• MrVilliam@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      9 months ago

      Most of the “riots” people have complained about in the past 5 years have been directly caused by police existing in the way that it does. I can’t deny that police serve as a deterrent for some people regarding some things, but I don’t think I’d live much differently. I’d probably shoplift from big box stores occasionally, but not out of greed. It’s about taking money, not making money. If everybody stole a can of food from Walmart every day to give to the hungry, there would be no more hungry and Walmart would still make billions.

      • dice@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        That’s absurd. 250 million weekly visitors stealing a $1 item per visit would amount to $13B per year in losses, approximately equal to Walmart’s annual net income. They would love to raise prices to compensate (2% should do it) but then they would lose the equivalent in sales to competitors like Amazon that don’t face as much risk from theft losses.

        • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          False. Walmart makes about $600 BILLION per year.

          Idk where you found the $13B figure, since that’s less than the amount they made OVER the previous year’s earnings.

          I know what you’re thinking: “but that’s revenue, not profit!” Okay sure, and let’s not even address what qualifies as a “loss” for a massive business like Walmart because I don’t even need to get into that to make my point. Still, they profited nearly $150B in 2022, source is the same link but lower on the page.

          Walmart makes over $250k per employee, and nearly 15k of those employees are on food stamps, which means that our tax dollars are being used to subsidize their exploited labor force to make them 12-figure profits.

          So yeah, I think we’re kinda sorta morally obligated to steal from them in order to feed the hungry that they are responsible for making hungry in the first fucking place.

          • JWBananas@startrek.website
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            9 months ago

            Idk where you found the $13B figure, since that’s less than the amount they made OVER the previous year’s earnings.

            I pulled this from your link:

            Revenue

            $611.3B

            Net Income

            $11,680,000,000

      • applejacks@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        24
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        the rioters wanted free jordans and TVs.

        they had nothing to do with police brutality.

    • Zippy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      18
      ·
      9 months ago

      It is funny that you get down voted as this is likely one of the only posts here that is accurate.