Store fired an employee and replaced them with a robot so you would do thier work for free. So go ahead and steal that candy bar or pack of gum.
BTW. If you never see someone stealing food. What you are seeing is a failure of society that makes people steal.
@Kinnison some people steal just because they can.
and there are plenty of ways to make people stop stealing. Like giving them enough income so they feel like giving back to others
@Kinnison Some people only steal because they can.
I remember when the principal of my High School who made around 70K back when that was real money got caught stealing a bag of those gelatin fruit wedges candy (about 50 cents back then).
He wasn't stealing because he didn't have the money. He just wanted to steal. That is just how life is.
Your panglossian view doesn't account for the will to do something just because you can.
starting your post by being vauge isn't useful
stealing $0.50 fruity wedges isn't going to cause someone to go bankrupt or go out of business. There is more shrinkage by spoilage then theft
there are a zillion reasons to steal and not steal. Lets try to find ways to make society better so people do not need to steal. one of the surest ways is guaranteed income
You can only fix things where people want them fixed. Not saying there isn't poverty, homelessness, etc.
I'm saying no matter what you do, some people will steal, some will hack, some will defraud, some will commit insider trading for the same reason why some people climb mountains: because they can.
You can't fix that. Some folks are always looking for a way to hack the system.
The OP was about retail theft. not insider trading
Yes, people will steal. But when one person owns everything, and demands unreasonable prices for the goods they have, some people are left with the only option to them is to steal.
I rather go away from that extreme and go towards the other end where everyone has access to what they need without feat of having to commit a crime
and those business never went bankrupt
they could absorb those losses
seems to me those businesses are taking too much
you focus on the thieves, but not the greed of business
@Kinnison Supply and demand, so long as there isn't price-fixing collusion, which is illegal.
Find somebodys fixing prices, turn 'em in. Other than that, demand decreasing is the only way that most retailers are going to lower prices.
@Kinnison don't buy expensive things.
Me and my cousin recent had this discussion: a lot of prices went up, and those coming down aren't really noticed much, but if you stick to "deals", "store brands", and good sale items, you can save a lot.
And that puts negative price pressure on retailers. But mot people just don't adapt and expect to behave the way they always have and complain, but that's not how supply and demand work.
@Kinnison You're not gonna stop most theft.
Most of the folks stealing aren't stealing out of need.
There was a lady here who stole 10s of thousands of merchandise from different Target stores. She lived in a 750K house in Collierville, had a nice job. Just decided to steal a bunch of stuff she gave away as Christmas presents.