Walmart CEO warns company will close stores if theft doesn't slow down

[Wildswanderer]

Walmart CEO warns company will close stores if theft doesn't slow down (msn.com)



The theft rate is on the rise at Walmart.







The article also mentioned that Target is getting hit with heavy losses due to theft.

I've seen it happen where some stores have to shut down just because of theft. It's happened in some of the lower-income areas where crime is typically higher, but the impact of these stores shutting down creates problems for people who have to travel further to get food and other necessities. The thieves create problems for others, more than just the storeowners. It can affect entire neighborhoods and communities.

I saw another article this morning about an elderly worker at Home Depot who was killed trying to stop a shoplifter (Death of elderly Home Depot worker who tried to stop robbery sparks outrage: 'Where are the reparations?' (msn.com)).

It's not that I have any real sympathy for the corporate executives who run these Big Box enterprises, but I also have no sympathy for thieves. In the end, it's the ordinary honest working people who live in these communities are the ones who suffer.

Get rid of self checking. Duh.

 

[Valjean]

The left bears much responsibility for fostering
a climate of hostility against business & the wealthy,
which appears to inspire & justify criminal behavior.

It's not the left that pushed deregulation, free trade and created the massive income inequality and job loss that led to the general hostility.
I'll admit, however, that it's the left's passivity and conciliatory attitude that enabled the right to divert blame and get the public to support their oppressors.

 

[Valjean]

I see you assume all the perpetrators are "poor". I don't concede that.

Fair enough. Are there any demographic studies on who's doing the pilfering?

 

[PureX]

Your "class warfare" explanation is false. That isn't the cause. People didn't resort to rampant stealing in the Depression. Stop with the spreading of divisiveness.

During the Great Depression we were all in the same situation, together. Today is nothing like the great Depression. Today we have a very good economy and lifestyle for the "haves". While we are driving the "have-nots" deeper and deeper into poverty. To the point where they become broken. They become drug addicts and drunks and dope dealers and criminal thugs. They lose all respect for the social systems that didn't want them, didn't care about them, and that shut them out. Left them to die in the streets.

But they won't die in the streets willingly. And so now we are seeing them doing whatever they have to do to survive as an "outsider". And their numbers keep growing.

 

[Stevicus]

I would ask why are they stealing? Is there any way to get to the root of the problem? If so, what needs to actually happen to make stealing and gang violence unnecessary?

I think there's been a subtle, underlying glorification of gangsterism and generally amoral behavior which seems to be viewed as a higher social status than those who attempt to live honest, decent, moral lives. It reminds me of a quote from the movie Goodfellas, which seems to sum up an underlying cynical attitude as part of the underbelly of popular culture:

• Henry Hill : [narrating] For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked ****ty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean, they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something, we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.

 

[PureX]

Arguing about the level of organization is uninteresting.

Agreed.

 

[Revoltingest]

It's not the left that pushed deregulation, free trade and created the massive income inequality and job loss that led to the general hostility.
I'll admit, however, that it's the left's passivity and conciliatory attitude that enabled the right to divert blame and get the public to support their oppressors.

But it is the left who continually claim that businesses
& the wealthy don't deserve what they have, eg, the
claim that every wealth person did something immoral
to get there. And "you didn't build that".
Note that without free trade, the poor wouldn't have so
many cheap goods. So that part is complicated.

 

[Shaul]

During the Great Depression we were all in the same situation, together. Today is nothing like the great Depression. Today we have a very good economy and lifestyle for the "haves". While we are driving the "have-nots" deeper and deeper into poverty. To the point where they become broken. They become drug addicts and drunks and dope dealers and criminal thugs. They lose all respect for the social systems than didn't want them, didn't care about them, and that shut them out. Left them to die in the streets.

But they won't die in the streets willingly. And so now we are seeing them doing whatever they have to do to survive as an "outsider". And their numbers keep growing.

There you go. People were poor during the Depression. Yet they didn't resort to mass thievery, Ergo poverty is not the primary cause of today's thievery. Your sophistry attempt to salvage your class warfare dialectic paradigm didn't work. But nice try, comrade.

 

[PureX]

There you go. People were poor during the Depression. Yet they didn't resort to mass thievery, Ergo poverty is not the primary cause of today's thievery. Your sophistry attempt to salvage your class warfare dialectic paradigm didn't work. But nice try, comrade.

Who were they going to steal from? During the Depression everyone was broke. And if anyone had a little something they shared it with others.

We are not in a Great Depression. We are in a Great Oppression. And the oppressed are doing whatever they have to do to survive. Our morals don't means squat to them, because it was our morals that drove them into poverty and disrepute in the first place.

 

[Stevicus]

Get rid of self checking. Duh.

I never was a fan of those self-checking devices. But they do have cameras in the ceilings above and people to stand by and monitor. They also have the people standing by the door to ask to see people's receipts.

That's another bothersome aspect of thievery, in that honest people have to be checked along with everyone else.

 

[Shaul]

Who were they going to steal from? During the Depression everyone was broke. And if anyone had a little something they shared it with others.

We are not in a Great Depression. We are in a Great Oppression. And the oppressed are doing whatever they have to do to survive. Our morals don't means squat to them, because it was our morals that drove them into poverty and disrepute in the first place.

Good job labeling the poor morally deficient. Wait, aren't the "rich" the thieves who only get rich by stealing? I guess that leaves the middle class as the only honest people, right?

 

[Wildswanderer]

I never was a fan of those self-checking devices. But they do have cameras in the ceilings above and people to stand by and monitor. They also have the people standing by the door to ask to see people's receipts.

That's another bothersome aspect of thievery, in that honest people have to be checked along with everyone else.

Seeing the receipt is one thing. Do they check every item to be sure it matches?
You could be buying a computer and charging it as a $4 book.

 

[sun rise]

Your "class warfare" explanation is false. That isn't the cause. People didn't resort to rampant stealing in the Depression. Stop with the spreading of divisiveness.

So what is your sense of why it's different now?

 

[Revoltingest]

If the Wall family monopoly hadn't created massive unemployment and driven numerous local businesses out of business; if they didn't pay starvation wages and deny full-time employment benefits, people might be prosperous enough to pay for their purchases.

Are you claiming that only poor folk are
stealing, & only necessities to survive,
& only because of Walmart's behavior?

 

[Stevicus]

Seeing the receipt is one thing. Do they check every item to be sure it matches?
You could be buying a computer and charging it as a $4 book.

One of them told me that they don't generally check items which are bagged, but if it's a larger boxed item not in a bag, they're going to want to see the receipt. And they do check if they see an expensive item in the cart.

 

[Revoltingest]

Seeing the receipt is one thing. Do they check every item to be sure it matches?
You could be buying a computer and charging it as a $4 book.

Costco checks all receipts, & I've yet to
see anyone grumble about it. This helps
keep their prices low.

 

[sun rise]

But it is the left who continually claim that businesses
& the wealthy don't deserve what they have,

Don't you just love stereotyping so much of the country. When a group buys lower taxes than people who earn less have to pay, how about ascribing the corrosive effect of unbridled greed on attitudes.

And avoid stereotyping by acknowledging that attitudes toward people like Bill Gates is different than those who "lobby" (bribe in various ways such as "campaign contributions") to get special breaks.

And note that the flaming socialist liberal Warren Buffet is one who noted that his secretary pays more in taxes on a percentage basis than he does. But what can you expect from such a socialist anti-wealth liberal anyway.

 

[Valjean]

But it is the left who continually claim that businesses
& the wealthy don't deserve what they have, eg, the
claim that every wealth person did something immoral
to get there. And "you didn't build that".
Note that without free trade, the poor wouldn't have so
many cheap goods. So that part is complicated.

I don't think "the wealthy" are a single demographic, but there is a "greed is good" contingent with marked sociopathic tendencies, who have successfully undone the regulatory New Deal policies, reduced their own taxes, legislated massive government handouts to the 'job creators', and effectively captured the government itself.

 

[wandering peacefully]

The left bears much responsibility for fostering
a climate of hostility against business & the wealthy,
which appears to inspire & justify criminal behavior.

Maybe the left are pissed because they know the greed at the top never trickles down. So now masses of people can't afford a place to live or anything else to provide for themselves or their children? Stealing and violence will always follow the long neglected and turn into desperate actions at some point in time.

 

[wandering peacefully]

I think there's been a subtle, underlying glorification of gangsterism and generally amoral behavior which seems to be viewed as a higher social status than those who attempt to live honest, decent, moral lives. It reminds me of a quote from the movie Goodfellas, which seems to sum up an underlying cynical attitude as part of the underbelly of popular culture:

• 
  
  
  • Henry Hill : [narrating] For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked ****ty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean, they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something, we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.

The only difference is now people do work 2 and 4 jobs and still can't get a cut of the pie.

So why would they keep trying?