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(The Economic Collapse Blog)—We are right in the middle of a tsunami of shoplifting that never seems to end, and as a result major retailers are closing down locations in major cities all over the country.
A few years ago, videos of brazen shoplifters ruthlessly looting retail stores were shocking everyone, but now this sort of thing is so common that very few of us are shocked anymore. We have come to expect that our retail stores will be regularly looted because this is who we have become as a nation. Sadly, even many of our politicians aren’t too concerned that the impoverished masses are stealing billions of dollars worth of merchandise from our major retailers.
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Like so many others, maybe they figure that those retailers won’t even miss what is being taken. But the truth is that they do miss what is being taken, and CEOs have been complaining very loudly about it…
For much of the past year or so, executives at big retailers did something unusual: They talked about theft in their stores. A lot.
Walmart’s CEO warned it could lead to store closures and higher prices. Target’s CEO said it was costing the chain upward of a billion dollars. Home Depot’s finance chief called it a “consistent pressure” that the chain is “tackling every day.”
With a backdrop of viral videos showing brazen and violent thieves, crime became a common theme on retailers’ typically dry quarterly earnings calls. Executives often mentioned “shrink” — inventory missing for one reason or another — as a factor behind declining profits. The list grew long: Macy’s, Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, T.J.Maxx, Dollar General.
Year after year, things get even worse.
It is being reported that “revenue loss to theft has been steadily rising since 2016”, and “shrink” is now costing our retailers more than 100 billion dollars a year.
That is about the size of Russia’s entire military budget for 2024.
Just think about that for a few moments.
We have never seen anything like this before.
So far this year, retailers in New York City have filed more than 21,000 shoplifting complaints…
Don’t believe pro-crime progressives when they lie about public safety here in NYC: This year so far has seen 21,578 shoplifting complaints from Gotham’s retailers.
That’s a 5% increase over last year’s obscene 20,552; more than 41% of the 2024 crimes are concentrated in Manhattan.
And that’s part of an ugly, persistent trend.
Full-year numbers since 2021 have jumped from 43,892 to 59,137, an increase of almost 35% — and the real problem is surely far higher, as exhausted merchants don’t bother to report many incidents.
Even in the very best areas of the Big Apple, major retailers are being routinely ransacked, and authorities seem completely powerless to stop the endless crime wave…
Many would argue that conditions are even worse on the west coast.
One store manager in California that recently had a “meltdown reaction” when a young woman was stealing from her store says that businesses “are closing left and right because of all this looting going on”…
“Businesses are closing left and right because of all this looting going on,” Jolly said. “The system is broken, nothing is being done about it.”
She says that when she called police to report the incident, they suggested she contact the store’s insurance company.
“I just think it’s like, the people are trying to get away with it because there’s no consequences,” Jolly said, noting that the “meltdown reaction” came from a place of concern for her community and even the girl in the video. “I’m worried for her and she’s already doing this.”
It wasn’t like this when I was growing up.
But this is our country now.
In a desperate attempt to reduce shoplifting in his stores, Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos is removing self-checkout options in thousands of locations…
Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said Thursday that the company plans to remove self-checkout from “the vast majority of stores” as part of larger overall shrink reduction efforts that include changes in supply chain and merchandising. Dollar General has already removed self-checkouts from 12,000 of its more than 20,000 stores, Vasos said.
Walmart is also removing self-checkout kiosks from many stores, and the number of products that are being locked up just continues to increase…
A frustrated Walmart customer has revealed the latest item to be locked up on the shopfloor during the shoplifting crackdown – and it only costs $1.50.
Victoria Damor, 22, from Las Vegas, made a TikTok detailing her shocking experience at the big box retailer last month.
Her video, which she posted under her handle @toridamore, has already been seen by almost 90,000 people, who have flocked to the comments to share their outrage.
Talking to the camera, the shopper exclaimed: ‘This is the future of Walmart. I can’t even walk into Walmart and pick up a nail file worth $1.50 because it’s locked up.
When a $1.50 nail file has to be locked up in a cage so that the thieves can’t get at it, your country is in huge trouble.
Of course it isn’t just the United States that is descending into anarchy.
Shoplifting has also risen to unprecedented levels all over Europe.
For example, just check out these eye-popping figures from the UK…
According to the Office for National Statistics, 2023 was the worst year on record for shoplifting, with more than 430,000 cases recorded, an increase of more than a third from the year before. But that is probably just a fraction of the real number. The British Retail Consortium – the body representing almost all of the major retail chains, incorporating food and drink, fashion, DIY, health and beauty and more – recently reported that incidents of customer theft more than doubled from 8m to 16.7m in the period between 1 September 2022 and 31 August 2023. Losses reached £1.8bn, up from £950m the year before.
Throughout the western world, the numbers are moving in the wrong direction. If things are this bad now, what will happen once economic conditions become extremely harsh?
Even though economic conditions are still at least somewhat relatively stable, chaos is already erupting all around us.
I can’t even imagine what things will be like once tens of millions of people feel like they have nothing left to lose.
We really are in the early stages of a horrifying societal meltdown, and most of the population is not even close to ready for what is coming.
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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Kids these days aren’t trying to get jobs (well – that’s not universally true, but hear me out). The “solution” that will be pimped is Universal Basic Income (tied to your social credit score, of course). Automation isn’t destroying everything fast enough – so this slip into the downward spiral is a BOON to the globalists who want to enslave everybody. Never let a crisis go to waste, eh?
Another indication the end is near is everything I read is trying to sell me something……My answer is I do not want what you are selling…….
Police enforce the laws, they haven’t jobs for some time. The US is riots, shoplifting and lockdowns along with jailing political prisoners. Equals a banana republic.
I think you have e a bad strategy. You do not allow us newbies to share your content without first content moderation hurdle
Retail theft is out of control…you bet it is…nation wide…many stores have closed because of the daily onslaught of blatant criminal stealing merchandise and threatening store employees if they attempt to intervene….but its NOT just retail stores…don’t get sick, get mugged, have a vehicle accident or ever need hospital emergency treatment or an ambulance to get assistance.
Why must US Citizens pay excessively more for Emergency Hospital Treatment, Emergency Ambulance Services and Emergency Room Doctor Bills ?
Since undocumented immigrants can’t participate in the healthcare insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, millions of illegals will be excluded, leaving hospitals to continue to pick up the cost of their care, ambulance services write off uncollectible transportation charges and the same goes for higher Doctor Fees.
According to Pew Research, there are approximately 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. other sources say that estimate is much too low and the actual count should be 30-50 million.
The current estimate cost of treating uninsured undocumented immigrants, primarily at emergency rooms and ‘free’ clinics, is estimated at $4.3 billion annually, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
So who makes up for these losses? Hospitals, Ambulance Services and Emergency Room Doctors in order to pay their bills inflate their respective charges to US Citizens Health Care Insurance who then deny the claim in-part or in-whole and pass those charges to the respective US Citizen that received such emergency services who now has to pay HUGE sums of money or get sued, negative/adverse credit report on their credit bureau, massive amount to ‘dune-letters’ threatening civil foreclosure on their homes, bank accounts and/or all potential monetarily catastrophic possibilities are substantiated and in full endorsements by the current Presidential Administration that has encouraged the largest mass invasion of illegals in American History beginning on day one when President Biden took his oath of office to defend this nation and uphold the US Constitution.
What now ?…millions of US Citizens are sick and tired of ‘underwriting’ the ‘free emergency medical and child birth costs for the people that are designed to ‘replace US Citizens’ and become benefited non-citizens voters so that a apparent One-Party Political System may come into reality.
We need to pull together and vote this November as if our lives depend on it…because they do !