid for, and I still have homeowner fees where I live
But no rent or mortgage payment. That is a nice privilege.
Oh yeah, go fuck yourself.
You are a hypocrite of the highest order. Hiding behind the veils of christianity just makes it more disgusting

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?


This message is a reply to:
 Message 434 by Phat, posted 07-26-2022 9:54 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 438 of 530 (895945)
07-26-2022 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 434 by Phat
07-26-2022 9:54 AM


Re: White entitlement
I was just mad that you somehow knew that I had inherited my condo. It really went outside the protocol of EvC.
You told us yourself Asshole! And yeah you went way beyond proper behavior at EvC, it says a lot about your character.

Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python

One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie

If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq


This message is a reply to:
 Message 434 by Phat, posted 07-26-2022 9:54 AM Phat has not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(3)
Message 439 of 530 (895950)
07-26-2022 7:23 PM
Reply to: Message 434 by Phat
07-26-2022 9:54 AM


Re: White entitlement
I was just mad that you somehow knew that I had inherited my condo. It really went outside the protocol of EvC.
Not when you are the one who gave us that information!
Message 145, 12-Aug-2021 4:26 AM PDT (adjust for your own time zone), in the Bit Coin: 2 bit bubble topic (bolding added for emphasis):
PhatMouth writes:
I earn roughly $27,000.00 a year. I have no real wealth except the apartment condo that my Mom left me.
QED
 
BTW, following the subtitle here, real estate, especially bequeathing the family home to your child, has been a common way to build up middle-class family wealth over generations. And it has turned into another example of white entitlement due to the practice of redlining:
quote
In the United States, redlining is a discriminatory practice in which services (financial and otherwise) are withheld from potential customers who reside in neighborhoods classified as 'hazardous' to investment; these neighborhoods have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities, and low-income residents. While the most well-known examples involve denial of credit and insurance, denial of healthcare and the development of food deserts in minority neighborhoods have also been attributed to redlining in many instances. In the case of retail businesses like supermarkets, the purposeful construction of stores impractically far away from targeted residents results in a redlining effect.
Since you like YouTube videos so much, here's one from Adam Ruins Everything that explains redlining (this was actually my first detailed introduction to the problem; before then we were aware of there being discriminatory practices in housing, but not of how those practices worked and had their effect):
Just on the financial side of it, non-whites have not only had more difficulty getting home loans and had to pay higher interests, but they were/are also systematically steered towards the riskier variable-rate subprime loans in which when the higher rates would kick in then those loans would fail. The 2008 mortgage crisis was caused in large part by subprime loans being given out even to those who did not qualify (eg, rock-bottom FICO scores) and then those risky loans were packaged and sold in mortgage bonds given the highest AAA ratings even though they were mostly filled with shit.
Yeah, Margot Robbie tells us that every time we hear "subprime", think "shit." Here is her clip from The Big Short:
I've linked in scenes from that movie before. If you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend it.
Here again is the scene where the problem is explained. In a room full of men, no women present, it's a woman who interrupts with a question -- she's in the audience:
So back to white entitlement. In order to build family wealth in your home, you need to be able to keep it, which means that as long as there's a mortgage on it you pay it. If you default on that loan, then you lose the house including any and all equity you may have built up in it. Gone, even your down payment, which is a big hurdle for first-time buyers (as a veteran, we bought our first house with a GI loan, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to). And if they decide to run a freeway or other eminent domain project through your property, the compensation for that will be too little.
Adam touches on how the lower property values and the very slow rate at which they appreciate in non-white neighborhoods not only keep you from being able to move up, but also create a lower property tax base to fund schools and other public services, which help to keep property values down.
Elsewhere, it was pointed out that the lack of black family wealth keeps many from the capitalism dream of going into business -- difficulties in qualifying for business loans doesn't help. Instead, the neighborhood businesses (eg, corner stores) tend to be owned by wealthy immigrants (eg, Koreans, Muslims) who are seen as outsiders and whose profits leave the neighborhood leaving it even poorer.
I already talked about a small New Hampshire town whose primary lumber industry had closed. They were able to keep going by having a local bank and local businesses (eg, grocery store, diner) who bought from local farmers. They were able to keep the town going by keeping the money circulating within the community. Then a burger chain moved in. Not only did it out compete the diner, but it bought its food from suppliers, thus cutting out the local farmers. And all its profits left town and went to corporate. Their money was leaving the community making it poorer. Same thing happens to small towns when a Walmart moves in; not only does it drive other businesses out of business and sucks its profits out of the community, but when they move in they negotiate and get all kinds of tax subsidies from the local governments, depriving them of revenue.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 434 by Phat, posted 07-26-2022 9:54 AM Phat has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(2)
Message 440 of 530 (895968)
07-27-2022 11:05 AM
Reply to: Message 432 by Phat
07-25-2022 11:50 PM


Re: White entitlement
Phat writes:
First of all, I am NOT criticizing the poor.
You most certainly are. This is absurd. Instead of moving the discussion forward you're making us remind you of what you just said in recent messages. This is you in Message 419:
While trying not to lump (or stereotype) ALL of these homeless as being the same, I will say that the facts indicate a majority of them are hooked on Fentanyl or Meth...among the percentage that commits crimes against property (and person).
I challenged this statement in Message 424 and guess what? No response.
I grant that your statement contains some ambiguity and is open to a couple interpretations, but when presented the opportunity to clarify what you meant you were a no show. Of course Theodoric called you out on your lack of compassion for the homeless and the poor. Then, right after responding that you're "NOT criticizing the poor" you continue criticizing the poor and homeless by including thieving in your characterization:
That being said, I have come a long way towards empathy for the poor....even the thieves.
This subdiscussion began about the homeless, so don't leave the homeless out of the discussion. You originally said "homeless and poor", and now you're ignoring the homeless and are just referring to the poor. I'm not sure if you're just using the poor as shorthand to refer to both the poor and the homeless or whether you're actually trying to remove the homeless from the discussion. I'm fine with talking about both the poor and the homeless, but not with removing the homeless from the discussion. So just to be clear, we're talking about both groups.
When you say you have more empathy now for the poor (and the homeless), it's apparent in your messages. You might think you're hiding how you really feel, but you're not.
My only gripe is with a system that would raise taxes on the middle working class in order to help the lower class...while ignoring the theft at the top.
You're lumping two very different problems together. One is that raising taxes on the rich is very difficult because they lobby Congress for favorable tax treatment, and they can provide a level of monetary support that helps get people elected. Only getting money out of elections would allow tax policy to become more fair, but that's not going to happen.
Helping the poor and homeless is another matter. Do you like turning your grocery store into a sort of bunker? If that's your preference then continue voting against the more costly solutions that would actually put a serious dent in homelessness and poverty. But if such policies were put in place then you wouldn't need all these technological defensive mechanisms.
Let's see how far your compassion has come. Trump in his speech yesterday said he wants to remove the homeless from cities and put them in tent cities in "large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities." I hope this is a solution you reject because it is the opposite of compassion. It's also fantasy wishful thinking. There are no "large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities." Where do you think the nearest parcel of inexpensive land is to New York City? Or Denver? Tell me where the "large parcels of inexpensive land" are outside Denver. I bet you'll have to go way outside Denver to find cheap land, like up by Wyoming or something. So the idea is completely impractical.
But it's impractical for another reason. Let's say a tent city is set up for the poor and homeless 50 miles outside Denver. What would you say temperatures at night are out on the prairie in the summertime. You know they can dip below freezing in the summertime and that in the wintertime it's far worse, right?
And what about the economy in this tent city? Where are they going to get jobs? Food? Water and electricity? Garbage pickup? Policing? Healthcare?
Then there are the authoritarian aspects. I don't think we've done anything like this on a large scale since we locked up Japanese Americans in internment camps during WWII, not to mention confiscated their possessions and businesses.
All the authoritarian ideas come from your conservative buddies, like anti-abortion laws that all the conservative states have implemented or are in the process of implementing. They're criminalizing pregnancy. And they're also doing it in a racist fashion, because minority women whose pregnancies end prematurely are charged with crimes far more often than whites. You conservatives are such wonderful people, and you know that's true because it's what you keep telling yourselves.
Anyway, the tent cities idea leads to another issue, that the problem with too large a segment of conservatives, and you're one of them, is that they hear some cockamamie idea on a YouTube video or in a speech by someone who makes it sound convincing, like Trump, usually involving urban and surrounding areas because that's were most people live, and they get all gung ho about it and ask, "Why aren't the Democrats implementing this solution?" because tend to be the dominant party in more urban areas. The truth is that in many cases conservative politicians don't have a solution, they just have a story that many of their constituents find convincing and is often very authoritarian. But, like you, they accuse the Democrats of being authoritarian. Conservatives seem to think authoritarianism is anything the Democrats do after winning an election.
And how dare you all accuse me of being entitled? I paid the payments on my apartment long before I inherited it. Yes, I am privileged as are you, Brian.
The actual point was that if not for that condo you'd be on the edge of homelessness, just like the people you detest. Most poor or homeless people if given an apartment free and clear would be doing fine.
You mention debt ceilings and the global financial system, but they aren't part of this subdiscussion. Don't change the subject, especially not involving something you know little about except what you hear on YouTube videos. Despite how much journalism has suffered over the past decade or two, there are still gold standard sources of information out there that you're not availing yourself of. You know which ones they are. They're the ones conservatives call "fake news media."
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 432 by Phat, posted 07-25-2022 11:50 PM Phat has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 443 by dwise1, posted 07-27-2022 2:37 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 441 of 530 (895971)
07-27-2022 11:41 AM
Reply to: Message 434 by Phat
07-26-2022 9:54 AM


Re: White entitlement
Phat writes:
I was just mad that you somehow knew that I had inherited my condo.
You posted about it in Message 145:
I earn roughly $27,000.00 a year. I have no real wealth except the apartment condo that my Mom left me.
It scares me and this is one reason I keep researching the solvency of the United States.
The French and Indian War was very costly to Great Britain and doubled its national debt. Conventional wisdom at the time was that the debt must be paid off or at least paid down, and they felt it only fair that the American colonies be taxed to pay for that war. This alienated the American colonies and resulted in the Revolutionary War, which doubled their national debt again.
There are two lessons here. One is that debt can be a good thing. For example, debt allows people to buy a house and live in it for years before paying off the mortgage. Of course there is such a thing as too much debt, but as I've explained to you at least several times (and received no response), the United States is nowhere close to having too much debt right now. There is no solvency issue.
You have to stop listening to YouTube videos, or at least start examining them critically. All those YouTubers are in competition with each other for audience, and they do this by trying to tell the most compelling stories possible, which is only possible if they make stuff up. "The election was stolen" is compelling stuff, it's got a third of the country all riled up, but it's a lie. "We have a fiat currency backed by nothing" is another compelling story, which happens to be true, but everything they say about the dangers of fiat currencies are lies.
The second lesson is that when solving problems you shouldn't adopt solutions that make the problem worse.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 434 by Phat, posted 07-26-2022 9:54 AM Phat has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 442 by Tanypteryx, posted 07-27-2022 1:17 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 442 of 530 (895976)
07-27-2022 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 441 by Percy
07-27-2022 11:41 AM


Re: White entitlement
Persy writes:
The second lesson is that when solving problems you shouldn't adopt solutions that make the problem worse.*
This is an incredibly powerful statement!
This single sentence sums up the problems our country and OUR government have encountered since President Braindead Reagan joined forces with the evangelicals. Over the past 40 years that antigovernment movement has morphed into an obstructive, anti-fact, anti-science, pro-really-stupid-conspiracy-nonsense, anti-future cult, that is intentionally mismanaging all the agencies of OUR government, THE PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT to skim off all their budgets and misdirect their funding.
The so-called conservatives are wholly owned and controlled by the ultrawealthy and they have spent 40 years spreading fear of various bullshit conspiracy theories about "liberals," and are continuing to do everything they can to make every single issue into a problem and to make ever problem worse.
I ran across this about an older more accurate description of "liberals."
quote
Including the older-deeper meaning of 'liberalism.' Which is unleashing the fantastically fecund creativity of flat-fair-just-confident and fully-informed Competition...
  —David Brin
Actually, this is Brin in a broader context critiquing (on Facebook) an interview with Peter Thiel on the dangers of progress - The tech billionaire discusses Silicon Valley, Christianity and apocalypse
BY MARY HARRINGTON

quote
See a fawning profile of Peter Thiel’s eagerly dyspeptic (and trivially refuted) incantations that ‘liberalism has failed,’ while wallowing in its protection and myriad benefits. I so hope the author of this piece misinterprets almost everything, in almost every paragraph because… wow.
The core take-away - revealed in his hostility to Universities and support of the "neo-monarchist" movement - is rejection of all aspects of our civilization that led to himself! Including the older-deeper meaning of 'liberalism.' Which is unleashing the fantastically fecund creativity of flat-fair-just-confident and fully-informed Competition...
That c-word was promoted by the First Liberal - Adam Smith - and it is never, ever mentioned nowadays by the gone-mad right. That core endeavor - of transparent/flat/fair competitive creativity - requires maximizing the number of skilled, confident competitors... (um, duh?)... as F. Hayek called-for. Which, in turn, necessitates social justice and mass education and especially freedom.
Sure, our Smithian reversal of 6000 years of oligarchic/racist hierarchy has been imperfect, improving with grinding slowness, overcoming troglodytic resistance every generation. But its effective outcomes (including Thiel himself) outweigh those of ALL other societies across those sixty+ centuries... combined.
Let's be clear. Thiel's proposed program of to-the-hilt technological progress toward personal, organic immortality must be advanced by the very fact-professions, researchers, scientists and university nerds who almost universally despise everything about the oligarchic putsch to restore feudalism that PT passionately pursues.
Nor is there a prepper citadel anywhere on the planet whose location isn't known by many in that clade, down to the centimeter. Perhaps (just a suggestion, m'lord) rejoining the Enlightenment might be the better choice.
  —David Brin
[end of rant]
*May I use your quote, please?

Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!

What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python

One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie

If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy

The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq


This message is a reply to:
 Message 441 by Percy, posted 07-27-2022 11:41 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 443 of 530 (895986)
07-27-2022 2:37 PM
Reply to: Message 440 by Percy
07-27-2022 11:05 AM


Re: White entitlement
Helping the poor and homeless is another matter.
Just using this one phrasing as a springboard. Sorry!1
Helping the poor and homeless has been going on for centuries with soup kitchens and handing out blankets. That just puts a rather flimsy band-aid on the problem.
It's easy to administer "first aid" to the most immediate concerns, such as hunger and the need for warmth. It is an entirely different matter to reduce or even remove the cause of that need. And that solution requires so much more than the mere bandaids of soup kitchens and handing out blankets. And that is where we always fail.


FOOTNOTE 1

German can be a bit of fun for Americans because they have borrowed so much American English into their language, often in unintentionally humorous ways (eg, a single-strap backpack called a "Bodybag") -- see this ex-pat video for more such examples, 10 SHOCKING Things Germans Say That Americans Find Hilarious! ; English examples come from a decades-old article about American sales pitches that didn't translate well in other countries such as the Chevy Nova (in Spanish, "no va", doesn't work, doesn't run), "travel in leather" (in Spanish, travel naked), a Coca-Cola slogan that in Chinese says that it will bring your ancestors back to life. And what German woman could you have ever convinced to use the American product hair product, the Mist Stick (in German, "Mist" is manure)?
My own personal German moment was from a local German shopping center in the early 1970's (which included a German cinema that I used to use all the time since it had the only German content in my area). 1970s, more than two decades before the Internet and YouTube. Now you can watch all those "Heimat" ("homeland", ie country life in Bavaria) films on YouTube. In a store in that shopping center I saw a German candy bar called "Zit".
But one borrowed word that the Germans really love is "sorry". All the German equivalents ("Verscheidung", "Entschuldigung") imply that the person saying it is somehow admitting to some kind of fault or guilt on their own part. "Sorry" doesn't do that. Which is why the Germans love it so much. Now you can try to emphasize with the customer without admitting to somehow being at fault for their dilemma.


Edited by dwise1, : ZIT and chocolate candy ...

Edited by dwise1, : footnote to include the German candy bar, "Zit".


This message is a reply to:
 Message 440 by Percy, posted 07-27-2022 11:05 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 444 by ringo, posted 07-28-2022 12:03 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(3)
Message 444 of 530 (896011)
07-28-2022 12:03 PM
Reply to: Message 443 by dwise1
07-27-2022 2:37 PM


Re: White entitlement
dwise1 writes:
But one borrowed word that the Germans really love is "sorry". All the German equivalents ("Verscheidung", "Entschuldigung") imply that the person saying it is somehow admitting to some kind of fault or guilt on their own part. "Sorry" doesn't do that. Which is why the Germans love it so much. Now you can try to emphasize with the customer without admitting to somehow being at fault for their dilemma.
Our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, loves to apologize - and not just when he gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He apologizes for racism, sexism, etc. I'm surprised he doesn't apologize for the weather.
But, as an older indigenous lady said, "If you step on my foot, I appreciate you saying you're sorry but you also have to get off my foot."

"Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."
-- motto of the Special Olympians

This message is a reply to:
 Message 443 by dwise1, posted 07-27-2022 2:37 PM dwise1 has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(3)
Message 445 of 530 (896125)
08-01-2022 8:45 AM
Reply to: Message 434 by Phat
07-26-2022 9:54 AM


Crime and the Poor and Homeless
There you go again, ignoring Message 441 with its rebuttals. In some future message you'll again raise the same points as if they hadn't already been rebutted. Hey, no problem. Have we told you how much we love how you keep resetting the discussion to square one? Or how great we think it is that discussion with you on this and related topics never makes any progress? Can you tell us again how so many of the poor and homeless are drugged-up thieves, and how important it is that we return to the gold standard? Oh, wait, don't tell us, post videos. We love your videos.
Sorry for the sarcasm. Here's an article I thought might interest you. It's about shoplifting becoming an increasing problem for retailers and the strategies they're employing. Interestingly it mentions crime rings, but not the poor or homeless:
I don't know which of those products is weirder to lock up. 50 years ago I once wore Old Spice on a date and my girlfriend told me never to wear it again because it reminded her of her grandfather, who I think was born in the last decade of the 1800s. How is Old Spice still around?
It occurs to me that I probably haven't been clear about my position on shoplifting. I'm of course against it, and I'm for punishing the perpetrators. But I'm against scapegoating the poor and homeless, and I very much doubt that having been unable to make a decent living or retain adequate living quarters that they then suddenly become clever and relentless criminals. Naturally they're part of the crime equation because that's what desperate people do, but I'm against punitive conservative solutions that are either counterproductive (criminalizing being poor or homeless) or absurd (tent cities on cheap land just outside the cities).
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 434 by Phat, posted 07-26-2022 9:54 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 446 of 530 (904935)
01-12-2023 10:21 AM
Reply to: Message 434 by Phat
07-26-2022 9:54 AM


Corporations behaving badly
Shoplifting is an issue, always has been, always will be. But it is not a crisis as they made it out to be. It seems to have been a made up excuse by Walgreen's to exit "undesireable" areas.
How Walgreens manufactured a media frenzy about shoplifting

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?


This message is a reply to:
 Message 434 by Phat, posted 07-26-2022 9:54 AM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 447 by Phat, posted 01-12-2023 2:27 PM Theodoric has replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 447 of 530 (904946)
01-12-2023 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 446 by Theodoric
01-12-2023 10:21 AM


Re: Corporations behaving badly
Theo writes:
Shoplifting is an issue, always has been, always will be.
In the Denver Metro area, the Safeways(and grocery stores in general) who are on or near major bus lines are by far the hardest hit by shoplifters, the majority of whom are on foot, though a smaller minority are driving nicer cars than you or I own! The latter are likely organized crime.
But it is not a crisis as they made it out to be.
Thats not what we observe nor what our security sees. They travel to all of the stores and have identified the same suspects again and again. (this irritates me greatly, by the way) The average loss at one of my employers stores is $2500.00 a day. At the store I work at, the figure is closer to $3,500.00 a day.
It seems to have been a made up excuse by Walgreen's to exit "undesireable" areas.
A company needs no excuse to exit undesireable unprofitable areas. In this crazy "woke as a joke" world we now live in, defunding the police is preferable to discouraging shoplifters! What we need is tough but fair prosecution laws. If a homeless guy grabs a sandwich, let him go...leave him alone. Its the ones who daily steal nearly all of the laundry detergent, meat, and cleaning supplies (which are then resold on the street at roughly 50 cents on the dollar) who need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and given restraining orders from returning to the businesses.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894).
When both religious and non-religious people reach the same conclusions then you know religion isn't the reason.--Percy
Democrats should not be the only party. Respect the two-party system. -Phat, in December 2022
We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed

This message is a reply to:
 Message 446 by Theodoric, posted 01-12-2023 10:21 AM Theodoric has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 448 by Theodoric, posted 01-12-2023 3:52 PM Phat has replied
 Message 450 by ringo, posted 01-13-2023 11:22 AM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 448 of 530 (904948)
01-12-2023 3:52 PM
Reply to: Message 447 by Phat
01-12-2023 2:27 PM


Re: Corporations behaving badly
Make your compa y provide actual data. What is current shrink? What is historical shrink? Claims or worthless data is what is reliable.
This is reputable evidence that Walgreens lied. Do you dispute that?

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?


This message is a reply to:
 Message 447 by Phat, posted 01-12-2023 2:27 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 449 by Phat, posted 01-12-2023 5:06 PM Theodoric has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 449 of 530 (904949)
01-12-2023 5:06 PM
Reply to: Message 448 by Theodoric
01-12-2023 3:52 PM


Re: Corporations behaving badly
I had reliable data. I got it from the Store Director.
This is reputable evidence that Walgreens lied. Do you dispute that?
Your article has a few specifics which I will address.
How Walgreens manufactured a media frenzy about shoplifting
Tesnim Zekeria and Judd Legum:
For several years, Walgreens and other major retailers have been sounding the alarm about an alleged spike in shoplifting, describing it as an existential threat to their business. These dramatic claims generated a nationwide media frenzy.
Now, Walgreens is quietly backtracking. 
The reason Walgreens is backtracking is because their sensationalist claims themselves generated a backlash from people (such as many liberals) who are sensitive to the issue and defensive, largely due to the fact that they are anti-authoritarian and pro BLM and other marginalized minority causes. In short, they feel that crying to the public about an issue such as shoplifting is nothing more than an excuse to push for prosecuting and vilifying the homeless and urban poor.
In a conference call with investors on January 6, Walgreens Chief Financial Officer James Kehoe was asked how shoplifting and related problems impacted the company's financial performance. Kehoe admitted that “maybe [Walgreens] cried too much last year” about the issue, adding that the drugstore chain probably spent “too much” hiring private security companies.
or it could be that like my employer, Walgreens has insurance that covers many of its losses though certainly not all of them. Again, public opinion is and was against the corporations and in support of the villains. I expect that ringo,( and you yourself) will be more inclined to support the reasons for shoplifting in today's culture rather than supporting the corporate plea for justice.
Kehoe added that theft at Walgreens had “stabilized” and the company was "quite happy with where we are."
Theft at my grocery store has "stabilized" at around $3,000.00+ average per day. I saw the monthly figure for shrink, and it included damaged goods and other(employee) theft. As a longtime employee and insider, I *know* roughly what percentage is due to shoplifting. I see it happening in real time.
Walgreens’ “shrink” — an industry term for inventory losses from theft, damage, or administrative errors — had gone down from 3.5% of sales last year to roughly 2.5% in its last quarter. Walgreens declined to specify how much of the "shrink" was due to shoplifting as opposed to other causes, like employee theft and damaged goods. Across the industry, "external theft" accounts for only one-third of total shrink. That means shoplifting at Walgreens likely amounts to less than 1% of sales.
We literally see the products going out the door apart from backpacks and bags which are brought in empty and leave bulging. We know that our stores sales are a minimum of $55,000.00 per day and that our losses which we can see are roughly $2000.00 so our rate of shoplifting shrink is estimated to be around 4%. Again, the store gets reimbursed by insurance at a certain rate, so perhaps their final figures after reimbursement are roughly what Walgreens are.
But Kehoe’s upbeat comments gloss over Walgreens’ central role in fomenting the national panic over retail theft. Just a year ago, Kehoe said that part of the reason Walgreens’ reported lackluster earnings was because of “gangs that actually go in and empty our stores of beauty products.” 
Thats where the CEO's put their foot in their mouths, hoping to generate public sympathy and instead garnering public scorn over their "lies" and exaggerations. It seems that the public liberals are on the side of the shoplifters while the conservatives want tougher security and law and order.
“This is not petty theft,” Kehoe insisted at the time. “It's not somebody who can't afford to eat tomorrow.” 
He is right about that. It is drug addicts and urban gangs and loose associations who are professional thieves.
Walgreens has been joined by other major retailers who have been echoing similar cries and drumming up fear: Walmart CEO Doug McMillion warned that Walmart may have to raise prices or close stores because theft was “higher than what it has historically been.” Former Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli stated on national television that retail theft was “spreading faster than COVID.”
Nardelli is right in that the problem is definitely getting worse nationwide. McMillion(is that really his name? ) is only saying that despite rising theft, the company still must maintain its traditional profit margin!
Publicly available data, however, contradicts the theft-wave narrative. The number of shoplifting offenses dropped 46 percent between 2019 and 2021, according to the FBI’s crime data explorer.
Thats because most theft is no longer reported.It never is documented on police reports or by the employees ringing up carts that are recovered and turning in the data to Loss Prevention.
The National Retail Federation (NRF), a trade group that represents retailers like Walgreens and has amplified the theft-wave narrative, has also found that shrink declined to 1.4% of total retail sales in 2021, from 1.6% in 2020. External theft, the NRF found, made up 0.5% of total retail sales in 2021.
Based on what I see, I question those figures. Theft is going up in all major cities.
 
In response to a request for comment, Walgreens sent Popular Information the following statement: "Although we are pleased to see retail shrink levels stabilize, this is still a serious national problem affecting us all and all retailers. We have taken a number of steps to address this issue and, most importantly, protect the safety of our customers and team members, including our highly-valued partnerships with law enforcement and security professionals."
Our employer took steps also. Want to know what they were?
1) Adding locking wheels on the shopping carts which lock up when the cart goes out the door without going through a register. The response? People push past the alarm anyway and grind the wheels that lock down by dragging the cart to their car or edge of the lot!|
2) Installing the alarm system that alerts everyone in the store that a possible crime is being committed, though in some cases it is an honest mistake.
3) Hiring actual security guards that are allowed to stop people and ask to search their bags. These guards are unarmed though bigger than most of us and have been police-trained on how to make proper stops.
The real reason for those 3 measures, however, is simply that it allows the store a better rate on the shrink insurance which they do have. Not only do they not want any possible liability from a lawsuit due to an improper stop, they do not want any of us to get hurt in the melee, which they would also be responsible for through workman's comp. Its always all about money.
So although Walgreens continues to describe retail theft as a "serious national problem," Kehoe was clear that it is not preventing Walgreens from being a profitable company. And yet the company reported a net loss of $3.7 billion in its most recent quarter. Why? The company took "a $5.2 billion after-tax charge for opioid-related claims and litigation." That litigation stems from Walgreens' role in fueling the opioid epidemic by filling illegitimate prescriptions for highly-addictive pain medication. 
What happened in San Francisco
In May 2021, Walgreens told the New York Times “that thefts at its stores in San Francisco were four times the chain’s national average, and that it had closed 17 stores, largely because the scale of thefts had made business untenable.” 
Months later, the retailer announced the closure of an additional five stores in San Francisco and told the San Francisco Chronicle that “organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that.” The company said it had to increase investments in private security in San Francisco by “46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.”
When the company announced it was closing five stores in San Francisco due to rampant theft, police data obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle revealed that “the five stores slated to close had fewer than two recorded shoplifting incidents a month on average since 2018.” Moreover, the company’s claims that thefts at its San Francisco stores were four times its national average were not reflected in citywide crime data — in 2020, shoplifting had reached its lowest level since they began collecting data in the 1970s.
Again, this is likely due to the fact that most of that theft went unreported.
 
Moreover, back in 2019, Walgreens announced it would close 200 stores across the U.S. as part of a larger “cost-reduction” plan. The San Francisco Chronicle, in 2021, raised the question of “whether a $140 billion company was using an unsubstantiated narrative of unchecked shoplifting to obscure other possible factors in its decision." 
How Walgreens played the media
Mainstream media has historically gravitated toward sensationalist crime coverage that often obscures reality. With Walgreens, a similar pattern emerged: the drugstore chain’s dubious narrative was spread unchecked by some of the largest news organizations in the country. 
One of the first viral stories on Walgreens’ alleged theft issue was published by the New York Times’ San Francisco Bureau Chief Thomas Fuller in May 2021. “The mundane crime of shoplifting has spun out of control in San Francisco, forcing some chain stores to close,” read the subhead. In the piece, Fuller recounts a time in 2016 he saw a man grab “a handful of beef jerky” and walk out of a Walgreens. Based on this five-year-old anecdote and a statement from Walgreens, Fuller declared a “shoplifting epidemic” and called into question a sentencing-reform measure that reduced some thefts from felonies to misdemeanors. The piece, notably, does not include any data on crime rates in San Francisco. 
FYI, I often see individuals grab a box of trash bags, rip it open, take one or two bags and then stuff them full of product, after which they walk past me and out the front door!
The New York Times’ coverage of Kehoe’s comments acknowledged that “Walgreens received national attention in October 2021 when it announced that it was closing five stores in San Francisco, citing shoplifting as the reason for the closures.” The story acknowledges how Walgreens’ shoplifting claims “fed into political debates about crimes.” The piece, however, fails to mention the critical role the Times itself played in amplifying Walgreens’ claims without supporting evidence. 
Yes, it is true that the news media sensationalizes such stories. I would likely get in trouble by my employer were I to squawk to the NY Times!
Since May 2021, the New York Times has published at least six stories warning readers of retail theft. Over the same time period, other outlets provided even more voluminous coverage of the issue. The Wall Street Journal published at least 13 stories on the retail theft “epidemic”, including four from its editorial board. CNN published at least seven articles on the “wave” of retail theft. And Business Insider published at least 18 stories on how retail theft has “ballooned” into a billion dollar problem for companies. According to the Center for Just Journalism, the number of stories featuring the keywords “organized retail crime” or “organized retail theft” increased by more than 270% between 2020 and 2021. 
The overblown claims in this media coverage have political consequences. Walgreens’ theft concerns was “a flash point in a stinging criminal justice debate that helped electrify the recall of former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.” California Republican Chair Jessica Millan Patterson wrote in an op-ed that the Walgreens closures were evidence that “Democratic policies have created a crime spike.”
De-funding the police sure has not helped. They dont even want to come help us when we call them! What we need are drones that monitor our products. I'd like to see someone complain that we need to de-fund the drones!
Boudin was removed from office by voters in June 2022.
So there you have my response.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894).
When both religious and non-religious people reach the same conclusions then you know religion isn't the reason.--Percy
Democrats should not be the only party. Respect the two-party system. -Phat, in December 2022
We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed

This message is a reply to:
 Message 448 by Theodoric, posted 01-12-2023 3:52 PM Theodoric has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 451 by ringo, posted 01-13-2023 11:28 AM Phat has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 411 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 450 of 530 (904964)
01-13-2023 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 447 by Phat
01-12-2023 2:27 PM


Re: Corporations behaving badly
Phat writes:
In the Denver Metro area, the Safeways(and grocery stores in general) who are on or near major bus lines ...
Hmm.... If you were planning bus lines, wouldn't you want them to cover ALL of the city?
Phat writes:
... are by far the hardest hit by shoplifters, , the majority of whom are on foot...
IF that was true (which seems unlikely, considering the source is you), it would suggest that shoplifters are poor (which doesn'r come as a big surprise).
Phat writes:
... a smaller minority are driving nicer cars than you or I own! The latter are likely organized crime.
If shoplifting is the worst organized crime you have, my heart doesn't bleed for you.
Phat writes:
Theodoric writes:
But it is not a crisis as they made it out to be.
Thats not what we observe nor what our security sees.
As I have pointed out before, the drug store where I used to work has REDUCED its anti-shoplifting measures, apparently because fixating on shoplifters is counter-productive.
Phat writes:
A company needs no excuse to exit undesireable unprofitable areas.
Sure it does. We have had a lot of trouble around here with retail stores exiting "undesirable" indigenous people. (Some of them may even have come on the bus, horror of horrors!)
Of course, you can't do that any more (which people like you can not be made to understand). The store owners want to masquerade as human beings, so they want a good image for their stores.

Come all of you cowboys all over this land,
I'll teach you the law of the Ranger's Command:
To hold a six shooter, and never to run
As long as there's bullets in both of your guns.
-- Woody Guthrie

This message is a reply to:
 Message 447 by Phat, posted 01-12-2023 2:27 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
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