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Quixzlizx posted:I'm pretty sure I've never seen that out on Long Island. Why? Two major concerns for almost any local government are reducing crime and expenses. If a third party is willing to eat the expense of something that is at least generally thought to reduce crime that’s a win win.
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Oct 19, 2023 20:00
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:You can’t factor in the overhead portion. That’s relatively static whether there is theft or not. You factor it in because the store has to pay for it whether there's theft or not. It's part of the cost of selling things. If we want stores to not care about profit margins or unbudgeted losses, we should nationalize them and subsidize them with tax money. Even if a private store chain is making profit overall, they're not under any obligations to use the profits from high-profit stores to subsidize low-profit stores.
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Oct 19, 2023 20:14
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Main Paineframe posted:You factor it in because the store has to pay for it whether there's theft or not. It's part of the cost of selling things. That’s exactly why you don’t factor it in. If a store has to buy 50 steaks to sell 50, or has to buy 60 steaks to sell 50 because 10 get stolen, their overhead is the same. The only new cost is the cost of the steak itself to them.
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Oct 19, 2023 20:18
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:Why? Two major concerns for almost any local government are reducing crime and expenses. If a third party is willing to eat the expense of something that is at least generally thought to reduce crime that’s a win win. Lawsuits are expensive.
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Oct 19, 2023 20:20
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:That’s exactly why you don’t factor it in. If a store has to buy 50 steaks to sell 50, or has to buy 60 steaks to sell 50 because 10 get stolen, their overhead is the same. The only new cost is the cost of the steak itself to them. The meat has to bring in enough money to cover the overhead of selling the meat, otherwise there's no point in having the meat in the first place. It's not a new cost, but it's still a cost they have to cover. If they're not making enough money on meat sales to pay for the cost of the meat and the cost of the overhead, they will (and should) just close down the whole meat department.
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Oct 19, 2023 20:45
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:That’s exactly why you don’t factor it in. If a store has to buy 50 steaks to sell 50, or has to buy 60 steaks to sell 50 because 10 get stolen, their overhead is the same. The only new cost is the cost of the steak itself to them. Speaking as someone who does accounting/finance... for fixed costs/overhead: 1) Ultimately, the bottom line is the line that matters the most 2) All fixed overhead in the short term are variable costs over the long term 3) Companies assign overhead costs to products they sell as part of their internal metrics. My company has several consumer goods/tech divisions. I work for corporate in accounting and financial analysis. Even my salary gets allocated to each of the divisions and the products they sell, even though i'm the furthest thing from working on any of the products (i'm not, for example, working on manufacturing labor which gets directly assigned as variable costs to the goods we sell). 4) Fixed costs/overhead = operating leverage. Think of this scenario: When you are in the red, theft is all that much more damaging as you get further and further away from break even (Total contribution margin - fixed costs), which puts additional pressure for you to sell more to cover those losses to at least reach break even. Fixed costs still have a big relationship to sales/theft.
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Oct 19, 2023 20:49
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Main Paineframe posted:The meat has to bring in enough money to cover the overhead of selling the meat, otherwise there's no point in having the meat in the first place. It's not a new cost, but it's still a cost they have to cover. If they're not making enough money on meat sales to pay for the cost of the meat and the cost of the overhead, they will (and should) just close down the whole meat department. I feel like everyone needs to line up and punch me in the balls for keeping this off-topic fight going, but it could theoretically make financial sense as a loss leader.
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Oct 19, 2023 21:32
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Too much shrinkage chat. Not enough gloating at LOL Republicans. But I would love it if they actually started duking it out in conference. Maybe we could sell tickets, as a way to lower the national debt, of course. (as long as we get to privatize the popcorn rights!)
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Oct 19, 2023 21:42
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IDK why this thread suddenly moved the topic to a giant argument about shoplifting but to be clear, the group most likely to shoplift compared to their population are those with incomes of 100,000+ (adjusting for inflation to 2023 dollars), but are a minority of shoplifters due to being a minority of the population. While not a great source methodologically, this old study seems to match this idea (when you note that $35k+ in 1988 is about $90k+ today). I haven't seen other studies tackle income of shoplifters.Hieronymous Alloy posted:I worked magistrate court as a public defender from 2019 to about 2021 and defended hundreds of shoplifting cases. As far as who actually gets prosecuted, this mostly matches my experience. Notably, "my experience" is just via stories from my family who have worked their entire lives as cashiers. I also hear stories about store employees stealing, but they basically never get caught/prosecuted though. I will also say, despite the fact that organized theft is a deep minority of shoplifters, they make up an outsized share in the cost, since they are stealing much more poo poo. I've seen different estimates thrown around for percentages, but most are poorly sourced. I've seen things claim they make up 10% of what is stolen, and another 50%, but none of those claims have proper sources I can find (the 50% seems to float around on conservative sites and conservative think tanks). At any rate, its probably not unreasonable to guess that those who steal for a living are stealing more than most random shoplifters.
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Oct 19, 2023 21:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I worked magistrate court as a public defender from 2019 to about 2021 and defended hundreds of shoplifting cases. Don’t you think working as a public defender would bias your cases towards poor and destitute people? I can’t imagine some sophisticated crime ring would be using public defenders if they got caught (if they even get caught in the first place).
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Oct 19, 2023 22:04
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Seph posted:Don’t you think working as a public defender would bias your cases towards poor and destitute people? I can’t imagine some sophisticated crime ring would be using public defenders if they got caught (if they even get caught in the first place). "Sophisticated crime ring" doesn't mean the mafia with its own lawyers on retainer, it's basically four or five people working together instead of shoplifting solo, probably with a local buyer they can offload merchandise to quickly.
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Oct 19, 2023 22:19
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SirFozzie posted:Too much shrinkage chat. Not enough gloating at LOL Republicans. Unfortunately our political class is almost universally made up of posturing chickenshits who would never in a million years actually throw a punch. Last guy who might have actually started poo poo got promoted to governor of Montana. Which isn't to say that Matt Gaetz isn't a slimy enough gently caress of a shitstain to get even Ghandi to swing, just that our old cowards probably won't.
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Oct 19, 2023 22:19
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Foxfire_ posted:Dug up an article from a policy think tank and apparently generic drugs are high margin for pharmacies, but brand name are low margin: I used to work at a retail drug and convenience store (here in Canada) and can confirm that is how we did it. My employee discount was based on mark-up and generic brand OTC medication was by far the most marked-up stuff in the store (outside of our store-brand bottled water). When we were given anti-shrink procedures they were generally built around making sure the organized guys didn't get away with anything. Teenagers and desperate people were considered small change as they would usually be stealing food they intended to eat or cosmetics stuff for personal use. The organized thieves would come in with hockey bags and just grab all the allergy meds or baby formula or whatever. Thousands of dollars of product at once, not just bits and bobs. As for the minor debate about how much meat you need to sell to offset shrink it really depends completely on mark-up. Our store sold milk and toilet paper at or below cost but marked up store-brand bottled water by about 900% (a $0.11 single serving bottle sold for $0.99). If we had to recover what we lost in shrink by selling milk, we'd never do it. If we had recover it by selling bottled water or generic OTC meds, it wouldn't be an issue. I'll allow for a store that is only groceries and all narrow margins may have different calculations, but I expect it's broadly similar, with stuff like store-brand potato chips, soft drinks, breakfast cereal etc getting marked up. The normal solution at our store for items that were targeted was just to limit the amount of it on the sales floor so that we could only get so much cheese stolen at once (we had a lot of cheese theft at our location for some reason).
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Oct 19, 2023 22:27
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Morrow posted:"Sophisticated crime ring" doesn't mean the mafia with its own lawyers on retainer, it's basically four or five people working together instead of shoplifting solo, probably with a local buyer they can offload merchandise to quickly. While it might not be Al Capone in the 1930s level of organized crime, some of these operations are pulling in millions of dollars. They can afford a lawyer. Here’s one example.
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Oct 19, 2023 22:34
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Seph posted:Don’t you think working as a public defender would bias your cases towards poor and destitute people? I can’t imagine some sophisticated crime ring would be using public defenders if they got caught (if they even get caught in the first place). L M A O. Public defenders in the US have huge caseload. They'll get as little as 8 minutes per suspect. Even if they were biased as all hell they don't have the resources to fight any shoplifting case like it was a murder trial. They'll advise a plea deal, and still barely have enough time to negotiate the deal. An "organized ring" isn't necessarily going to be much different if the people doing the risky business are desperate people. There's no way I can see any grocery shoplifter being able to afford a decent lawyer, but even then it'll be a plea deal. Blindeye fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Oct 19, 2023 |
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Oct 19, 2023 22:41
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Blindeye posted:L M A O. I meant the types of people that use a public defender is going to be biased towards the poor and destitute. Not that public defenders themselves are biased against their clients. Basically, it’s not very informative that someone whose job is to defend people for free tends to have clients that are poor or drug addicts.
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Oct 19, 2023 22:47
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Right, but ringleaders aren't the ones busting into the pharmacy and grabbing poo poo. So your public defenders likely would see cases for shoplifting rings.
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Oct 19, 2023 22:54
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Discendo Vox posted:It may be worthwhile to reboot or recreate the Retail Apocalypse thread for the shrink chat. Looks open to me, people can go post there.
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Oct 19, 2023 23:02
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Blindeye posted:An "organized ring" isn't necessarily going to be much different if the people doing the risky business are desperate people. Again, data seems to indicate that there are lots of upper middle class shoplifters, and proportionally to their population size, commit more shoplifting. A large chunk of shoplifters from the data I've seen should be making at least enough to hire a lawyer, so I imagine the rings should be good enough to hire a lawyer as well, with pooled resources.
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Oct 19, 2023 23:05
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Lucasar posted:
Chuck E. Cheese has fallen on hard times lately.
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Oct 19, 2023 23:09
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Gym Jordan: "Please Stop Eating My face" Face-Eating Leopards: "No." https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1715123897782141270 edit: Also funny... someone took a photo of his notes and scrawled on it Joker-style is "WHAT IS THE REAL REASON?" edit 2: This was Jordan's meeting today with the No votes, seeing if there was a way to get to yes. Apparently, there isn't. Yet. SirFozzie fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Oct 19, 2023 |
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Oct 19, 2023 23:25
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Can't wait for the House Investigation into who gave the moderates a spine.
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Oct 19, 2023 23:33
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Gyges posted:Can't wait for the House Investigation into who gave the moderates a spine. https://twitter.com/AnnieGrayerCNN/status/1715120530016158118 that handwriting and note taking should be enough for a 48 hour psychiatric hold. I kid.. wouldn't wish that on anyone other than those truly needing help. But yeah, it looks like something that the Joker or the Riddler would scrawl on the wall after committing his latest criminal scheme. "WHAT IS THE REAL REASON, BATS?"
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Oct 19, 2023 23:36
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SirFozzie posted:Gym Jordan: "Please Stop Eating My face" USCE 2023: Jordan still having issues taking "No" as a valid answer.
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Oct 19, 2023 23:37
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Foxfire_ posted:Dug up an article from a policy think tank and apparently generic drugs are high margin for pharmacies, but brand name are low margin: Pharmacies typically get paid fill fees for meds. You don't buy prescription meds, add 10%, then sell them. The pharmacy gets paid like $5 per fill by the insurance companies/PBMs. That's why the margins are so much different. $100 pays for like 25-50% of a monthly fee for a relatively cheap brand name oral med ($200-400/month). So for every $400 spent, the pharmacy gets $5. Generic meds can be stupid cheap, like $10 or less for some for a 30 day supply. So for every $100 spent, the pharmacy might fill 10 prescriptions and end up with $50 in fill fees. (yeah it's a horseshit system for independent pharmacies, but if you dont play the game, the insurance companies wont pay you) Pharmacies can work the margin by purchasing larger bottles for a cheaper per-pill cost. Or, alternatively, buy prepacked 30 day supplies and increase the amount of fills per day. Some busy stores can fill 1000+ or more prescriptions per day. Some pharmacies, like in grocery stores, use them as a loss leader and hand out free common, cheap meds, just to get people in the store. Publix used to (maybe still does) give out some diabetes medications, which is brilliant in a way. Now with OTC meds, that's strictly, buy low sell high regular shopkeeper stuff.
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Oct 19, 2023 23:39
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Retro42 posted:USCE 2023: Jordan still having issues taking "No" as a valid answer. I like it
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Oct 19, 2023 23:45
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And they'll get a chance to tell him No again tomorrow. By Albert Einstein's saying, I guess we have another reason to say the GOP is insane. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1715140393858134022
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Oct 20, 2023 00:22
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Seph posted:Don’t you think working as a public defender would bias your cases towards poor and destitute people? I can’t imagine some sophisticated crime ring would be using public defenders if they got caught (if they even get caught in the first place). In theory, maybe, but in practice, I was always in the courtroom, so I saw all the pleas and deals and trials that were happening, private attorney or public, I was always there because my case was next up or next up after that etc. I wasn't seeing a biased sample of cases, I was seeing literally everything that went down in the county. That said yeah the relatively sophisticated shoplifters either weren't getting caught at all or weren't getting prosecuted. Again, the one "Ring" I saw, they appeared to be targeting stores near major highways that were going out of business anyway. My suspicion is that the bias may be geographic; I can imagine that retail raids are more common on, like, fifth avenue. Blindeye posted:L M A O. This isn't really how it works either. Yeah, my caseload was very high -- my peak was around 500 cases -- but I fought each one as hard as any other lawyer did. Once you've done 500 shoplifting cases, the 501st actually doesn't take that much time (shoplifting cases don't go to trial any more since all the stores got video; they either get dismissed when the store doesn't show up for a court date, or they plead because the defendant is on video. The time they take is 1) explaining that to the client and 2) checking to make sure the video works). That said, the idea that "decent lawyers" are private and public defenders aren't "decent lawyers" is largely fictional. Most of the best private defense attorneys are former public defenders. Generally speaking, if you're going to trial, you're probably *better* off with a public defender than with the median private defense attorney. Reason being, the public defenders live in the courthouse; they know all the judges; they take cases to trial. A newbie two-year public defender will have more courtroom time than 95% of the practicing lawyers out there, and will have likely seen more actual trials, too. Public defenders live in the ring, and that's where the boxing happens. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Oct 20, 2023 |
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Oct 20, 2023 01:11
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How does video evidence work in these days of easy editing, anyway? Do proper security cameras have serious chain-of-custody systems built in to protect against allegations of tampering?
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Oct 20, 2023 01:31
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The Lone Badger posted:How does video evidence work in these days of easy editing, anyway? Do proper security cameras have serious chain-of-custody systems built in to protect against allegations of tampering? sorry for derail everybody The store has to have a witness who was a store employee show up and testify under oath that they were in the store that day and saw poo poo go down and the video reflects what they saw. If that person shows up the defendant is going to lose their shoplifting case and probably would still lose even if the video wasn't there. If that person doesn't show up the video can't be entered into evidence anyway.
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Oct 20, 2023 01:36
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That makes sense. Video-on-its-own is not evidence because it could be altered, but it acts to enhance witness testimony that they are not mistaken or remembering incorrectly.
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Oct 20, 2023 01:52
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mega corps cant even do the minor amount of investing to make sure stealing isnt a thing, you thinkthey would put effort into forging tapes or even making sure they have back ups
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Oct 20, 2023 03:02
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The Lone Badger posted:That makes sense. Video-on-its-own is not evidence because it could be altered, but it acts to enhance witness testimony that they are not mistaken or remembering incorrectly. It’s not that video isn’t evidence. It’s just that you need to present a foundation for documentary evidence. Someone with personal knowledge who can say what the document is and how it was made.
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Oct 20, 2023 03:20
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That said yeah the relatively sophisticated shoplifters either weren't getting caught at all or weren't getting prosecuted. Again, the one "Ring" I saw, they appeared to be targeting stores near major highways that were going out of business anyway. First, need to check how "organized retail theft" is being defined, sometimes it just means that it was planned and coordinated vs. opportunistic, which doesn't necessarily mean that there was an organization/ring behind it. It could include one-off jobs. Second, the whole point of organizing is to steal more and reduce the risk of getting caught. They're savvier criminals in general and better about avoiding apprehension, especially not allowing themselves to be stopped on their way out. Third, a the big flashy and violent "Fifth Avenue" smash-and-grabs are getting the most media attention, but most of it is done as quietly as possible for obvious reasons. When I was working retail, the main setup we were warned about was teams with people dedicated to distracting staff while other people stole the item (and one store suffered a major theft to that setup). In some ways that's become easier, with floor staff levels cut to the bone, in some ways it's become harder, with big chains upgrading their surveillance to the point that you can't really evade detection anywhere.
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Oct 20, 2023 03:37
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“I don’t understand why they won’t back me? Okay, double down on the death threats and call in some favors to get them evicted from their offices and other petty annoyances. Oh, and offer them absolutely nothing in return. That should do it.” I can only hope Jordan and his posse go so scorched earth 4 Rs decide to vote Jeffries.
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Oct 20, 2023 03:37
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Pretty sure "the real reason" is that they just personally loathe him. Any morally-defensible reason for refusing to vote for him could be explained away with any of their usual excuses about "assurances" or "I was going to vote against him but the Democrats were SO MEAN that I had no choice," but being an insufferable douche is a bridge too far. Unfortunately, being an insufferable douche is also why he's the only acceptable option to the HFC.
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Oct 20, 2023 04:00
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Can we please move retail chat to the thread for it? https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800405&pagenumber=360#lastpost
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Oct 20, 2023 04:07
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I’d like to know more about these threats of personal violence Jordan is apparently delivering to members of congress. That seems like a very bad strategy for winning people over.
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Oct 20, 2023 04:26
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I AM GRANDO posted:I’d like to know more about these threats of personal violence Jordan is apparently delivering to members of congress. That seems like a very bad strategy for winning people over. I mean it's people making death threats because Hannity is calling those representatives uniparty swamp RINOs. It's not like Jim Jordan is personally calling them because the minimum age for congress is 25
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Oct 20, 2023 04:44
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So, what is the new new new new plan? (did I put enough "new" in there? Never mind Plan A (McCarthy), Plan B(Scalise), Plan C(Jim Jordan) We're on what, Plan G? H, with a trip back to Plan C? I've seen reports that there is going to be a vote-a-rama this Weekend until there is a Speaker, hoping that one side or the other just tires of all the votes..
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Oct 20, 2023 06:50
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