If the shoplifting of baby formula is epidemic, the main problem is not the shoplifting.
Jay Edidin — If the shoplifting of baby for...
"People are committing theft so that their infants don't starve!"
So the problem is that *if they don't*, their infants will starve, because they don't have the means to keep them from starving without theft.
Exactly. The problem isn't that people are stealing baby formula; the problem is that people don't have adequate, accessible ways to keep their babies fed.
(Oversimplified, the problem is that the theft is even *possible* bc baby formula should be fucking free.)
Yeah. Formula was so terrifyingly expensive when my daughter was little & it's only gotten worse over the last 23 years. I breastfed as long as I could, but she was a biter.
Without WIC, it would have been so much terror and theft for me. 🤷🏻
My parents had to supplement with massive bowls of porridge because I ate like a bear, and they couldn’t afford me to gorge on baby food,
So that was pricey 38 years ago too.
I'm a cashier,& honestly, I don't know how anyone not in the upper middle class would survive having kids without WIC. That shit is ridiculously expensive. Honestly, I wouldn't be bothered if they put diapers on WIC too.
People don't always realize how much money you can make and still be eligible.
Honestly, some sort of diaper solution would be so helpful. I can't imagine trying to raise a baby today. It was expensive enough a quarter century ago.
And we can't ask people to go back to cloth diapers like my mother did (I'm old...at 58 I was probably one of the last cloth diaper babies.) That either requires you have your own washer and drier, or the backbreaking physical labor of handwashing because laundromats won't let you do it.
Or a laundry service, yeah. They have those now. And I'm 47 - my brother is 41 - you're not quite one of the last.
Honestly, a laundry service would probably be long-term cheaper for state funding than disposables. 🤷🏻
Correct!
People steal stuff to sell it
This problem is also solved by making baby formula free.
Taking the profit out of something is an effective way of making it scarcer. This is why some states have liquor monopolies - to discourage alcoholism. Are you trying to help babies kick a formula addiction? I'm confused.
yeah, and the fact that people are having to buy baby formula under the table because it's too fucking expensive *is a problem*
The thieves are making it more expensive - they are not a charity.
The reason baby formula was scarce for a while had to do with regulatory problems plus factory QC problems
why is there such a lucrative market for *checks notes* something babies need to drink to survive
baby formula should be produced in such quantities and so freely available that stealing it would be pointless
expecting and new mothers should be receiving so much baby formula from the state that they are drowning in it
same with food in general, but especially baby formula. a baby can't work
imagine a world in which it wasn't lucrative to resell stolen baby formula because people could afford it in the first place
FWIW, I worked at a grocery store 10 years ago, and baby formula was kept behind the customer service desk for this reason.
But I do agree with the sentiment of the other comments. Babies have no boot straps, formula should be easy enough to get that gray markets for it aren't lucrative.
We kind of keep circling back to parents desperately needing formula for their babies though
And why is baby formula a particularly profitable target for theft?
It started when the FDA shut a plant over product safety
Plus too many limits on imported formula, arguably
There are complex policy questions balancing safety and quantity - formula is almost like a medical product
All of that complexity goes away if baby formula is free, though
If baby formula is free nobody has to manufacture it or make sure it's safe? Big if true.
If baby formula is free, nobody steals it, either to use or to sell. The rest becomes irrelevant to the subject at hand.
If it's scarce, even if there's no money - some babies will starve, and parents will steal, lie, cheat and kill to make sure it's not their babies.
A lot of this happened in the USSR, which had a lot more scarcity than the USA
It is not scarce, though, there is literally nothing but naked capitalism preventing the U.S. from manufacturing enough formula for every infant in the nation and then some
There was in fact a shortage. And every system other than capitalism has a lot more shortages.
www.reuters.com/business/hea...
Explainer: What happened with Abbott baby formula that worsened a U.S. shortage?
Abbott Laboratories , the biggest U.S. supplier of powder infant formula including Similac, has agreed with regulators on steps needed to resume production at its Sturgis, Michigan, manufacturing plant.
www.reuters.comWhy was there a shortage? (didactic)
OP blocked me for truth, apparently
some people never watched Les Mis
* they watched Les Mis on Broadway b/c they wanted to say they’d been to a broadway show for social caché but they didn’t understand it and can’t apply that knowledge because they didn’t receive a sufficient Humanities education in college
I don't need a collage education to know stealing food for your starving children is the correct thing to do.
Temple Of The Dog - Hunger Strike
REMASTERED IN HD! Music video by Temple Of The Dog performing Hunger Strike. (C) 1991 A&M Records #TempleOfTheDog #HungerStrike #Remastered
youtu.bealso i stg if you show up here to claim that breastfeeding is free i will block you so hard your whole family will feel it
Lactation consultants cost $300/hour and aren’t covered by most insurance
Fuck, even if you're that one lucky parent for whom breastfeeding is immediate and easy, the time and additional nutritional needs are massive.
Also, safety. To have food at Hand, stocked and ready to go if needed, is a massive positive thing. Like people get sick or whatever
My wife had pre-eclampsia and had a stressful birth, and we still agree that the worst part of the birthing experience was the lactation consultants being judgemental when I asked for a demo of how to formula feed *just in case*.
Oh yes, all our kids were born in early 2000s. Oldest didn't eat much for two or three days because of the lactation consultants and guilt. After that, we went formula and pumping.
I don't even get why people think breastfeeding is the only real way to feed newborns, feeding infants without breastmilk has existed as a concept for MANY hundreds of years, and countless infants died before the invention of feeding alternatives... not all infants are capable of breastfeeding.
just so everyone knows - If you live in the USA and qualify for WIC they often have lactation consultants on staff who will talk to you as part of the program. They also have pumps you can borrow and other supports wicbreastfeeding.fns.usda.gov/get-support-...
Get Support from WIC | WIC Breastfeeding SupportLock
Whether you’re just starting out or having challenges, WIC is there for you at every step. Whether you're just starting out on your breastfeeding journey or having unexpected challenges, WIC is there ...
wicbreastfeeding.fns.usda.govOh that’s great!
My wife struggled a lot with breastfeeding, despite wanting it *so bad*, and knowing that the COVID vaccine protection she got after baby was born could be delivered to him that way. So, to anyone trying to bring that shit here I say:
Same with my sister-in-law. She still looks stricken whenever she talks about it.
Just reminded of co workers having to pump in the bathroom :) such a sanitary place the bathroom :)
My recent former employer had the mommy rooms in the bathroom at the office. Health insurer. I do not know why they did that.
Ugh yes, when I worked for an Xbox call center back in the 10s, we had 7 women in the whole 200+ contract, one of which was pumping.
They gave her a cushy chair and a curtain in the bathroom and called it good.
nicely illegal yet pretty that way much everywhere
Breastfeeding is free. I know, because I am a childless white man.
(Hopefully obvious sarcasm is obvious)
Try putting /s at the end of the message to be sure they'll realize that. :3
Yeah but then like....that diminishes the skeet.
Though why I care about diminishing something called a skeet I'll never fuckin know
Hell, I'm in that demographic myself (though more explicitly childfree), but would never in a million years say that...
Not just it's obviously rude and tone-deaf. I was bottle-fed myself, I'm fine with that.
"breastfeeding is free" always comes from the same people that making it illegal for us trans women to breastfeed.
Does anyone even know in how many states and countries breastfeeding is outright illegal and put us in men's jail?
like, not only is it ableistic to assume everyone *can* breastfeed, but it also comes in cases with legal barriers as well
This really surprised me, so I'm glad you pointed it out. People actually took the effort to make breastfeeding by trans women illegal?? That crosses so many boundaries. I'm just baffled anyone would do this. It's inhumane and harmful for both the woman and the child.
people showing up to smugly say "people are stealing it to sell it" as if the existence of a massive grey market for baby formula is some kind of gotcha and not *a horrifying illustration of the problem*
I mean at that point whatever they're reselling it for is an understandable fee because that person just risked jail time to get you cheaper formula
Getting pissed at Robin Hood over here.
Except in USA 2024, they are selling it *for a higher price* because of a shortage *they helped to create by stealing a bunch of it*.
The shortage was the result of manufacturing contamination. This is extremely well documented.
Please take your deep carnal love of corporate price-gouging elsewhere.
Whatever shortage *already existed*, if people then either *buy up or steal* a bunch of what managed to get to the shelves intending to re-sell it, they are exacerbating the shortage in order to make a profit, just like ppl did with TP in 2020.
TP was not bought for resale. TP was panic-buying for people who expected not to be able to leave their houses due to a news media environment that was trying to scare them. The people posting about it on social media exacerbated it. Nobody was selling TP, and if they were no one was buying.
I don't know what to tell you, but people buying things aiming to create an artificial shortage and resell them has gone crazy over the last decade in particular. Tickets to events are one of the biggest things, also limited edition kids' toys or *things as basic as water* in disaster areas.
Yeah, but toilet paper is not one of them. I'm aware that the crazy hustle culture has driven prices up on most non-necessities and collector items, because I am a collector of things. Something important to remember is that just because something is listed for sale doesn't mean it will EVER sell.
That's why it pisses me off so bad when youtubers make a video talking about the most expensive video game or toy or whatever and look only at Ebay listings and not Ebay sales. Just because someone posts a limited edition plush up for 2k doesn't mean anyone bought it for that price. Don't get fooled
Prices are supply AND demand. Just because some people are stupid or desperate enough to pay scalpers doesn't mean that most people are. Demand is far more important than supply, and just because people are gonna pay a premium for Taylor Swift tickets doesn't mean they'll do the same for TP.
My wife works at a retail store and every year when stuff comes out for holidays, they are deluged w/people trying to buy as many of them as they can, looking to flip them online. I can't imagine if *no one was buying* that this would keep going this many years later.
Yeah. Toys and seasonal limited edition offerings. Not daily necessities. People were scrambling, and some were desperate, but you forget that that happened when no one had money at all. When no one has money, necessities do not sell at a premium. People figure it out. Stop digging your heels in.
Eh, plenty of people were working from home and still getting regular paychecks, but my main point is *there really are some shitty people who will try to take advantage of an already bad situation*. Even if they don't find buyers, hoarding stuff w/intent to sell it still makes the shortage worse.
how do those boots taste?
People are so weird on social media.
I had an infant who was formula fed in 2022 and this is just not what happened. People were not buying up formula to resell at a markup - there was none to be had and as soon as the recall hit limits were put in place. If people were buying stuff it was because they needed it or friends did.
The fact it did not happen with *some items* does not mean it *does not happen with some other items*. I literally *never said* this is the only or even the primary cause of price gouging, I only said *that it does happen*.
No one is talking about other items. You derailed things to try to go "nuh-uh!" This was about baby formula and solely that until you decided to drag things off-topic.
I replied to someone who was saying it was OK for people to steal formula *and sell it*. My comment was addressing the fact that people who do that are making the problem worse. Other people somehow decided that meant I was defending corporate gouging, which I never did.
Like in all of my parenting groups there was tons of posts of people trying to find what stores had any in stock and people offering to mail whatever they could find to those who needed it.
How is that any different, morally speaking, from what the grocery stores are already doing? Everything we consume has been stolen in some way, somewhere along the line. The entire system is built on exploitation, and that's why we say there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
It's weird how on social media, if you make a post *about one thing* but you don't also *explicitly exclude everything else* people just assume that means you don't care/know about everything else.
To answer, it's even more dastardly because it's exploiting the problem already created by the store price gouging and then *making it worse* by adding even more cost on top of it to exploit people who *actually need it*, rather than fighting against the gouging (stealing then *giving it away*)
I agree, the latter would be much better!
Stealing things in short supply and then scalping them is, in fact, a different thing entirely. I couldn’t find any claims that that is happening, but “that’s not happening” is different from “that would be fine”
My "is that very different"(rhetorical) is definitely different from "that would be fine"(literal).
Pancakes, waffles, etc.
I’m not trying to refute your point, I’m just saying that deadbat’s argument has a false premise.
I can’t find evidence that grey and black market prices are higher *except* for illegally imported formula that’s purchased by rich people.
You’ve got a point but you’re arguing against false premises
Ah, okay! I misunderstood what you were saying. 👍
<3 !
I want to say--I don't have anything to cite about *baby formula specifically*, no. Just that in general, there are organized groups of people making theft their business model in ways that were far less prevalent pre-2020. I don't mean the "flash mob" low-level stuff conservatives freak out over...
but again, my wife works retail and their stores more and more discover organized small groups (<10 people) that develop a shoplifting method and then go around hitting all of their stores in the area, or go through all the stores in a shopping center if not caught...
when they catch someone, often the person will drop the items and run out of the store (so they can't detain them), and then managers go back and review security footage and see the person is working w/other people, has been there before, often shows up on footage from other stores, etc.
No one is claiming that formula isn’t getting stolen.
You said that the resellers are selling it for more than retail price.
I said that in the USA in 2024 that's what people often are doing. As I said above, I don't specifically have data to cite about formula *specifically*, so if I overgeneralized, then I stand corrected.
So, you made it up?
dead brain designs
All references to grey and black market formula I can find either refer to fraudulent wholesale purchases at a discount or imports.
Got any citations for that?
Nobody shoplifted enough baby formula to cause the shortage. Be serious. It was corporate consolidation and cost-cutting at the expense of consumer safety.
Besides which, how would stealing it to sell it cause a shortage - demand would be filled by the stolen stuff. Only way the stealing would cause a shortage would be if the thieves were throwing it away or drinking it all themselves.
don't believe you
those people and the "it's free!" people make me wish i could punch through the internet.
Right?
Wish I had a guest link, but the first part of this article is pretty horrifying. Even the assistance programs have a cost, po folks can’t afford that kind of time sink, etc
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
A Very Expensive, Technically Illegal Workaround to the Formula Shortage
While some parents struggle to get ahold of formula, others with the means and know-how are turning to the black market.
www.theatlantic.comThe rest of the article appears to deal with black/grey market imports from elsewhere, but I’m not a subcriber so it is what it is.
i'm not either, unfortunately.
It’s annoying because that’s where it sounds like the “increase in black/grey market cost” is coming from which would further emphasize the “the folks shoplifting that stuff are not at all the problem” line.
mmm. good point, yeah it would.
This part blows my mind:
"The instructions typically aren’t in English, the preparation requires metric units, the ratio of water to powdered formula is different from the U.S. standard"
I've never bought formula that didn't come with a little scoop and pictograms. 1 scoop/30ml. 30ml ~= 1oz.
And Dr Brown's bottles list both US oz and ml (how I know they're close). Wouldn't bottles sold for both US and Canadian markets be the same?
"They're selling it" to me is on the same tier as "people on food stamps buy junk food instead of vegetables" and I care exactly as much about that argument as this one (i.e. not at all)
Also it's crazy that the risk of jail time is cheaper than the MSRP on the formula.
My kid was born right in the middle of the '22 shortage and he and I had trouble latching. I was GREATFUL I was able to find some of dubious sourcing on Amazon so my newborn didn't starve. Fortunately, I was able to pump enough milk to not need it after a few weeks. But that grey market saved us.
My friend's mom is the first of her siblings to live past infancy because they're all allergic to breastmilk and are lactose intolerant literally between her older sister and her births they came out with a formula that they could drink.
It doesn't get any more literally life and death than that
block their entire FACE
(Breastfeeding was fucking AWFUL and my kids would have starved without formula)
Its a well known fact many cannot breastfeed, and many infants are incapable of breastfeeding and need to be bottle-fed because they cannot latch onto a tit (often due to health conditions). Anyone who is devoted to 'breastfeeding' and hates bottle-feeding wants infants to die and deserves a block.
Or if they can latch on, it's painful as hell for the breastfeeding parent. My child probably has lip and/or tongue tie and no one would take me seriously about it, so I toughed it out since she also had allergies and food intolerances that made getting formula nearly impossible.
It's not just health conditions. They just can't or won't latch very well. We needed a nipple shield and a lot of coaxing. Ultimately most of the breast milk he got was from pumping, with one or two sessions a day at the breast for comfort/bonding. It was exhausting because I had to pump AND feed.
THANK YOU.
But Mr Musk says having kids is free
Mr Musk is advocating no prenatal care, and delivering babies behind the Wendy’s dumpster, I guess.
Or he’s advocating that some babies should live and some not… wonder if there’s a pattern
Quite the mystery.
Concerning.
It is the way he does it. Treating impregnation fetish like duck hunting
You’re damn right, there is an oversupply of babies.
This is not charming or funny in the ways I suspect you intended.
Or hope, at least. Because otherwise, eek.
It was not a serious position statement.
Be prepared for oblique angles.
And why is baby formula so expensive??
Because manufacturers artificially raise the profit margins on baby formula since so much of it is subsidized by the govt. Formula isn't expensive to make, but the companies are profiting huge off it because most of it is bought with WIC.
What could solve this problem?
Well, you could, for example, regulate the prices. And if the companies don't agree to that then I guess you could take the means of production away from the companies unless they agree to price regulations.
Nationalize those companies.
I'm down.
Not only those, of course.
Energy companies.
Transport companies.
Just to start with.
Let's goooo!
It's not being stolen by the people who need it. It's stolen by theft rings because they can then price gouge.
And why is the theft of baby formula so lucrative?
You're missing the point completely.
Cause once the store is cleaned out the can jack the price. This has been going on since the 70s at least .
Citation extremely needed.
Likewise
Ummm... I'm not the one making a claim. I'm asking you to support yours...
Oooookaaaayyy....
There are hundreds of news articles on the web of rings busted with thousands of $ of product. Before the web it was in the news all the time. I know they don't sell it cheap, when my kids were little they would try to sell it to me
Citation?
Yeah, no. People lawfully purchasing goods do this shit too. Stop trying to derail the conversation.
I empathize having been poor while parenting. It sounded to me like the poster was saying that this happens at a large scale. That's what I question, would like to see evidence of that.
Because I was asked to provide evidence.
The answer to "Why are people so desperate to buy cheaper stolen baby formula?" Is corporate price gouging. A necessary thing for the growth of many infants has become a near luxury good.
Someone stealing bread to feed their family is not a career criminal, but a desperate person surviving.
And Lord have mercy if you need special formula, like soy free. My cousin had to supplement her daughter, because baby was intolerant of so many foods, and cousin needed to EAT. If she ate something the baby couldn't tolerate, she had to formula feed for a few hours until it passed through.
I remember her eating bacon at a family event, and telling me "I can either feed her after this, and she'll be super cranky and sick, or I can give her the expensive formula. Which only sometimes makes her cranky. But GOD I miss bacon."
Thankfully kiddo outgrew the issue by about 2, but OOF.
My oldest was allergic to milk proteins and needed hypoallergenic formula, and a generic one hadn't been developed yet. It cost us over $300 a month. Thank god we were eligible for WIC because we couldn't afford that.
My nephew AT was this kid; my SIL decided that her mental stability was more important than the elimination diet EBF would've required, so he was on some crazy-expensive soy-and-dairy-free formula until weaning.
I fly into an absolute rage when working class people side with corpo pricks instead of having some goddamn class solidarity. Or, I don't know, humanity???
Honestly though, I’m in my early 40s and I have never witnessed anyone ever shoplift anything.
When I worked in retail a million years ago, they told us baby food was the most stolen product
No it wasn't. Nobody stole baby food ever at all. 😉
That's right!
You didn't see it, I didn't see it, NO ONE saw it!
Got that?
I didn't see anything at all. 🙈
Qui bono, I ask
It's the babies calling the shots in this syndicate
When I worked retail and brought that up I was told people stole it to cut it with drugs, but looking back I'm thinking that was probably bullshit
yeah that sounds roughly rainbow-parties level of credible
...I can't even fathom how that would help given the textures of formula. Like you "cut" drugs with that and then no one can use them because formula is STICKY and then dissolves in liquid.
If I bought some cocaine and it smelled of baby formula I'd find a new dealer
Why would anyone cut drugs with baby formula when the baking soda is right there?
As someone said "If you see someone stealing baby formula (or sanitary or food or etc etc), you didn't"
YES, INstead they should shoplift condoms, these motherfuckers!
Some of them are mother fuckers, but not all. What they do in their bedroom isn't my business.
OH, you mean the other kind?
Those rip.
Fucking for pleasure is fine with me.
What I can't stand is those bonobos who want to turn every drop of semen to a baby.
Hey now, don't put down Bonobos. Those monkeys use sex for *everything,* and are typically more compassionate.
My heartfelt apologies to Bonobos.
They're honest and decent beings.
Unfortunately the men that have to put them on often use forced pregnancy as a means of control in an abusive relationship.
I often see people saying stuff like "the people shoplifting the baby formula are selling it, not keeping it."
To which I reply, if they're selling it at a lower price than the store, then you still have the exact same problem.
I am learning to lockpick pretty much solely because of this. They can’t arrest you for opening a cabinet. They can ban you from the Target, but they’ll have to do it a couple of times before that means something.
Oh, the locks on those things are dirt cheap wafer locks. You don't even really have to know how to "pick locks." I carry a wave rake in my wallet. Stick it in the lock, jiggle it back and forth for a second or three, and eventually the lock turns.
For maximum covertness, wear the same kind of shirt as the store staff when you do it. At a glance, you'll just look like an employee who's having a bit of trouble with the lock.
What are you talking about? I don't see anyone shoplifting baby formula.
And if you do, you're mistaken.
Same goes for diapers.
Diapers are ridiculously expensive. And people will say to use cloth, but unless you have an in-unit washer/dryer or can afford pickup and drop off laundry service, cloth is untenable
We used cloth for one kid. It's also untenable of you don't have a shitload of time for washing diapers. We only got through it because I was semi-unemployed at the time (which caused its own issues).
Also, it's a pretty significant initial cost. Like so many things, you can only afford the "cheap" option if you are able to pull together a few hundred extra dollars all at once at the beginning.
It's a lot more hot water, too. I remember mom doing cloth diapers for siblings: it was pretty much us constantly doing laundry loads of soiled diapers & diaper covers. And the diapers? You have to wash them HOT, to sanitize them.
There's a reason (expensive!) diaper laundry services are in demand.
I used cloth with my now-14-year-old; I was able to do it bc I was on a mostly telecommute schedule at work, had a functional washer/dryer, and *my mom* helped with the startup costs.
Or live in a drought prone area and are trying not to overuse water, etc. People have the weirdest ideas about how any of this works.
There's a reason diaper banks are a thing ... and that is a fucking distopian sentence fragment right there: www.centraljerseydiaperbank.org
In the land of government enforced birth, the necessity for baby formula theft is especially an abomination. Those who insist every pregnancy end in a new human should particularly be mortified.
Pregnancy should come with a godddamn STIPEND.
Plus:
Free prenatal care.
Fully-paid leave for 1/yr, 70% 2nd year & WFH options prioritized.
Free hospital birth.
Free healthcare for the child & mother.
Free diapers.
Free formula and baby food.
Free or reduced cost childcare.
Basic baby clothes.
Basic child rearing expenses such as shelter, education and nutrition should be covered or subsidized up to age 18. Social and financial supports for family and community upbringing children needs to happen, too.
If society insists they want to boost the birthrate, let’s do it right.
Whats more baffling is that this is all fucking theater.
Its fake... like you can just get a clerk to get the formula / item out of the locked thing, and walk around a corner and steal it. No one follows the you and the formula until you check out.
I hate that its all theater.
That's wrong. At least at the grocery store where I work, the cashier gets it for you when you check out.
when i was a baby in the UK, mum got NHS milk for free every morning on the front steps
Tories have determined that was wrong and have not only ended the practice but are working out how much you owe the government (with interest) for its cost
This is literally moral development 101. Like it's a "quandary" discussed by philosophy students in college and everyone knows what the right answer is -feed the babies.
For sure
Exactly.
The baby formula we use went up 30% in just six months.
The best way to control #inflation is to lock c suite pay and bonuses to employees pay. Ceo compensation can not exceed a specific percentage of the lowest paid employee.
The other fucked up part is it's not an epidemic of shoplifting at all. Retailers made it up. There's no evidence of it.
Bro I have a 6 month old and the friggin joy we get when the pediatrician just hands us cans of formula at regular visits is wild. One time we got like 4 tons of formula and it was amazing. Shit is like $45 a pop.
To be clear: my wife and I are privileged enough to be able to take the cost of formula on the chin. Which is good for us but more than just my wife and I have babies
This is a marketing strategy for the formula companies so it’s very much a mixed bag
The idea is that when you run out of those tins, you’re going to more likely to buy that same kind at the store (at a price that is inflated to subsidize the give away, plus the free formula is prob a tax write off
The ethics of this happening in hospital labor and delivery wards are /fraught/ because it’s such a successful strategy and because discouraging formula feeding of infants is a really bad idea
Astute observation!
As always, remember that if you see someone stealing food: no you didn’t.
there's some off-label uses of baby formula that sorta complicate this argument
They really don't.
Teenagers with eosinophilic esophagitis should just starve, Jay. It’s the will of the invisible hand.
If you're buying the "they cut drugs with it" story, just think, why would they cut drugs with baby formula (expensive) instead of powdered milk (much cheaper)?
When you're stealing, the cost is zero, right
Only if you're stealing it personally, and you're a lot more likely to get busted stealing formula. Not to mention you could sell that formula and turn around and buy 5 times as much milk powder. Come on, use a little brain power here.
Nope. That's just a lie cops are telling you so that you won't object to their victimization of poor people who are just trying to feed babies.
baby socialism please
raising children should be free
one would think society being made of people would incentivize making more people right?
Raising children should be PAID. HANDSOMELY.
No parent should have to take a second job just to keep their family housed and fed.
Of course... the problem is babies
If you ever see someone shoplifting baby formula no you fuckin didn’t
Theft of things that people need to survive should be treated as an entirely civil matter. No criminal penalties. Ever. Even if you didn't actually need those necessary items yourself.
If you get caught, then sure, you should be liable to the rightful owner for the loss. Return the stolen goods. Or pay for them, if you can. That's fair enough. But no one should go to prison for being hungry or trying to feed those who are.
Eh, except that civil matters often wind up with people in jail when they can't pay the fine.
Also, it could be pointless to return the stolen items because a lot of grocery stores toss returned items for safety concerns.
<
While I understand the law is not always properly applied to such cases, per the letter of the law, that is not supposed to ever happen. There is no debtor's prison in this country.
If you unable to pay a civil penalty, then it is simply forgiven via insolvency. However, if the court determines that you are ABLE to pay and simply refuse, THEN you can be jailed for contempt of court. The problem arises when a court decides someone is able to pay, but in reality they are not.
I can at least respect stealing baby formula, or other nutrition. It's the people stealing Liquor and cigarettes. I mean seriously, you f*cked up your life so badly that you are risking arrest to feed your bad habit?
hi sorry why do you feel this is appropriate or salient to post here
It was just a roundabout way of saying that unlike stealing other stuff, stealing food can be a morally correct action. I'm not sure what is so upsetting about that. I'm a cashier, & I see it everyday, and I get way more upset about people stealing that stuff, and don't get upset at all about food.
yeah, bro we need a purge
The real issue is baby formula addiction, we need to get these people treated in a supportive environment
If you see someone shoplifting baby formula or food in general. You didn't see it liar.
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If the shoplifting (...) is epidemic, the main problem is not the shoplifting.
If the shoplifting of baby formula is epidemic, the main problem is not the shoplifting.
The problem is, they are doing exactly that.
The problem is not one of hypocrisy. The problem is that lots of people are just bad people.
Not lost; wasted. The problem isn't that Dems are unable to help people, the problem is that they don't care. The Democratic party likes Trump more than they care about the needs of their constituents.
This is despicable.
Abusers are so desperate to insist that the problem goes away if you don't talk about it. That is because they see the problem as people interfering with their abuse. They like doing it.
this is astonishing. a surgeon is caught signing his initials into patients livers, blames other staff for whistleblowing it, then writes a novel about himself where his victim makes up being traumatised to ruin his career. his IRL victim (a woman ofc) is right to see it like rape. id feel raped too
...and that is the problem, in their eyes. They don't *want* people voting.
the problem is less that people don't think the leopards will eat their faces and more that they want to be the leopards
The GOP is openly drifting toward authoritarian religious fascism, and Americans must be alerted to the threat.
Listen to @gilduran.bsky.social:
www.theframelab.org/p/radical-ch...
Radical 'Christian nationalists' plot takeover under Trump
Understanding the Republican threat against freedom
www.theframelab.org
The problem is not that the wrong people keep getting elected, it’s that the elections don’t matter and voters don’t have a say.
What if I told you the problem isn’t the people who used the service, the problem is actually the lack of meaningful rules to safeguard their data?
(If your solution is “be psychic“ that means you really don’t have anything useful to contribute)
Don't use services that are bad stewards of your personal data.
The problem isn’t the boner, the problem is that they don’t know how to use it
If the problem is people don’t have money to feed their families, I have a WILD IDEA that might help with that!
Societal norms are irrelevant if the real problem is that people don’t care to follow them.
Geese are chill if you respect their personal space. The problem is that people don't realise that the personal space of a goose flock is LORGE.
The problem with this, is that people literally don’t comprehend what they read. These are the people that watch one news station, think their way of thinking is the only way.
Theft from artists is theft. There is a whole lot of AI that isn't that. There are also people working on solving the theft problem, and they work in AI. Either artists own their work, or they are victims of theft. You need AI people to work on stopping the theft.
It's always, always worth noting that the stuff stores lock up--the stuff people allegedly steal the most--is necessities. Baby formula. Toothpaste. Toilet paper.
The shoplifting--which isn't occurring anyway, but if it were--is not the main problem in this scenario.
The problem with the trolley problem meme is that people don't actually recognize what it means or when they are the actor in one...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote is not the flex some people think (?) it is
Economy doing so well that Walmart is now locking up baby formula across the country because all the new parents are thriving so hard that the only way their kids can not literally starve to death is by, again, stealing baby formula.
everyone i know is getting laid off but the economy is actually doing really well if u look at these 2 lines i drew
The problem with all these famous people is they keep giving us their opinions on social media. That is not a problem with people who are not famous.
The problem is that people are equipment to the military, squeaky cogs don't get fixed, they get replaced.
It sure seems to me that the problem isn’t people withholding their vote from Biden to protest genocide, the problem is people switching their vote to Trump because they *like* genocide.
Part of the problem is that people don't signal their exits from roundabouts in the United States, so car "C" has no idea if they need to yield or not.
The problem is that the folks in power don't want "common people" to have these:
Let's bust another myth wide open: Universal basic Income isn't a handout; it's a ladder. It's about giving us all the rungs we need to climb out of the cycle of survival mode and into lives where we can truly thrive. Let’s build a society where no one has to start at level 0 with nothing.
This is hardly the first time in US history that large numbers of people have believed stuff that is not true. That is not the problem. The problem is that large numbers of people are believing exactly the same constellation of untruths that are being fed to them by people in positions of power.