Oh, and meanwhile, $billions in white collar crime, Congressional member crime, SCOTUS corruption, busing frightened illegals to Martha's vineyard, 'losing' billions of dollars in cash in Iraq and Afghanistan, and various other noxious, rich people crimes, like those of the former President of the United States, go basically ignored and are allowed to linger into perpetuity, essentially giving the middle finger to every average American. Yeah, let's create even more laws that are meaningless or largely unenforceable, except for the poorest, dumbest, most desperate chumps.
Target and Walmart/Walgreen are Full Of It! They both moved out of south side Chicago neighborhoods after establishing a presence in previously "underserved areas."
They stayed a few years, got everyone's business, drove out neighborhood competitors and then without a word to city government, local government, the neighborhood officials or anyone, issued a press release announcing they'd close within a week, so long it's been fun and then they got the '"F" right out of Dodge.
All this after making millions on their vaunted "neighborhood partnership" or some such BS.
Nothing replaced them as yet, so we once again have a food desert now worse than before. I have car can travel but a whole lot of local folks who had been able to walk to the store for long enough to get used to it, no longer can.
Hell, having a Walmart a few blocks away helped me decide upon my present location much in the same way having a local Target in walking distance helped me decide upon my previous home.
I depend on those Walgreen MF's for my meds but I don't go there for anything else!
This right here is why America needs rules and regulations! Corporations, rich white mentally ill rePUGliCONs can not and will not do what is right ! They do what ever the FUCK THEY WANT! And the things they think are punishing black and brown Americans are also deeply affecting poor stupid white ppl who listen to fox propaganda!
My info is old but I had a friend whose husband managed a big box store and their "shrink" was significant back in the early 2000s. Security issues at same store now prevent the hired security from handling theft. They have to call the police to get it handled and often the "shrinker" gets away. Our local FB crime page has phone videos of parking lots and citizens getting involved to try to "help."
I don't know if it is as bad as the groups mention here, but on a Friday night those videos are something to keep the area folks commenting away.
My guess is a lot of big players in other areas of white collar crime are likely causing more havoc in our country with bigger repercussions and no one is trying to stop them. I keep wondering about Jared's 2 billion take from the Saudis and how that was treated...
Remembering that the same falsehoods were attributed as excessive retail theft and pinched revenue in the "Bed, Bath, and Beyond" progression toward, and finally, slip on the peel into bankruptcy, Hence, if the numbers are related, there should have been a bump upward in Target's shoplifting "losses" as these criminal masterminds shifted targets (or Targets?).. The organized retail bandits remain a fiction of the police state to justify draconian law enforcement.
Ah, so it is better to push for harsher criminal penalties for theft and risk further harming the underserved communities you, in theory, support? Thanks, Target. Glad I'm taking notes.
Thank you Judd for researching the details of deceitful corporate behavior designed to enforce their advantages and cause more pain for the consumers. Without your work, they simply get away with lying and deceiving the public, and bringing more animosity to the middle and lower class shoppers. I wonder if Target is embarrassed by the inferior quality of their mathematical team, or that they appear to be lying to us.
Those damn billion $ companies with free speech rights! WTAF could go wrong? What I find utterly fascinating is how multinational corporations who get massive tax subsidies from We the People (think Walmart, Sacklers) then play the blame game against us in order to help the Prison Industrial Complex and Judicial Administrative’s punitivestates rights arguments to lock up more people (as if 2 million is just not enough.)
Even worse, the billionaire’s who rip people off after intentionally crashing the economy looting from the ruins get a slap on the wrist for shorting derivatives in the trillions.
Coincidentally I was planning to go to Target today. They recently closed the nearby "mini" Target, which apparently lacked a good market strategy for its location. It was never clear what the store was trying to be: a glossier version of 7-11 for the luxury condos and apartments adjacent to it? A scaled down version of bigger locations?
When Target first arrived in Northern Virginia, it had an identity. The go to place for stylish but budget conscious housewares and bedding. Then it added groceries. Then the clothing became ridiculously sized such that the sleeves on any top or jacket were so long that I either had to hem them at home, or just not buy anything long-sleeved. Then they brought in the sleazy CVS to take over their pharmacy. No thanks
I have no idea what the focus or identity of Target is any more. But I can mostly get the same stuff driving 2 more miles to Walmart at lower prices. Especially OTC drugs.
You no longer can find prices on items on the shelves as their non English reading associates know where anything belongs. Labels say one thing, the products above the labels are something else.
I have some decent pieces of small furniture from them, and towels sets (they've screwed that department up, too). None of the issues are due to roving bands of thieves. They're of their own making. Fancy TV commercials are no substitute for well run stores with an actual focus.
Ironically, Wal Mart treats their employees much worse than just about any other retailer. Most Wal Mart employees are deliberately scheduled as part time workers so Wal mart doesn't have to offer them benefits. Multiple stories have been written about Wal Mart employees on SNAP benefits, even though they are working, and emergency room use because they don't have insurance. A few years ago there was even a story about Wal Mart employees running a food drive... for their co workers.
Not sure that Wal mart is a shining example. There are no winners here, I guess.
I get it. Believe me. I grew up in a union household. However, I live on a fixed income and there are very few choices outside chains to purchase the bulk of my household needs. As it is I spend 40 percent of my income on rent. This is where we've gotten with industry consolidation. Rock and hard place.
Apparently Target employs PR and upper level management that are either right wing Republicans or they are so clueless about shopper behavior that they actually falsely promote the fact that their stores are crime centers. If you want your business to thrive, why would you do that? Perhaps to cover up poor earning reports (blame the neighborhood thugs for your failures). Or perhaps because you want to scare away shoppers perceived to be a threat by racist managers. Either way, with the prevalence of online retailers, it seems a very stupid management move to promote false crime statistics and risk losing even more business.
"An analysis of seven years of arrest data by Southern Methodist University statistician Michael Braun found "Black people were arrested and charged with organized retail theft more than twice as often as their White peers." Someone will point to the above quote as evidence of innate criminality in populations of POC, when in actuality it is a prevalence driven by a differential in surveillance between demographics. This result is an offshoot of the data shared in Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow.
I worked at a retail store while I was in college. Some managers and associates were fixated on eagle-eyed surveillance of POC in the store, assured they would daily bilk it out of thousands in merchandise. One day, someone from mall security came back with BAGS of clothing from our store that was recovered from shoplifters. The perpetrators? A group of pretty, blonde girls from middle class families that didn't fit the description of "usual suspects." A security tag they failed to remove went off in another store, causing their capture. Although retailers tend to push a narrative of who and what causes shrinkage, as well as the desired draconian punishments they claim will counter it, much of the focus is driven by stereotypes and tropes.
Finally, retailers need to be concerned with shrinkage but so do shoppers. The shrinkage I'm referring to is shoppers' time. In times past, I entered a store, could find staff to assist and actual people worked the registers. Now, I'm an unpaid employee, hunting around for product, sometimes opening boxes that were left in aisles to restock shelves to get it and then ringing myself out. All while prices go up. People choose to shop online instead for a reason.
The stress in the corporate board rooms of every retail business that's NOT Amazon, must be quite high these days. It's interesting, however, than instead of going after the predatory practices of Amazon, and improving their own online presence, or advertising the advantages of in-person, brick and mortar store shopping, and policing their own work force coupled with more secure internal store policies, these retailers are inventing strawmen (and women) to blame. The reality that advocating for these increasing penalties is racist and classist can be seen in the behavior of store security people nationwide. If you want to get away with such theft, just look white, confident, dress well, and be smiling and clean cut. You can do almost anything you want and the security people will never give you a second look. They might even help you carry what you're stealing out the door, especially if you have a fake receipt. They're far too busy following their own implicit biases, I.E. following the people of color (or those who look like "stoners" around the store) to watch for actual thieves and shoplifters. It's the white, clean cut, suburban boys and girls they should be watching closely.
Remember, jails are owned by corporations that use inmates as free or extremely cheap ($2( ?) an hour or less.. Judd help me out here) labor hence why they want more inmates.
I work retail. Just today, my co worker looked over to see a woman sweeping perfume bottlers off a shelf into a shopping bag. She walked over and said "can I help ups", the teenager said "I didn't steal anything". Really?
My co worker called Loss Prevention as the teenagers walked up the escalator. As LP followed, they dropped the bag and left. The bag was filled with clothes and perfume.
Don't tell me people aren't stealing. They are. And they are bold and getting bolder because they know they are rarely stopped.
There are so many holes in this analysis I don’t know where to begin. Let’s start with the clear premise being pushed… that we are not seeing any notable rise in external retail theft and hence we don’t need any changes to criminal laws and prosecution to help deal with it. Right. Sure. Those stores are closing because the owners hate Democrats, not because they cannot make a profit due to the increases in theft. Those stores had to lock up 60% of the products just to make a political point, not because criminals would just load up and walk out.
Judd has poorly farmed cherry-picked data and quotes to make his case. It is well done writing but more propaganda than actual objective analysis. For example, he cites reported crime statistics showing a decrease in property crime. In the largest state the size of many countries, California, new laws and radical DAs have resulted in zero arrests and prosecution fir 90% of retail theft. So yes, REPORTED crime stats are down.
And he gets loose with retail industry data on inventory shrink. He makes assumption to favor his position without qualifying other possible assumptions that might counter it. For example he assumes a similar ratio of causes for inventory shrink when causes other than external theft have potential decreased due to company investment in better internal inventory management and employee theft avoidance.
Lastly, he fails to point out that these retailers have stores in places where external theft has exploded and others where it has not. That is quite the trick…. Like arguing the overall number of acres burned in the country has decreased so there is no need to change any rules dealing with the increase in fires for certain states and cities. That trick works in reverse too… like Obama did adding more minor things to the list of hate crimes, and funded a big push for local law enforcement to increase their reporting of these things if they wanted some federal money. Presto! More hate crime is reported.
Real journalism requires intellectual honesty and full analysis. Otherwise it is just political propaganda pushing an agenda. This piece is pushing an agenda. Retail theft has exploded in many cities and states. The “defund police” social justice experiment has failed. Democrats are creating a dystopia where these high crime areas become retail deserts. It is time to get back to sanity for crime and punishment.
"Defunding the police" has basically never happened in any municipality, so it's interesting to claim that it has failed. It was a movement that went nowhere.
Did Judd "cherry-pick" when he quoted an industry lobbyist that estimated ORC in 2020 amounted to 0.07% of sales, and 5% of total shrink? Because that feels pretty robust to me.
The money and power behind the pro-corporate, pro-punishment narrative (which includes retailers but also the entire law enforcement industry) exceeds Popular Info by orders of magnitude. The money behind each couldn't be made to fit on the same chart. Be more judicious with your skepticism.
The right likes their police doing the jobs they were designed to do: protecting private property, and enforcing the racial and socioeconomic caste hierarchy.
Public safety was never the priority, and that remains true today.
You chumps were shouting it, chanting it, repeating it. Sorry, you cannot erase the facts of history. And police budgets have been cut and radical DAs have been installed.
Your claim that this is a right wing trope identifies you as a left wing dope.
The "defund the police" movement, is one of reimagining the current police system to build an entity that does not violate us, while relocating funds to invest in community services.
Let’s be clear, the people who now oppose this, have always opposed calls for systematic change. https://t.co/SEh97GS9hg
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 9, 2020
The defund movement isn't new. Folks are just finally listening. "We got money for wars but can't feed the poor." #HappyBirthdayTupac #DefundPolice #FundCommunities
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) June 16, 2020
I believe we need to protect families who need help, and ICE isn’t doing that. It has become a deportation force. We need to separate immigration issues from criminal justice. We need to abolish ICE, start over and build something that actually works. https://t.co/JtSN68k4Fd
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) June 29, 2018
Instead of spending $80 billion a year on jails and incarceration, we need to be investing in more jobs and education. One thing is abundantly clear: Every police department violating people's civil rights must be stripped of federal funding. Period.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 4, 2020
When we say #DefundPolice, what we mean is people are dying and we need to invest in people's livelihoods instead.
EXAMPLE: Detroit spent $294 million on police last year, and $9 million on health.
Defunding the police is about rebuilding our country in the image of our people — full of humanity, love, and care. Particularly for our kids and schools. https://t.co/vLZGfaidlH
— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) February 22, 2021
Another unarmed black man, shot in the back, by a WI police officer! No matter the outrage at the killing of George Floyd by a police officer, knee on his neck, the killing of black men continues. Is this a defiance by the police that indicates they don’t intend to stop?
— Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) August 26, 2020
This is the same Sacramento Police Department that murdered #StephonClark. The leadership of the department, and all of these officers, must be fired. Then, the department must be dismantled and policing reimagined.pic.twitter.com/c8dORCjsKG
— Mondaire Jones (@MondaireJones) August 30, 2020
For those who think spending more on policing works, look at St. Louis.
We spend more per capita on police than 85% of police depts, yet 68% of violent crimes go unsolved. And police kill us at the highest rate in the nation.
Too many police in our country are more concerned with protecting white supremacy than serving the communities that pay their salaries. https://t.co/yDdUuw0GRv
— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) March 17, 2021
An “accidental discharge” that kills someone has another name: manslaughter.
We don’t need police with lethal weapons carrying out routine traffic stops.
Re-allocate police funding to unarmed traffic forces to remove even the possibility of state-sanctioned manslaughter. https://t.co/AbZ4NcwCC0
— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) April 12, 2021
ICE has kept a 7 year old captive & alone for FOUR MONTHS with no parents around.
This is cruel and unusual punishment. The Eight Amendment strictly prohibits government from acting this way.
THIS is what we need to “shut down until we figure out what’s going on.” Defund ICE. https://t.co/l47AcpudDZ
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 12, 2018
Defund ICE.
Fund the USPS.
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) August 15, 2020
Now @VICE reporting that @CBP is sending predator drones over #GeorgeFloyd protests in Minneapolis.
This is what happens when leaders sign blank check after blank check to militarize police, CBP, etc while letting violence go unchecked.
"But the truth is that abolishing ICE isn’t that radical. We reorganize government all the time, creating some agencies and eliminating others. Nevertheless, it is a bold proposal."
Do we really think our local police departments need weapons of war like:
Grenade Launchers?
Bayonets?
Explosives?
Weaponized Drones?
None of these weapons belong on our streets against American civilians.
We must #DemilitarizeThePolice today. It's past time we did.
— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) July 21, 2020
The maximum cruelty that ICE inflicts on immigrants is horrifying and must come to an immediate end. It's time to replace this inhumane system with one that treats immigrants with dignity while ending our reliance on detention.https://t.co/4UtxDYmWHB
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) December 19, 2020
Roughly 1 in 4 fatal police encounters end the life of someone with mental illness, so it’s no surprise that this program is saving lives. Sending healthcare professionals—not police—when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis makes our communities safer for all. https://t.co/9FDbAxtGas
— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) February 8, 2021
We have seen video after video over the last few weeks of peaceful protestors being met with extreme violence from police.
Today's police forces look more like armies equipped with weapons of war. A fed'l program from the 1990s sends surplus military equipment to NYPD & other police. Today, I've introduced legislation to end this initiative once and for all. #BlackLivesMatter #EndPoliceViolence 1/3 pic.twitter.com/wLmYY6MnH6
— Rep. Nydia Velazquez (@NydiaVelazquez) June 10, 2020
Today's @HouseJudiciary markup will address the reforms needed to hold police accountable, fight systemic racism, & save lives. Watch: https://t.co/mBADi91Dz7
We can & must re-imagine what just policing looks like in our country. #JusticeInPolicing pic.twitter.com/slDCk6N9pk
— Rep. Zoe Lofgren (@RepZoeLofgren) June 17, 2020
We can and must re-imagine what just policing looks like in our country. Today's @HouseJudiciary hearing will address the reforms needed to hold police accountable, fight systemic racism, and save lives. pic.twitter.com/pvusXDrBSm
— David Cicilline (@davidcicilline) June 17, 2020
We must defund Trump’s secret police that are currently in Portland and soon may arrive uninvited in other American cities.
I'm in D.C. working around the clock to build support for such a plan.
— Earl Blumenauer (@repblumenauer) July 21, 2020
Police departments across the country have a lot more to do.
We must continue to apply pressure to disrupt the system.
This is how we see results.
— Yvette D. Clarke (@RepYvetteClarke) June 6, 2020
There has been defunding. Portland. New York. But mostly it has been disrespecting, denigrating and emasculating the cops. Because, you know, those cops treating people unequally is what causes them to act out. Otherwise they would just behave and stop doing criminal things.
Frank, there are a lot of assumptions here & you reveal your political slant as skewing your premise. But just take this one bit of Econ 101 into account: ~2/3 inventory shrinkage is caused by internal (& correctable) errors. I learned this in my studies at university gaining my economics degree & as a retailer early in my career.
You’re sort of right. What matters is big box retailers have squeezed out the competition but in the ever growing focus on numbers & satisfying Wall Street, they no longer care about meeting consumers’ needs. Hence, they no longer build inventories to satisfy their consumers and have lost any community connections. This focus has hurt their business & began happening well before the pandemic but the pandemic became a convenient excuse.
Huh? I see zero evidence to support that assessment. Bricks and mortar competition for sales given the Amazon monopoly is fierce and all of these retailers invest quite a bit in trying to hit the sweet spot for customer interest. Target and Home Depot for example are generally very active in community investment. In my community we have a Target and Home Depot and both donate quite a bit to the local school programs and youth sports. The also donate to the local food bank.
I think you demonstrate one of the key problems with left leaning brains. You can never admit to anything that indicates your worldview is flawed and hence just keep shifting the argument to deflect from it. Now, instead of admitting to these retail theft increases you shift blame to the retailers for "not caring about consumer's needs". I guess you expect these companies to hand out more free stuff since clearly that appears to be what those customers "need".
It reminds me of the Thomas Sowell quote:
"People will forgive you for being wrong; but they will never forgive you for being right -- especially if events prove you right while proving them wrong."
Here is the thing... if you REALLY cared about the people in these neighborhoods, and I assume you do, then you would stop with the silly blaming of the retail establishments (which, by the way, include many smaller mom and pop stores getting robbed to the breaking point) and advocate support for getting the criminals put away so the rest of the residents can enjoy a normal life with retail options similar to yours and mine.
My point was Matt's newsletter is about how BIG is not better and this framing by Target of ORC as the cause of their woes is an example of changing the narrative to fit your "earnings" report.
In my town, retailers have closed stores and built the narrative that ORC is the cause. As you pointed out, Amazon and the death of brick and mortar is likely the most important factor. Other factors include the lack of focus on customer service, and the pursuit of short-term profits over long-term customer loyalty. The local media have reported that shoplifting, in particular, is actually down significantly yet you wouldn't know that from listening to the retailers. Many retailers have put more and more merchandise behind locked cases and cabinets. In my experience, the best shoplifting prevention is actually customer service but these same retails have removed personnel from their stores in the name of efficiency. If ORC were really their problem, they could address this by hiring more employees.
While you point to community investment and activity, I am talking about actions such as paying competitive wages, having an array of assortments available for the diverse community at large, and offering solutions rather than simply telling people you can't help them. Examples I'm familiar with include over-the-counter vitamins, non-perfumed soap, and a simple face wash. Because my local Walgreens and Target no longer stock these items, my family no longer patronizes these businesses, which is likely affecting their results. I can also share that as a kid, we didn't even think about shoplifting from the pharmacy where our parents got their prescriptions and the workers knew our names and our parents names. This is what I mean by serving the community - not performative but actual service. The reasons the mom and pop pharmacies don't exist (no amount you claiming they do, will erase the facts) include the pharmacies, insurance companies, and PBMs (often times, one in the same) have operated with self-dealing and collusion - another thing you can research on BIG with a little effort.
My "worldview" is supported by real evidence and I encourage you to research this further on your own time rather than attempting to fit this into your narrative based on political disinformation and fake accusations.
There is a great divide between what you think you know and what I think I know. It looks like the standard worldview divide I deal with every day in my liberal state and liberal college town that I live in. We are not going to settle anything debating with comments I can see.
I also think you don't understand private business very well. What do you do for a living?
The fundamental difference is that you, along with my liberal friends, put business/corporations into your progressive social justice expectation. You just cannot seem to help yourself. Everything is a mothering cocoon opportunity. Nanny government and nanny corporations for all!
The problem is that business / corporations are simple. Think of them like dogs. Dogs are motivated by a few things... really primarily one thing... food. It is all we expect from them. They will never do more because they are not designed to do more. If we attempt to get them to do more, they will fail.
Business / corporations exist only to make a profit. That is their entire motivation. Now some owners and/or operating executives can and do exploit their comfortable market share lead to spend money, time and effort on altruism. But they never do this at risk of loss (unless they make mistakes). The reason is that loss causes a cascade of bad results that make running the business impossible. For example... you cannot get business loans if your business shows a loss. Your stock price can crash. In general the system demands that the business always be profitable. The only exception is startups where equity buys are funding the loss... but with an expectation that the business will eventually turn a profit.
Business does not adopt practices that fail to return a profit. Your shaming of the retail locations for not doing enough to "help" people is just off. It is like you just cannot accept that these neighborhoods are filled with immoral, misbehaving people that would rob anyone blind if they think they can get away with it. That is reality. Retail stores mothering these people isn't going to solve any problems... but more importantly, it isn't in the cards for retail business to do any of that stuff. It is weird that anyone expects it.
The value they provide to communities is simply their ability to offer retail products and services to the people of the community... at a reasonable price relative to quality and the local economic circumstances. The retailers consume services they pay for, and pay a portion of their sales tax to the state and local community. Most of them do donate to community causes, but again, not taking on expensive and complex social benefit operations.
In my community there is a local high-end grocer that started in the community and now has 50 stores in a regional market. I know the family that owns the business. Still private. The owners set on the board of directors of the county food bank. The county food bank expanded to be a mega-operation that takes care of the hungry in our county and helps neighboring counties. This grocery operation is very successful and profitable. So the owners are good giving time and money to the food bank. However, they desire the good PR for what they do as a way to keep their brand positive. They also would pull the plug on spending and time if and when their stores start to struggle financially.
Ironically they are thinking of closing several of their newer stores they put in lower income neighborhoods because of increased theft and crime in the area.
It is up to government to protect these stores from being robbed. But liberals in these communities have passed new laws and elected radical DAs with their idiotic experiment based on the broken belief that cops treating minorities badly was the reason why the minorities misbehaved. Well that experiment has failed. Liberals should take it as a lesson in human nature, but they refuse... I guess now blaming the retailers.
The fatal flaw in the left worldview is the inability to make slaves out of the producers of the private economy. They demand that business be just another form of government delivering social services. But when business cannot turn a profit, it just closes the doors. That is what the increase in retail theft has done. That is what the liberal experiment in softer law enforcement has done. And then liberals, instead of looking inward, blame the producers for not doing enough. That is like beating the dog for being focused on food.
Oh, and meanwhile, $billions in white collar crime, Congressional member crime, SCOTUS corruption, busing frightened illegals to Martha's vineyard, 'losing' billions of dollars in cash in Iraq and Afghanistan, and various other noxious, rich people crimes, like those of the former President of the United States, go basically ignored and are allowed to linger into perpetuity, essentially giving the middle finger to every average American. Yeah, let's create even more laws that are meaningless or largely unenforceable, except for the poorest, dumbest, most desperate chumps.
Fox Business News is to news what Olive Garden is authentic Italian dining.
Yes, but replace Fox Business News with "TV News"
Target and Walmart/Walgreen are Full Of It! They both moved out of south side Chicago neighborhoods after establishing a presence in previously "underserved areas."
They stayed a few years, got everyone's business, drove out neighborhood competitors and then without a word to city government, local government, the neighborhood officials or anyone, issued a press release announcing they'd close within a week, so long it's been fun and then they got the '"F" right out of Dodge.
All this after making millions on their vaunted "neighborhood partnership" or some such BS.
Nothing replaced them as yet, so we once again have a food desert now worse than before. I have car can travel but a whole lot of local folks who had been able to walk to the store for long enough to get used to it, no longer can.
Hell, having a Walmart a few blocks away helped me decide upon my present location much in the same way having a local Target in walking distance helped me decide upon my previous home.
I depend on those Walgreen MF's for my meds but I don't go there for anything else!
Thank you as always, Judd, for promoting corporate accountability with your reporting. It has a-direct and immediate impact on consumer’s lives.
This right here is why America needs rules and regulations! Corporations, rich white mentally ill rePUGliCONs can not and will not do what is right ! They do what ever the FUCK THEY WANT! And the things they think are punishing black and brown Americans are also deeply affecting poor stupid white ppl who listen to fox propaganda!
My info is old but I had a friend whose husband managed a big box store and their "shrink" was significant back in the early 2000s. Security issues at same store now prevent the hired security from handling theft. They have to call the police to get it handled and often the "shrinker" gets away. Our local FB crime page has phone videos of parking lots and citizens getting involved to try to "help."
I don't know if it is as bad as the groups mention here, but on a Friday night those videos are something to keep the area folks commenting away.
My guess is a lot of big players in other areas of white collar crime are likely causing more havoc in our country with bigger repercussions and no one is trying to stop them. I keep wondering about Jared's 2 billion take from the Saudis and how that was treated...
Yes, Jared’s 2 billion...
Remembering that the same falsehoods were attributed as excessive retail theft and pinched revenue in the "Bed, Bath, and Beyond" progression toward, and finally, slip on the peel into bankruptcy, Hence, if the numbers are related, there should have been a bump upward in Target's shoplifting "losses" as these criminal masterminds shifted targets (or Targets?).. The organized retail bandits remain a fiction of the police state to justify draconian law enforcement.
Ah, so it is better to push for harsher criminal penalties for theft and risk further harming the underserved communities you, in theory, support? Thanks, Target. Glad I'm taking notes.
Thank you Judd for researching the details of deceitful corporate behavior designed to enforce their advantages and cause more pain for the consumers. Without your work, they simply get away with lying and deceiving the public, and bringing more animosity to the middle and lower class shoppers. I wonder if Target is embarrassed by the inferior quality of their mathematical team, or that they appear to be lying to us.
Those damn billion $ companies with free speech rights! WTAF could go wrong? What I find utterly fascinating is how multinational corporations who get massive tax subsidies from We the People (think Walmart, Sacklers) then play the blame game against us in order to help the Prison Industrial Complex and Judicial Administrative’s punitivestates rights arguments to lock up more people (as if 2 million is just not enough.)
Even worse, the billionaire’s who rip people off after intentionally crashing the economy looting from the ruins get a slap on the wrist for shorting derivatives in the trillions.
Coincidentally I was planning to go to Target today. They recently closed the nearby "mini" Target, which apparently lacked a good market strategy for its location. It was never clear what the store was trying to be: a glossier version of 7-11 for the luxury condos and apartments adjacent to it? A scaled down version of bigger locations?
When Target first arrived in Northern Virginia, it had an identity. The go to place for stylish but budget conscious housewares and bedding. Then it added groceries. Then the clothing became ridiculously sized such that the sleeves on any top or jacket were so long that I either had to hem them at home, or just not buy anything long-sleeved. Then they brought in the sleazy CVS to take over their pharmacy. No thanks
I have no idea what the focus or identity of Target is any more. But I can mostly get the same stuff driving 2 more miles to Walmart at lower prices. Especially OTC drugs.
You no longer can find prices on items on the shelves as their non English reading associates know where anything belongs. Labels say one thing, the products above the labels are something else.
I have some decent pieces of small furniture from them, and towels sets (they've screwed that department up, too). None of the issues are due to roving bands of thieves. They're of their own making. Fancy TV commercials are no substitute for well run stores with an actual focus.
Ironically, Wal Mart treats their employees much worse than just about any other retailer. Most Wal Mart employees are deliberately scheduled as part time workers so Wal mart doesn't have to offer them benefits. Multiple stories have been written about Wal Mart employees on SNAP benefits, even though they are working, and emergency room use because they don't have insurance. A few years ago there was even a story about Wal Mart employees running a food drive... for their co workers.
Not sure that Wal mart is a shining example. There are no winners here, I guess.
I get it. Believe me. I grew up in a union household. However, I live on a fixed income and there are very few choices outside chains to purchase the bulk of my household needs. As it is I spend 40 percent of my income on rent. This is where we've gotten with industry consolidation. Rock and hard place.
Apparently Target employs PR and upper level management that are either right wing Republicans or they are so clueless about shopper behavior that they actually falsely promote the fact that their stores are crime centers. If you want your business to thrive, why would you do that? Perhaps to cover up poor earning reports (blame the neighborhood thugs for your failures). Or perhaps because you want to scare away shoppers perceived to be a threat by racist managers. Either way, with the prevalence of online retailers, it seems a very stupid management move to promote false crime statistics and risk losing even more business.
"An analysis of seven years of arrest data by Southern Methodist University statistician Michael Braun found "Black people were arrested and charged with organized retail theft more than twice as often as their White peers." Someone will point to the above quote as evidence of innate criminality in populations of POC, when in actuality it is a prevalence driven by a differential in surveillance between demographics. This result is an offshoot of the data shared in Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow.
I worked at a retail store while I was in college. Some managers and associates were fixated on eagle-eyed surveillance of POC in the store, assured they would daily bilk it out of thousands in merchandise. One day, someone from mall security came back with BAGS of clothing from our store that was recovered from shoplifters. The perpetrators? A group of pretty, blonde girls from middle class families that didn't fit the description of "usual suspects." A security tag they failed to remove went off in another store, causing their capture. Although retailers tend to push a narrative of who and what causes shrinkage, as well as the desired draconian punishments they claim will counter it, much of the focus is driven by stereotypes and tropes.
Finally, retailers need to be concerned with shrinkage but so do shoppers. The shrinkage I'm referring to is shoppers' time. In times past, I entered a store, could find staff to assist and actual people worked the registers. Now, I'm an unpaid employee, hunting around for product, sometimes opening boxes that were left in aisles to restock shelves to get it and then ringing myself out. All while prices go up. People choose to shop online instead for a reason.
The stress in the corporate board rooms of every retail business that's NOT Amazon, must be quite high these days. It's interesting, however, than instead of going after the predatory practices of Amazon, and improving their own online presence, or advertising the advantages of in-person, brick and mortar store shopping, and policing their own work force coupled with more secure internal store policies, these retailers are inventing strawmen (and women) to blame. The reality that advocating for these increasing penalties is racist and classist can be seen in the behavior of store security people nationwide. If you want to get away with such theft, just look white, confident, dress well, and be smiling and clean cut. You can do almost anything you want and the security people will never give you a second look. They might even help you carry what you're stealing out the door, especially if you have a fake receipt. They're far too busy following their own implicit biases, I.E. following the people of color (or those who look like "stoners" around the store) to watch for actual thieves and shoplifters. It's the white, clean cut, suburban boys and girls they should be watching closely.
Remember, jails are owned by corporations that use inmates as free or extremely cheap ($2( ?) an hour or less.. Judd help me out here) labor hence why they want more inmates.
American Slavery Playbook, 2023:
1. Force people into poverty through a rigged economy
2. Criminalize their desperation
3. Pay a private contractor to jail them
4. Profit from forced labor.
Add: over penalize behavior of stressed kids in school until they are expelled and suffer the rest of the school to prison pipeline.
Absolutely. The toxic secondary effects of the punishment-industrial complex can and do fill volumes.
I work retail. Just today, my co worker looked over to see a woman sweeping perfume bottlers off a shelf into a shopping bag. She walked over and said "can I help ups", the teenager said "I didn't steal anything". Really?
My co worker called Loss Prevention as the teenagers walked up the escalator. As LP followed, they dropped the bag and left. The bag was filled with clothes and perfume.
Don't tell me people aren't stealing. They are. And they are bold and getting bolder because they know they are rarely stopped.
There are so many holes in this analysis I don’t know where to begin. Let’s start with the clear premise being pushed… that we are not seeing any notable rise in external retail theft and hence we don’t need any changes to criminal laws and prosecution to help deal with it. Right. Sure. Those stores are closing because the owners hate Democrats, not because they cannot make a profit due to the increases in theft. Those stores had to lock up 60% of the products just to make a political point, not because criminals would just load up and walk out.
Judd has poorly farmed cherry-picked data and quotes to make his case. It is well done writing but more propaganda than actual objective analysis. For example, he cites reported crime statistics showing a decrease in property crime. In the largest state the size of many countries, California, new laws and radical DAs have resulted in zero arrests and prosecution fir 90% of retail theft. So yes, REPORTED crime stats are down.
And he gets loose with retail industry data on inventory shrink. He makes assumption to favor his position without qualifying other possible assumptions that might counter it. For example he assumes a similar ratio of causes for inventory shrink when causes other than external theft have potential decreased due to company investment in better internal inventory management and employee theft avoidance.
Lastly, he fails to point out that these retailers have stores in places where external theft has exploded and others where it has not. That is quite the trick…. Like arguing the overall number of acres burned in the country has decreased so there is no need to change any rules dealing with the increase in fires for certain states and cities. That trick works in reverse too… like Obama did adding more minor things to the list of hate crimes, and funded a big push for local law enforcement to increase their reporting of these things if they wanted some federal money. Presto! More hate crime is reported.
Real journalism requires intellectual honesty and full analysis. Otherwise it is just political propaganda pushing an agenda. This piece is pushing an agenda. Retail theft has exploded in many cities and states. The “defund police” social justice experiment has failed. Democrats are creating a dystopia where these high crime areas become retail deserts. It is time to get back to sanity for crime and punishment.
"Defunding the police" has basically never happened in any municipality, so it's interesting to claim that it has failed. It was a movement that went nowhere.
Did Judd "cherry-pick" when he quoted an industry lobbyist that estimated ORC in 2020 amounted to 0.07% of sales, and 5% of total shrink? Because that feels pretty robust to me.
The money and power behind the pro-corporate, pro-punishment narrative (which includes retailers but also the entire law enforcement industry) exceeds Popular Info by orders of magnitude. The money behind each couldn't be made to fit on the same chart. Be more judicious with your skepticism.
The right likes their police doing the jobs they were designed to do: protecting private property, and enforcing the racial and socioeconomic caste hierarchy.
Public safety was never the priority, and that remains true today.
This is the unspoken but important truth. Police are there to protect property & businesses not people.
"Defund the police" trope just slingshotted you into rightwing maroon territory.🤪
And thus, 😋pllbbt
You chumps were shouting it, chanting it, repeating it. Sorry, you cannot erase the facts of history. And police budgets have been cut and radical DAs have been installed.
Your claim that this is a right wing trope identifies you as a left wing dope.
Never happened. Never implemented. Never discussed.
RIGHTWING TROPE
LEFTWING DOPE
The "defund the police" movement, is one of reimagining the current police system to build an entity that does not violate us, while relocating funds to invest in community services.
Let’s be clear, the people who now oppose this, have always opposed calls for systematic change. https://t.co/SEh97GS9hg
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 9, 2020
The defund movement isn't new. Folks are just finally listening. "We got money for wars but can't feed the poor." #HappyBirthdayTupac #DefundPolice #FundCommunities
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) June 16, 2020
I believe we need to protect families who need help, and ICE isn’t doing that. It has become a deportation force. We need to separate immigration issues from criminal justice. We need to abolish ICE, start over and build something that actually works. https://t.co/JtSN68k4Fd
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) June 29, 2018
Instead of spending $80 billion a year on jails and incarceration, we need to be investing in more jobs and education. One thing is abundantly clear: Every police department violating people's civil rights must be stripped of federal funding. Period.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 4, 2020
When we say #DefundPolice, what we mean is people are dying and we need to invest in people's livelihoods instead.
EXAMPLE: Detroit spent $294 million on police last year, and $9 million on health.
This is systemic oppression in numbers. pic.twitter.com/oPe0GD3D6p
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) June 4, 2020
Defunding the police is about rebuilding our country in the image of our people — full of humanity, love, and care. Particularly for our kids and schools. https://t.co/vLZGfaidlH
— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) February 22, 2021
Another unarmed black man, shot in the back, by a WI police officer! No matter the outrage at the killing of George Floyd by a police officer, knee on his neck, the killing of black men continues. Is this a defiance by the police that indicates they don’t intend to stop?
— Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) August 26, 2020
This is the same Sacramento Police Department that murdered #StephonClark. The leadership of the department, and all of these officers, must be fired. Then, the department must be dismantled and policing reimagined.pic.twitter.com/c8dORCjsKG
— Mondaire Jones (@MondaireJones) August 30, 2020
For those who think spending more on policing works, look at St. Louis.
We spend more per capita on police than 85% of police depts, yet 68% of violent crimes go unsolved. And police kill us at the highest rate in the nation.
Police don’t need more money. Our communities do.
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) June 3, 2021
Defunding the police isn’t radical, it’s real. https://t.co/wUcTjxqS3w
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) January 28, 2021
Too many police in our country are more concerned with protecting white supremacy than serving the communities that pay their salaries. https://t.co/yDdUuw0GRv
— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) March 17, 2021
An “accidental discharge” that kills someone has another name: manslaughter.
We don’t need police with lethal weapons carrying out routine traffic stops.
Re-allocate police funding to unarmed traffic forces to remove even the possibility of state-sanctioned manslaughter. https://t.co/AbZ4NcwCC0
— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) April 12, 2021
ICE has kept a 7 year old captive & alone for FOUR MONTHS with no parents around.
This is cruel and unusual punishment. The Eight Amendment strictly prohibits government from acting this way.
THIS is what we need to “shut down until we figure out what’s going on.” Defund ICE. https://t.co/l47AcpudDZ
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 12, 2018
Defund ICE.
Fund the USPS.
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) August 15, 2020
Now @VICE reporting that @CBP is sending predator drones over #GeorgeFloyd protests in Minneapolis.
This is what happens when leaders sign blank check after blank check to militarize police, CBP, etc while letting violence go unchecked.
We need answers. And we need to defund. https://t.co/tfBZFRNI9G
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 29, 2020
"But the truth is that abolishing ICE isn’t that radical. We reorganize government all the time, creating some agencies and eliminating others. Nevertheless, it is a bold proposal."
It's time to be bold. It's time to #AbolishICE.https://t.co/bSrAg79xLT
— Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) July 2, 2018
Do we really think our local police departments need weapons of war like:
Grenade Launchers?
Bayonets?
Explosives?
Weaponized Drones?
None of these weapons belong on our streets against American civilians.
We must #DemilitarizeThePolice today. It's past time we did.
— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) July 21, 2020
The maximum cruelty that ICE inflicts on immigrants is horrifying and must come to an immediate end. It's time to replace this inhumane system with one that treats immigrants with dignity while ending our reliance on detention.https://t.co/4UtxDYmWHB
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) December 19, 2020
Roughly 1 in 4 fatal police encounters end the life of someone with mental illness, so it’s no surprise that this program is saving lives. Sending healthcare professionals—not police—when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis makes our communities safer for all. https://t.co/9FDbAxtGas
— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) February 8, 2021
We have seen video after video over the last few weeks of peaceful protestors being met with extreme violence from police.
We can’t wait. It’s time to overhaul our policing system. https://t.co/3PiHshcjMN
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) June 5, 2020
Today's police forces look more like armies equipped with weapons of war. A fed'l program from the 1990s sends surplus military equipment to NYPD & other police. Today, I've introduced legislation to end this initiative once and for all. #BlackLivesMatter #EndPoliceViolence 1/3 pic.twitter.com/wLmYY6MnH6
— Rep. Nydia Velazquez (@NydiaVelazquez) June 10, 2020
Today's @HouseJudiciary markup will address the reforms needed to hold police accountable, fight systemic racism, & save lives. Watch: https://t.co/mBADi91Dz7
We can & must re-imagine what just policing looks like in our country. #JusticeInPolicing pic.twitter.com/slDCk6N9pk
— Rep. Zoe Lofgren (@RepZoeLofgren) June 17, 2020
We can and must re-imagine what just policing looks like in our country. Today's @HouseJudiciary hearing will address the reforms needed to hold police accountable, fight systemic racism, and save lives. pic.twitter.com/pvusXDrBSm
— David Cicilline (@davidcicilline) June 17, 2020
We must defund Trump’s secret police that are currently in Portland and soon may arrive uninvited in other American cities.
I'm in D.C. working around the clock to build support for such a plan.
— Earl Blumenauer (@repblumenauer) July 21, 2020
Police departments across the country have a lot more to do.
We must continue to apply pressure to disrupt the system.
This is how we see results.
— Yvette D. Clarke (@RepYvetteClarke) June 6, 2020
🙄None of this is Defund the Police
How about this for a solution? https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-maid-assisted-suicide-homeless?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
There has been defunding. Portland. New York. But mostly it has been disrespecting, denigrating and emasculating the cops. Because, you know, those cops treating people unequally is what causes them to act out. Otherwise they would just behave and stop doing criminal things.
Frank, there are a lot of assumptions here & you reveal your political slant as skewing your premise. But just take this one bit of Econ 101 into account: ~2/3 inventory shrinkage is caused by internal (& correctable) errors. I learned this in my studies at university gaining my economics degree & as a retailer early in my career.
That does not matter with respect to this topic. What matters is trends. Specifically the trends since 2020.
You’re sort of right. What matters is big box retailers have squeezed out the competition but in the ever growing focus on numbers & satisfying Wall Street, they no longer care about meeting consumers’ needs. Hence, they no longer build inventories to satisfy their consumers and have lost any community connections. This focus has hurt their business & began happening well before the pandemic but the pandemic became a convenient excuse.
Forget logic with ol Frannie. She has an agenda, a narrative. She never veers from it.
Huh? I see zero evidence to support that assessment. Bricks and mortar competition for sales given the Amazon monopoly is fierce and all of these retailers invest quite a bit in trying to hit the sweet spot for customer interest. Target and Home Depot for example are generally very active in community investment. In my community we have a Target and Home Depot and both donate quite a bit to the local school programs and youth sports. The also donate to the local food bank.
I think you demonstrate one of the key problems with left leaning brains. You can never admit to anything that indicates your worldview is flawed and hence just keep shifting the argument to deflect from it. Now, instead of admitting to these retail theft increases you shift blame to the retailers for "not caring about consumer's needs". I guess you expect these companies to hand out more free stuff since clearly that appears to be what those customers "need".
It reminds me of the Thomas Sowell quote:
"People will forgive you for being wrong; but they will never forgive you for being right -- especially if events prove you right while proving them wrong."
Here is the thing... if you REALLY cared about the people in these neighborhoods, and I assume you do, then you would stop with the silly blaming of the retail establishments (which, by the way, include many smaller mom and pop stores getting robbed to the breaking point) and advocate support for getting the criminals put away so the rest of the residents can enjoy a normal life with retail options similar to yours and mine.
My point was Matt's newsletter is about how BIG is not better and this framing by Target of ORC as the cause of their woes is an example of changing the narrative to fit your "earnings" report.
In my town, retailers have closed stores and built the narrative that ORC is the cause. As you pointed out, Amazon and the death of brick and mortar is likely the most important factor. Other factors include the lack of focus on customer service, and the pursuit of short-term profits over long-term customer loyalty. The local media have reported that shoplifting, in particular, is actually down significantly yet you wouldn't know that from listening to the retailers. Many retailers have put more and more merchandise behind locked cases and cabinets. In my experience, the best shoplifting prevention is actually customer service but these same retails have removed personnel from their stores in the name of efficiency. If ORC were really their problem, they could address this by hiring more employees.
While you point to community investment and activity, I am talking about actions such as paying competitive wages, having an array of assortments available for the diverse community at large, and offering solutions rather than simply telling people you can't help them. Examples I'm familiar with include over-the-counter vitamins, non-perfumed soap, and a simple face wash. Because my local Walgreens and Target no longer stock these items, my family no longer patronizes these businesses, which is likely affecting their results. I can also share that as a kid, we didn't even think about shoplifting from the pharmacy where our parents got their prescriptions and the workers knew our names and our parents names. This is what I mean by serving the community - not performative but actual service. The reasons the mom and pop pharmacies don't exist (no amount you claiming they do, will erase the facts) include the pharmacies, insurance companies, and PBMs (often times, one in the same) have operated with self-dealing and collusion - another thing you can research on BIG with a little effort.
My "worldview" is supported by real evidence and I encourage you to research this further on your own time rather than attempting to fit this into your narrative based on political disinformation and fake accusations.
There is a great divide between what you think you know and what I think I know. It looks like the standard worldview divide I deal with every day in my liberal state and liberal college town that I live in. We are not going to settle anything debating with comments I can see.
I also think you don't understand private business very well. What do you do for a living?
The fundamental difference is that you, along with my liberal friends, put business/corporations into your progressive social justice expectation. You just cannot seem to help yourself. Everything is a mothering cocoon opportunity. Nanny government and nanny corporations for all!
The problem is that business / corporations are simple. Think of them like dogs. Dogs are motivated by a few things... really primarily one thing... food. It is all we expect from them. They will never do more because they are not designed to do more. If we attempt to get them to do more, they will fail.
Business / corporations exist only to make a profit. That is their entire motivation. Now some owners and/or operating executives can and do exploit their comfortable market share lead to spend money, time and effort on altruism. But they never do this at risk of loss (unless they make mistakes). The reason is that loss causes a cascade of bad results that make running the business impossible. For example... you cannot get business loans if your business shows a loss. Your stock price can crash. In general the system demands that the business always be profitable. The only exception is startups where equity buys are funding the loss... but with an expectation that the business will eventually turn a profit.
Business does not adopt practices that fail to return a profit. Your shaming of the retail locations for not doing enough to "help" people is just off. It is like you just cannot accept that these neighborhoods are filled with immoral, misbehaving people that would rob anyone blind if they think they can get away with it. That is reality. Retail stores mothering these people isn't going to solve any problems... but more importantly, it isn't in the cards for retail business to do any of that stuff. It is weird that anyone expects it.
The value they provide to communities is simply their ability to offer retail products and services to the people of the community... at a reasonable price relative to quality and the local economic circumstances. The retailers consume services they pay for, and pay a portion of their sales tax to the state and local community. Most of them do donate to community causes, but again, not taking on expensive and complex social benefit operations.
In my community there is a local high-end grocer that started in the community and now has 50 stores in a regional market. I know the family that owns the business. Still private. The owners set on the board of directors of the county food bank. The county food bank expanded to be a mega-operation that takes care of the hungry in our county and helps neighboring counties. This grocery operation is very successful and profitable. So the owners are good giving time and money to the food bank. However, they desire the good PR for what they do as a way to keep their brand positive. They also would pull the plug on spending and time if and when their stores start to struggle financially.
Ironically they are thinking of closing several of their newer stores they put in lower income neighborhoods because of increased theft and crime in the area.
It is up to government to protect these stores from being robbed. But liberals in these communities have passed new laws and elected radical DAs with their idiotic experiment based on the broken belief that cops treating minorities badly was the reason why the minorities misbehaved. Well that experiment has failed. Liberals should take it as a lesson in human nature, but they refuse... I guess now blaming the retailers.
The fatal flaw in the left worldview is the inability to make slaves out of the producers of the private economy. They demand that business be just another form of government delivering social services. But when business cannot turn a profit, it just closes the doors. That is what the increase in retail theft has done. That is what the liberal experiment in softer law enforcement has done. And then liberals, instead of looking inward, blame the producers for not doing enough. That is like beating the dog for being focused on food.