Crime and Punishment

[Farfromgeneva]

There was an interesting event last week at a local Big Lots Store near our house. A shop lifter in the process of leaving the store with his bag of goodies punched the assistant manager in the face. The manager, witnessing the assault called police and followed the bad actor into the parking lot. The police were unable to locate the individual. Two weeks later the manager was fired for violating Big Lots policy by calling the police without approval by his district manager. Big Lots policy is to not impede or interfere or confront any shop lifter. Even if that individual assaults one of your employees. If I was a shoplifter I would do all of my thieving at Big Lots. They are shoplifter friendly for sure. If you ask nicely they might even give you a bag to put your goodies in. It is quite the dilemma for Big Lots. They don't want to confront these people out of fear of them becoming violent. The down side is they are being shop lifted out of existence. These bad actors understand store policy and will happily take advantage of it. It has to be frustrating for any manager to just watch stolen merchandise walking out the door and all you can do is watch and then make a report to upper management. Who said crime doesn't pay because apparently it does.

FTR for what it is worth, I use to shop at this same Big Lots store fairly frequently. I didn't know the manager in question. I do know in the year or so he was the manager of that store he busted his ass and turned it from a chaotic mess into a well run and organized store. This Big Lots is a stones throw away from the Wegmans I shop at every week. The Wegman family has taken a different approach, if you try to walk out of their store with a bag full of stolen merchandise you will meet the asset protection people up close and personal. Why Big Lots has chosen this path to bankruptcy is painfully clear. They are more concerned about a violent and combative thief being injured and suing the crap out of them. The moral of the story is you can be a dedicated store manager who becomes nothing more than a scape goat for corporate America. How frustrating must it be for a store manager to watch his merchandise walking out the front door and all you can do is watch and shake your head. The thief assaulting one of your employees doesn't even change those dynamics. I call this the death of common sense. Whoever said crime doesn't pay should be the new CEO of Big Lots. BTW, I will never shop at Big Lots again not like they will be in business for very much longer with some of their present policies.

You think shoplifting is why Big Lots is in the toilet?

Depends on how much shrinkage of inventory they can sustain. I do know shoplifting is becoming a huge problem for retail establishments. I do know that an increasing # of future 5 finger discounters have figured out no one is going to stop them. So what your clumsily trying to say is that retail theft is NBD...got it...

Hes not saying that hes' questioning your relatively thin business analysis. Otherwise 100% of businesses in NYC from 1965 - 1990 wouldve failed and that didn't happen.

If the Big Lots store I am speaking about goes OOB then my business analysis becomes irrelevant to something both you and I might refer to as reality. Your a business and financial guy. How much shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots survive? The point you may have missed or glossed over was this... The manager that was fired was transferred by Big Lots to help out this store that was struggling terribly for a number of reasons. He did an excellent job from what I could see. The store while under his management has become squared away. The Big Lots policy about how they deal with shoplifting is their business. In this instance one of his employees was assaulted as the alleged shoplifter left the premises. This was no longer simply an issue dealing with a shoplifter it became an assault on a Big Lots employee. Bottom line is the manager was fired and if this particular Big Lots store stays open until December I will be impressed. FTR when this store goes OOB I will keep you in the loop in regards to my " thin business" analysis. I may not have a doctorate in finance but I spent 45 years working in food service in regards to restaurants and retail stores. When a bunch of dumbasses took over the old Jillian's in downtown Rochester I installed all of the beverage dispensers in that location. I paid very close attention to what their business model was going to be. I predicted they would be OOB in 6 months. I was wrong, they lasted for 4 months.
BTW I mentioned to you awhile back about the owner of Nick Tahous selling the historic restaurant building. It could be a money pit but it is a magnificent old building. I bet if you looked at closely you would agree it has serious possibilities.

All that doesn’t change anything. You could trip across the right outcome and be wrong in your analysis. But I know you don’t get that and aren’t trying to get it. FFG says as matter of fact with maybe a hint of fatigue form trying previously not insulting it’s how you like it. Trust me I learned if just fine with your expert analysis and masters in hard knocks as it relates to mental health and the science an ditching of addiction. Plus like 75 other topics. But I suppose I occasionally still try because I thinj your good people under the willful ignorance you enjoy like a warm blanket in a cold, scary and dark winter.

So somewhere in your psychoanalysis of me you lost tract of my question. I'll try it one more time... How much inventory shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots absorb? That is after all the entire point of my post. Do you wish to give a clear and concise answer?

You started out with "they are being shoplifted out of existence" then when questioned insist I do the work you can do on the google machine btw. Seems very lazy on your part. Look at all the claims you made plus the one time you guessed and were right. This is lazy to demand others do the work to support or refute your claims based on these bolded and other comments embedded. Yes I absolutley am smarter and know more than you about business and there's no point in debating that further. Does that make you happy that the mean educmacated guy (and I'll throw down on school of hard knocks with you all day and night, I'm obviously superior to your dead friend becuase my relationship with my children is thriving right now and there's someone on this board who I think would testify he saw a glimpse of that very recently in person - other than he might say I'm a fatty now and my hairline is more than just "creeping at the corners" which I can't dent my lack of exercise lately and lack of effciacy of nioxin shampoo).

This daring me to prove it to you is just stupid in the arena of finance and especially more stressed or distressed or structured areas of finance. its akin to me going to Little TLD (whos not so little now) and saying "bro I dare you to try and dodge by me and score!" (except I'm dirty and the minute his first move has me falling on my face im grabbing his a** and taking him down with me and going "see I told ya"!)

[cradleandshoot]

There was an interesting event last week at a local Big Lots Store near our house. A shop lifter in the process of leaving the store with his bag of goodies punched the assistant manager in the face. The manager, witnessing the assault called police and followed the bad actor into the parking lot. The police were unable to locate the individual. Two weeks later the manager was fired for violating Big Lots policy by calling the police without approval by his district manager. Big Lots policy is to not impede or interfere or confront any shop lifter. Even if that individual assaults one of your employees. If I was a shoplifter I would do all of my thieving at Big Lots. They are shoplifter friendly for sure. If you ask nicely they might even give you a bag to put your goodies in. It is quite the dilemma for Big Lots. They don't want to confront these people out of fear of them becoming violent. The down side is they are being shop lifted out of existence. These bad actors understand store policy and will happily take advantage of it. It has to be frustrating for any manager to just watch stolen merchandise walking out the door and all you can do is watch and then make a report to upper management. Who said crime doesn't pay because apparently it does.

FTR for what it is worth, I use to shop at this same Big Lots store fairly frequently. I didn't know the manager in question. I do know in the year or so he was the manager of that store he busted his ass and turned it from a chaotic mess into a well run and organized store. This Big Lots is a stones throw away from the Wegmans I shop at every week. The Wegman family has taken a different approach, if you try to walk out of their store with a bag full of stolen merchandise you will meet the asset protection people up close and personal. Why Big Lots has chosen this path to bankruptcy is painfully clear. They are more concerned about a violent and combative thief being injured and suing the crap out of them. The moral of the story is you can be a dedicated store manager who becomes nothing more than a scape goat for corporate America. How frustrating must it be for a store manager to watch his merchandise walking out the front door and all you can do is watch and shake your head. The thief assaulting one of your employees doesn't even change those dynamics. I call this the death of common sense. Whoever said crime doesn't pay should be the new CEO of Big Lots. BTW, I will never shop at Big Lots again not like they will be in business for very much longer with some of their present policies.

You think shoplifting is why Big Lots is in the toilet?

Depends on how much shrinkage of inventory they can sustain. I do know shoplifting is becoming a huge problem for retail establishments. I do know that an increasing # of future 5 finger discounters have figured out no one is going to stop them. So what your clumsily trying to say is that retail theft is NBD...got it...

Hes not saying that hes' questioning your relatively thin business analysis. Otherwise 100% of businesses in NYC from 1965 - 1990 wouldve failed and that didn't happen.

If the Big Lots store I am speaking about goes OOB then my business analysis becomes irrelevant to something both you and I might refer to as reality. Your a business and financial guy. How much shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots survive? The point you may have missed or glossed over was this... The manager that was fired was transferred by Big Lots to help out this store that was struggling terribly for a number of reasons. He did an excellent job from what I could see. The store while under his management has become squared away. The Big Lots policy about how they deal with shoplifting is their business. In this instance one of his employees was assaulted as the alleged shoplifter left the premises. This was no longer simply an issue dealing with a shoplifter it became an assault on a Big Lots employee. Bottom line is the manager was fired and if this particular Big Lots store stays open until December I will be impressed. FTR when this store goes OOB I will keep you in the loop in regards to my " thin business" analysis. I may not have a doctorate in finance but I spent 45 years working in food service in regards to restaurants and retail stores. When a bunch of dumbasses took over the old Jillian's in downtown Rochester I installed all of the beverage dispensers in that location. I paid very close attention to what their business model was going to be. I predicted they would be OOB in 6 months. I was wrong, they lasted for 4 months.
BTW I mentioned to you awhile back about the owner of Nick Tahous selling the historic restaurant building. It could be a money pit but it is a magnificent old building. I bet if you looked at closely you would agree it has serious possibilities.

All that doesn’t change anything. You could trip across the right outcome and be wrong in your analysis. But I know you don’t get that and aren’t trying to get it. FFG says as matter of fact with maybe a hint of fatigue form trying previously not insulting it’s how you like it. Trust me I learned if just fine with your expert analysis and masters in hard knocks as it relates to mental health and the science an ditching of addiction. Plus like 75 other topics. But I suppose I occasionally still try because I thinj your good people under the willful ignorance you enjoy like a warm blanket in a cold, scary and dark winter.

So somewhere in your psychoanalysis of me you lost tract of my question. I'll try it one more time... How much inventory shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots absorb? That is after all the entire point of my post. Do you wish to give a clear and concise answer?

I mean this is just silly I lived in high yield for a number of years where retail is a common industry represented. You want me to run circles around you on this topic and you know it or just accept your anecdotal local store analysis is lacking. I’m not answering because you ever read mortally or the to understand so it is just you wanting to waste my time for no useful outcome. That’s why I’m not bothering. I’ve been explain credit products and trade / supply chain finance all last week often to execs or c suites at major public financial institutions (CPACE tax lien financing on a BK biodiesel plant, bidding on a existing lending business in the Midwest with a friends LP investor money, how you get incremental support by both factoring and taking a promissory note from the buyer in short term credit. Have a call on Weds with a CFO to explain how risk weighting works and structure of “on balance sheet securitization”. And I even once underwrote a loan on a. Couple of “anchored” (big lots doesn’t fit the definition of anchor but drives a light amount of traffic to the “in line tenants” and has to
Do a global occupancy costs analysis to see if rents were healthy or hitting the tenant (Big Lots) and makes shutting those specific stores down more at risk if they weren’t strategic and operating less efficiently on the margin.

I’ll give you a takedown if you promise and honor liek a man that promise to truly try and understand. I stink do business analysis on “man that’s store has some bad urban teens walking around it”…

I just would like for you to stop chasing your tail long enough to answer my very simple question. I'll try it yet again... How much shrinkage of inventory can a store like Big Lots continue to sustain? Once we get past that then please climb back up on your soapbox and continue on trying to enlighten me. The secondary issue which you overlooked was the manager of this store witnessed his assistant manager being assaulted by the alleged thief. I will do you a favor. This Big Lots store has hit its own iceberg and is slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I'll let you know when their going out business sale starts. Maybe you can find some good steals, oops I mean deals.

[Brooklyn]

This is every bit ugly as the the equivocation on the right and why younger so little support. Because this behavior will turn your cohort on the left further towards populist authoritarianism as you compete the circle with maga by not holding your own accountsbility and consistently distracting from self accountability required to have any moral or other authority instead of screaming form the internet until death.

translation please

[MDlaxfan76]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

[ardilla secreta]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

This is horrible news. It’s going to ruin our national reputation.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

They are leaving out Chicago, San Francisco and PG County.

[cradleandshoot]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

Statistics are fun things to manipulate. I don't know of any Americans who feel safer in our country today.

[Farfromgeneva]

There was an interesting event last week at a local Big Lots Store near our house. A shop lifter in the process of leaving the store with his bag of goodies punched the assistant manager in the face. The manager, witnessing the assault called police and followed the bad actor into the parking lot. The police were unable to locate the individual. Two weeks later the manager was fired for violating Big Lots policy by calling the police without approval by his district manager. Big Lots policy is to not impede or interfere or confront any shop lifter. Even if that individual assaults one of your employees. If I was a shoplifter I would do all of my thieving at Big Lots. They are shoplifter friendly for sure. If you ask nicely they might even give you a bag to put your goodies in. It is quite the dilemma for Big Lots. They don't want to confront these people out of fear of them becoming violent. The down side is they are being shop lifted out of existence. These bad actors understand store policy and will happily take advantage of it. It has to be frustrating for any manager to just watch stolen merchandise walking out the door and all you can do is watch and then make a report to upper management. Who said crime doesn't pay because apparently it does.

FTR for what it is worth, I use to shop at this same Big Lots store fairly frequently. I didn't know the manager in question. I do know in the year or so he was the manager of that store he busted his ass and turned it from a chaotic mess into a well run and organized store. This Big Lots is a stones throw away from the Wegmans I shop at every week. The Wegman family has taken a different approach, if you try to walk out of their store with a bag full of stolen merchandise you will meet the asset protection people up close and personal. Why Big Lots has chosen this path to bankruptcy is painfully clear. They are more concerned about a violent and combative thief being injured and suing the crap out of them. The moral of the story is you can be a dedicated store manager who becomes nothing more than a scape goat for corporate America. How frustrating must it be for a store manager to watch his merchandise walking out the front door and all you can do is watch and shake your head. The thief assaulting one of your employees doesn't even change those dynamics. I call this the death of common sense. Whoever said crime doesn't pay should be the new CEO of Big Lots. BTW, I will never shop at Big Lots again not like they will be in business for very much longer with some of their present policies.

You think shoplifting is why Big Lots is in the toilet?

Depends on how much shrinkage of inventory they can sustain. I do know shoplifting is becoming a huge problem for retail establishments. I do know that an increasing # of future 5 finger discounters have figured out no one is going to stop them. So what your clumsily trying to say is that retail theft is NBD...got it...

Hes not saying that hes' questioning your relatively thin business analysis. Otherwise 100% of businesses in NYC from 1965 - 1990 wouldve failed and that didn't happen.

If the Big Lots store I am speaking about goes OOB then my business analysis becomes irrelevant to something both you and I might refer to as reality. Your a business and financial guy. How much shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots survive? The point you may have missed or glossed over was this... The manager that was fired was transferred by Big Lots to help out this store that was struggling terribly for a number of reasons. He did an excellent job from what I could see. The store while under his management has become squared away. The Big Lots policy about how they deal with shoplifting is their business. In this instance one of his employees was assaulted as the alleged shoplifter left the premises. This was no longer simply an issue dealing with a shoplifter it became an assault on a Big Lots employee. Bottom line is the manager was fired and if this particular Big Lots store stays open until December I will be impressed. FTR when this store goes OOB I will keep you in the loop in regards to my " thin business" analysis. I may not have a doctorate in finance but I spent 45 years working in food service in regards to restaurants and retail stores. When a bunch of dumbasses took over the old Jillian's in downtown Rochester I installed all of the beverage dispensers in that location. I paid very close attention to what their business model was going to be. I predicted they would be OOB in 6 months. I was wrong, they lasted for 4 months.
BTW I mentioned to you awhile back about the owner of Nick Tahous selling the historic restaurant building. It could be a money pit but it is a magnificent old building. I bet if you looked at closely you would agree it has serious possibilities.

All that doesn’t change anything. You could trip across the right outcome and be wrong in your analysis. But I know you don’t get that and aren’t trying to get it. FFG says as matter of fact with maybe a hint of fatigue form trying previously not insulting it’s how you like it. Trust me I learned if just fine with your expert analysis and masters in hard knocks as it relates to mental health and the science an ditching of addiction. Plus like 75 other topics. But I suppose I occasionally still try because I thinj your good people under the willful ignorance you enjoy like a warm blanket in a cold, scary and dark winter.

So somewhere in your psychoanalysis of me you lost tract of my question. I'll try it one more time... How much inventory shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots absorb? That is after all the entire point of my post. Do you wish to give a clear and concise answer?

I mean this is just silly I lived in high yield for a number of years where retail is a common industry represented. You want me to run circles around you on this topic and you know it or just accept your anecdotal local store analysis is lacking. I’m not answering because you ever read mortally or the to understand so it is just you wanting to waste my time for no useful outcome. That’s why I’m not bothering. I’ve been explain credit products and trade / supply chain finance all last week often to execs or c suites at major public financial institutions (CPACE tax lien financing on a BK biodiesel plant, bidding on a existing lending business in the Midwest with a friends LP investor money, how you get incremental support by both factoring and taking a promissory note from the buyer in short term credit. Have a call on Weds with a CFO to explain how risk weighting works and structure of “on balance sheet securitization”. And I even once underwrote a loan on a. Couple of “anchored” (big lots doesn’t fit the definition of anchor but drives a light amount of traffic to the “in line tenants” and has to
Do a global occupancy costs analysis to see if rents were healthy or hitting the tenant (Big Lots) and makes shutting those specific stores down more at risk if they weren’t strategic and operating less efficiently on the margin.

I’ll give you a takedown if you promise and honor liek a man that promise to truly try and understand. I stink do business analysis on “man that’s store has some bad urban teens walking around it”…

I just would like for you to stop chasing your tail long enough to answer my very simple question. I'll try it yet again... How much shrinkage of inventory can a store like Big Lots continue to sustain? Once we get past that then please climb back up on your soapbox and continue on trying to enlighten me. The secondary issue which you overlooked was the manager of this store witnessed his assistant manager being assaulted by the alleged thief. I will do you a favor. This Big Lots store has hit its own iceberg and is slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I'll let you know when their going out business sale starts. Maybe you can find some good steals, oops I mean deals.

First of all it’s company wide not store specifics. Store locations come and go. Secondarily it involved. Gross margin - cost of goods sold.

There no one answer it’s based on VARIABLEs like labor costs and supply chain and others. Your need for a ways button solution says it all. But as pointed out by another its far higher than they are experiencing. Only an idiot would think one number fixed is an answer for this. Microsoft allowed Vhins to private windows for years there’s internal communication that’s been made public to this effect and heredity as getting everyone hooked on their software and OS. So they accepted massive theft. Anyone dealing in China does.

Give you a number and you still won’t understand anything and make the same stupid localized anecdote claims about the world you are honestly afraid of stepping into at this point. I wish could help with that rather than give you a useless number here.

You love your petty everyone’s an jerk soapbox as we can see from the genesis of this thread. But oh god anyone explain anything to you rationally and it’s a soapbox. heck it not worth it.

[Farfromgeneva]

There was an interesting event last week at a local Big Lots Store near our house. A shop lifter in the process of leaving the store with his bag of goodies punched the assistant manager in the face. The manager, witnessing the assault called police and followed the bad actor into the parking lot. The police were unable to locate the individual. Two weeks later the manager was fired for violating Big Lots policy by calling the police without approval by his district manager. Big Lots policy is to not impede or interfere or confront any shop lifter. Even if that individual assaults one of your employees. If I was a shoplifter I would do all of my thieving at Big Lots. They are shoplifter friendly for sure. If you ask nicely they might even give you a bag to put your goodies in. It is quite the dilemma for Big Lots. They don't want to confront these people out of fear of them becoming violent. The down side is they are being shop lifted out of existence. These bad actors understand store policy and will happily take advantage of it. It has to be frustrating for any manager to just watch stolen merchandise walking out the door and all you can do is watch and then make a report to upper management. Who said crime doesn't pay because apparently it does.

FTR for what it is worth, I use to shop at this same Big Lots store fairly frequently. I didn't know the manager in question. I do know in the year or so he was the manager of that store he busted his ass and turned it from a chaotic mess into a well run and organized store. This Big Lots is a stones throw away from the Wegmans I shop at every week. The Wegman family has taken a different approach, if you try to walk out of their store with a bag full of stolen merchandise you will meet the asset protection people up close and personal. Why Big Lots has chosen this path to bankruptcy is painfully clear. They are more concerned about a violent and combative thief being injured and suing the crap out of them. The moral of the story is you can be a dedicated store manager who becomes nothing more than a scape goat for corporate America. How frustrating must it be for a store manager to watch his merchandise walking out the front door and all you can do is watch and shake your head. The thief assaulting one of your employees doesn't even change those dynamics. I call this the death of common sense. Whoever said crime doesn't pay should be the new CEO of Big Lots. BTW, I will never shop at Big Lots again not like they will be in business for very much longer with some of their present policies.

You think shoplifting is why Big Lots is in the toilet?

Depends on how much shrinkage of inventory they can sustain. I do know shoplifting is becoming a huge problem for retail establishments. I do know that an increasing # of future 5 finger discounters have figured out no one is going to stop them. So what your clumsily trying to say is that retail theft is NBD...got it...

Hes not saying that hes' questioning your relatively thin business analysis. Otherwise 100% of businesses in NYC from 1965 - 1990 wouldve failed and that didn't happen.

If the Big Lots store I am speaking about goes OOB then my business analysis becomes irrelevant to something both you and I might refer to as reality. Your a business and financial guy. How much shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots survive? The point you may have missed or glossed over was this... The manager that was fired was transferred by Big Lots to help out this store that was struggling terribly for a number of reasons. He did an excellent job from what I could see. The store while under his management has become squared away. The Big Lots policy about how they deal with shoplifting is their business. In this instance one of his employees was assaulted as the alleged shoplifter left the premises. This was no longer simply an issue dealing with a shoplifter it became an assault on a Big Lots employee. Bottom line is the manager was fired and if this particular Big Lots store stays open until December I will be impressed. FTR when this store goes OOB I will keep you in the loop in regards to my " thin business" analysis. I may not have a doctorate in finance but I spent 45 years working in food service in regards to restaurants and retail stores. When a bunch of dumbasses took over the old Jillian's in downtown Rochester I installed all of the beverage dispensers in that location. I paid very close attention to what their business model was going to be. I predicted they would be OOB in 6 months. I was wrong, they lasted for 4 months.
BTW I mentioned to you awhile back about the owner of Nick Tahous selling the historic restaurant building. It could be a money pit but it is a magnificent old building. I bet if you looked at closely you would agree it has serious possibilities.

All that doesn’t change anything. You could trip across the right outcome and be wrong in your analysis. But I know you don’t get that and aren’t trying to get it. FFG says as matter of fact with maybe a hint of fatigue form trying previously not insulting it’s how you like it. Trust me I learned if just fine with your expert analysis and masters in hard knocks as it relates to mental health and the science an ditching of addiction. Plus like 75 other topics. But I suppose I occasionally still try because I thinj your good people under the willful ignorance you enjoy like a warm blanket in a cold, scary and dark winter.

So somewhere in your psychoanalysis of me you lost tract of my question. I'll try it one more time... How much inventory shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots absorb? That is after all the entire point of my post. Do you wish to give a clear and concise answer?

I mean this is just silly I lived in high yield for a number of years where retail is a common industry represented. You want me to run circles around you on this topic and you know it or just accept your anecdotal local store analysis is lacking. I’m not answering because you ever read mortally or the to understand so it is just you wanting to waste my time for no useful outcome. That’s why I’m not bothering. I’ve been explain credit products and trade / supply chain finance all last week often to execs or c suites at major public financial institutions (CPACE tax lien financing on a BK biodiesel plant, bidding on a existing lending business in the Midwest with a friends LP investor money, how you get incremental support by both factoring and taking a promissory note from the buyer in short term credit. Have a call on Weds with a CFO to explain how risk weighting works and structure of “on balance sheet securitization”. And I even once underwrote a loan on a. Couple of “anchored” (big lots doesn’t fit the definition of anchor but drives a light amount of traffic to the “in line tenants” and has to
Do a global occupancy costs analysis to see if rents were healthy or hitting the tenant (Big Lots) and makes shutting those specific stores down more at risk if they weren’t strategic and operating less efficiently on the margin.

I’ll give you a takedown if you promise and honor liek a man that promise to truly try and understand. I stink do business analysis on “man that’s store has some bad urban teens walking around it”…

I just would like for you to stop chasing your tail long enough to answer my very simple question. I'll try it yet again... How much shrinkage of inventory can a store like Big Lots continue to sustain? Once we get past that then please climb back up on your soapbox and continue on trying to enlighten me. The secondary issue which you overlooked was the manager of this store witnessed his assistant manager being assaulted by the alleged thief. I will do you a favor. This Big Lots store has hit its own iceberg and is slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I'll let you know when their going out business sale starts. Maybe you can find some good steals, oops I mean deals.

First of all it’s company wide not store specifics. Store locations come and go. Secondarily it involved. Gross margin - cost of goods sold.

There no one answer it’s based on VARIABLEs like labor costs and supply chain and others. Your need for a ways button solution says it all. But as pointed out by another its far higher than they are experiencing. Only an idiot would think one number fixed is an answer for this. Microsoft allowed Vhins to private windows for years there’s internal communication that’s been made public to this effect and heredity as getting everyone hooked on their software and OS. So they accepted massive theft. Anyone dealing in China does.

Give you a number and you still won’t understand anything and make the same stupid localized anecdote claims about the world you are honestly afraid of stepping into at this point. I wish could help with that rather than give you a useless number here.

You love your petty everyone’s an jerk soapbox as we can see from the genesis of this thread. But oh god anyone explain anything to you rationally and it’s a soapbox. heck it not worth it-your behavior you still serve the same human rights as others but beyond that you just are increasingly ignored by the world and your solution is to shout louder. Brilliant.

[Farfromgeneva]

Do I trust a retail oriented trade mag that was critical of this same company 3/2023? Or cradledeeznutts anecdote; a guy who struggled with inner city and urban and abstracts form a shrinking region of the world? For YA and Natty Bo-they did a sale leaseback last spring/summer. And FILO loans are not worth incremental spread/cost to borrowers
IMOZ

Oh and Dana Tesley is a Hobart grad who started out assisting Mario Gabellimthen the leading retail equity analyst at Bear Stearns. Used to be easy on the eyes as well. Had that B&T wet hair and attitude you know is rocking outside polite company.

Big Lots may be making more turnaround progress than it seems
Despite double digit sales declines and rising debt levels, one analyst says the bad consumer backdrop is masking its improvements.

Nate Delesline III
Big Lots to remain open on Thanksgiving.
A Big Lots store. The company continues to hold off on new stores until its financials improve. Courtesy of Big Lots
Dive Brief:

Big Lots’ first-quarter net sales fell 10.2% to $1 billion, down from $1.1 billion last year, the retailer said Thursday. The company also posted a net loss of $205 million, relatively flat from the prior year, though CEO Bruce Thorn said Big Lots’ net liquidity grew to $289 million, up from $254 million in Q4, thanks to cost-management initiatives.
Debt also rose to $573.8 million during the quarter, up from $501.6 million a year ago. Comparable sales fell nearly 10% year over year, while gross margin was up slightly to 36.8%.
Although Big Lots has made progress on improving its business operations, Thorn said the company continues to feel the effects of constrained consumer spending on big-ticket discretionary items, thanks in part to inflation and high interest rates.
Dive Insight:

Thorn said during a Thursday earnings call that it identified an opportunity to move faster on its Project Springboard cost-cutting initiative. As a result, Thorn said the company is raising its target savings goal to $185 million by year end, up from $175 million.

Big Lots ended the first quarter with lower inventory — down to $949.9 million from about $1.09 billion last year. The company said lower on-hand units and average unit costs helped drive that metric down. The company continues to focus on securing more extreme bargain merchandise and made a series of changes to its merchandising team in March to improve its acquisition efforts.

“With a highly focused extreme value merchant team that will continue to flex our open-to-buy, we are quickly expanding our relationship with vendors with a bigger seat at the closeout table,” Thorn said.

The executive expects positive comps toward the end of the year and gross margin improvement over time. Still, Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, called Big Lots’ performance “one of the worst in the retail sector,” noting that the 10.2% decline in sales follows poor performance last year that leaves the retailer deep in the red.

“While management blames most of the decline on softness among consumers, this doesn’t stack up against what other retailers are reporting — especially in the off-price sector where results are very positive,” Saunders said in emailed comments to Retail Dive. “As such, most of this is on Big Lots. The proposition is not compelling or interesting enough to draw in consumers and make them spend. Big Lots is trying to introduce more bargains, but this does not seem to be working.”

However, analysts with Telsey Advisory Group led by Joe Feldman said Big Lots is due some credit for gaining momentum in its ongoing turnaround strategy.

“We believe Big Lots is in a tough spot, with its core lower to middle income consumer under incremental financial pressure and avoiding spending on discretionary products, which is central to its assortment,” Feldman said Monday in an earnings preview note. “That said, the challenging macro backdrop is masking some of Big Lots’ progress on its transformation strategy — merchandising, digital, loyalty, optimization of margins, and enhancement of the supply chain infrastructure.”

Big Lots has taken several steps over the last year to improve its financial position and operational performance. Last year, it leased back most of its owned stores, a California distribution center and its corporate headquarters building in Ohio. In April, the company took out a new $200 million first-in, last-out term loan to further improve its liquidity. That loan is secured by a mortgage on the corporate headquarters and is in addition to an existing $900 million asset-based loan.

Also in April, Big Lots opened buying offices in China and Vietnam. The company said the move will enhance merchandise sourcing competitiveness and reduce costs by bringing the operation in house. Big Lots’ second quarter outlook is for comp sales to improve sequentially relative to Q1 and to be down in the mid- to high-single-digit range, as actions to improve the business continue gaining traction.

[cradleandshoot]

There was an interesting event last week at a local Big Lots Store near our house. A shop lifter in the process of leaving the store with his bag of goodies punched the assistant manager in the face. The manager, witnessing the assault called police and followed the bad actor into the parking lot. The police were unable to locate the individual. Two weeks later the manager was fired for violating Big Lots policy by calling the police without approval by his district manager. Big Lots policy is to not impede or interfere or confront any shop lifter. Even if that individual assaults one of your employees. If I was a shoplifter I would do all of my thieving at Big Lots. They are shoplifter friendly for sure. If you ask nicely they might even give you a bag to put your goodies in. It is quite the dilemma for Big Lots. They don't want to confront these people out of fear of them becoming violent. The down side is they are being shop lifted out of existence. These bad actors understand store policy and will happily take advantage of it. It has to be frustrating for any manager to just watch stolen merchandise walking out the door and all you can do is watch and then make a report to upper management. Who said crime doesn't pay because apparently it does.

FTR for what it is worth, I use to shop at this same Big Lots store fairly frequently. I didn't know the manager in question. I do know in the year or so he was the manager of that store he busted his ass and turned it from a chaotic mess into a well run and organized store. This Big Lots is a stones throw away from the Wegmans I shop at every week. The Wegman family has taken a different approach, if you try to walk out of their store with a bag full of stolen merchandise you will meet the asset protection people up close and personal. Why Big Lots has chosen this path to bankruptcy is painfully clear. They are more concerned about a violent and combative thief being injured and suing the crap out of them. The moral of the story is you can be a dedicated store manager who becomes nothing more than a scape goat for corporate America. How frustrating must it be for a store manager to watch his merchandise walking out the front door and all you can do is watch and shake your head. The thief assaulting one of your employees doesn't even change those dynamics. I call this the death of common sense. Whoever said crime doesn't pay should be the new CEO of Big Lots. BTW, I will never shop at Big Lots again not like they will be in business for very much longer with some of their present policies.

You think shoplifting is why Big Lots is in the toilet?

Depends on how much shrinkage of inventory they can sustain. I do know shoplifting is becoming a huge problem for retail establishments. I do know that an increasing # of future 5 finger discounters have figured out no one is going to stop them. So what your clumsily trying to say is that retail theft is NBD...got it...

Hes not saying that hes' questioning your relatively thin business analysis. Otherwise 100% of businesses in NYC from 1965 - 1990 wouldve failed and that didn't happen.

If the Big Lots store I am speaking about goes OOB then my business analysis becomes irrelevant to something both you and I might refer to as reality. Your a business and financial guy. How much shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots survive? The point you may have missed or glossed over was this... The manager that was fired was transferred by Big Lots to help out this store that was struggling terribly for a number of reasons. He did an excellent job from what I could see. The store while under his management has become squared away. The Big Lots policy about how they deal with shoplifting is their business. In this instance one of his employees was assaulted as the alleged shoplifter left the premises. This was no longer simply an issue dealing with a shoplifter it became an assault on a Big Lots employee. Bottom line is the manager was fired and if this particular Big Lots store stays open until December I will be impressed. FTR when this store goes OOB I will keep you in the loop in regards to my " thin business" analysis. I may not have a doctorate in finance but I spent 45 years working in food service in regards to restaurants and retail stores. When a bunch of dumbasses took over the old Jillian's in downtown Rochester I installed all of the beverage dispensers in that location. I paid very close attention to what their business model was going to be. I predicted they would be OOB in 6 months. I was wrong, they lasted for 4 months.
BTW I mentioned to you awhile back about the owner of Nick Tahous selling the historic restaurant building. It could be a money pit but it is a magnificent old building. I bet if you looked at closely you would agree it has serious possibilities.

All that doesn’t change anything. You could trip across the right outcome and be wrong in your analysis. But I know you don’t get that and aren’t trying to get it. FFG says as matter of fact with maybe a hint of fatigue form trying previously not insulting it’s how you like it. Trust me I learned if just fine with your expert analysis and masters in hard knocks as it relates to mental health and the science an ditching of addiction. Plus like 75 other topics. But I suppose I occasionally still try because I thinj your good people under the willful ignorance you enjoy like a warm blanket in a cold, scary and dark winter.

So somewhere in your psychoanalysis of me you lost tract of my question. I'll try it one more time... How much inventory shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots absorb? That is after all the entire point of my post. Do you wish to give a clear and concise answer?

You started out with "they are being shoplifted out of existence" then when questioned insist I do the work you can do on the google machine btw. Seems very lazy on your part. Look at all the claims you made plus the one time you guessed and were right. This is lazy to demand others do the work to support or refute your claims based on these bolded and other comments embedded. Yes I absolutley am smarter and know more than you about business and there's no point in debating that further. Does that make you happy that the mean educmacated guy (and I'll throw down on school of hard knocks with you all day and night, I'm obviously superior to your dead friend becuase my relationship with my children is thriving right now and there's someone on this board who I think would testify he saw a glimpse of that very recently in person - other than he might say I'm a fatty now and my hairline is more than just "creeping at the corners" which I can't dent my lack of exercise lately and lack of effciacy of nioxin shampoo).

This daring me to prove it to you is just stupid in the arena of finance and especially more stressed or distressed or structured areas of finance. its akin to me going to Little TLD (whos not so little now) and saying "bro I dare you to try and dodge by me and score!" (except I'm dirty and the minute his first move has me falling on my face im grabbing his a** and taking him down with me and going "see I told ya"!)

The manager of the Big Lots store that was canned stated that this particular store was being shoplifted out of business. It's called paying attention to detail something that you clearly struggle at. Perhaps Big Lots should give you a crack at managing this store. You could use your vocabulary skills to talk these folks out of robbing you blind. Or you might just bore them silly and they will punch you in the face on the way out the door.

[cradleandshoot]

There was an interesting event last week at a local Big Lots Store near our house. A shop lifter in the process of leaving the store with his bag of goodies punched the assistant manager in the face. The manager, witnessing the assault called police and followed the bad actor into the parking lot. The police were unable to locate the individual. Two weeks later the manager was fired for violating Big Lots policy by calling the police without approval by his district manager. Big Lots policy is to not impede or interfere or confront any shop lifter. Even if that individual assaults one of your employees. If I was a shoplifter I would do all of my thieving at Big Lots. They are shoplifter friendly for sure. If you ask nicely they might even give you a bag to put your goodies in. It is quite the dilemma for Big Lots. They don't want to confront these people out of fear of them becoming violent. The down side is they are being shop lifted out of existence. These bad actors understand store policy and will happily take advantage of it. It has to be frustrating for any manager to just watch stolen merchandise walking out the door and all you can do is watch and then make a report to upper management. Who said crime doesn't pay because apparently it does.

FTR for what it is worth, I use to shop at this same Big Lots store fairly frequently. I didn't know the manager in question. I do know in the year or so he was the manager of that store he busted his ass and turned it from a chaotic mess into a well run and organized store. This Big Lots is a stones throw away from the Wegmans I shop at every week. The Wegman family has taken a different approach, if you try to walk out of their store with a bag full of stolen merchandise you will meet the asset protection people up close and personal. Why Big Lots has chosen this path to bankruptcy is painfully clear. They are more concerned about a violent and combative thief being injured and suing the crap out of them. The moral of the story is you can be a dedicated store manager who becomes nothing more than a scape goat for corporate America. How frustrating must it be for a store manager to watch his merchandise walking out the front door and all you can do is watch and shake your head. The thief assaulting one of your employees doesn't even change those dynamics. I call this the death of common sense. Whoever said crime doesn't pay should be the new CEO of Big Lots. BTW, I will never shop at Big Lots again not like they will be in business for very much longer with some of their present policies.

You think shoplifting is why Big Lots is in the toilet?

Depends on how much shrinkage of inventory they can sustain. I do know shoplifting is becoming a huge problem for retail establishments. I do know that an increasing # of future 5 finger discounters have figured out no one is going to stop them. So what your clumsily trying to say is that retail theft is NBD...got it...

Hes not saying that hes' questioning your relatively thin business analysis. Otherwise 100% of businesses in NYC from 1965 - 1990 wouldve failed and that didn't happen.

If the Big Lots store I am speaking about goes OOB then my business analysis becomes irrelevant to something both you and I might refer to as reality. Your a business and financial guy. How much shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots survive? The point you may have missed or glossed over was this... The manager that was fired was transferred by Big Lots to help out this store that was struggling terribly for a number of reasons. He did an excellent job from what I could see. The store while under his management has become squared away. The Big Lots policy about how they deal with shoplifting is their business. In this instance one of his employees was assaulted as the alleged shoplifter left the premises. This was no longer simply an issue dealing with a shoplifter it became an assault on a Big Lots employee. Bottom line is the manager was fired and if this particular Big Lots store stays open until December I will be impressed. FTR when this store goes OOB I will keep you in the loop in regards to my " thin business" analysis. I may not have a doctorate in finance but I spent 45 years working in food service in regards to restaurants and retail stores. When a bunch of dumbasses took over the old Jillian's in downtown Rochester I installed all of the beverage dispensers in that location. I paid very close attention to what their business model was going to be. I predicted they would be OOB in 6 months. I was wrong, they lasted for 4 months.
BTW I mentioned to you awhile back about the owner of Nick Tahous selling the historic restaurant building. It could be a money pit but it is a magnificent old building. I bet if you looked at closely you would agree it has serious possibilities.

All that doesn’t change anything. You could trip across the right outcome and be wrong in your analysis. But I know you don’t get that and aren’t trying to get it. FFG says as matter of fact with maybe a hint of fatigue form trying previously not insulting it’s how you like it. Trust me I learned if just fine with your expert analysis and masters in hard knocks as it relates to mental health and the science an ditching of addiction. Plus like 75 other topics. But I suppose I occasionally still try because I thinj your good people under the willful ignorance you enjoy like a warm blanket in a cold, scary and dark winter.

So somewhere in your psychoanalysis of me you lost tract of my question. I'll try it one more time... How much inventory shrinkage can a retail store like Big Lots absorb? That is after all the entire point of my post. Do you wish to give a clear and concise answer?

I mean this is just silly I lived in high yield for a number of years where retail is a common industry represented. You want me to run circles around you on this topic and you know it or just accept your anecdotal local store analysis is lacking. I’m not answering because you ever read mortally or the to understand so it is just you wanting to waste my time for no useful outcome. That’s why I’m not bothering. I’ve been explain credit products and trade / supply chain finance all last week often to execs or c suites at major public financial institutions (CPACE tax lien financing on a BK biodiesel plant, bidding on a existing lending business in the Midwest with a friends LP investor money, how you get incremental support by both factoring and taking a promissory note from the buyer in short term credit. Have a call on Weds with a CFO to explain how risk weighting works and structure of “on balance sheet securitization”. And I even once underwrote a loan on a. Couple of “anchored” (big lots doesn’t fit the definition of anchor but drives a light amount of traffic to the “in line tenants” and has to
Do a global occupancy costs analysis to see if rents were healthy or hitting the tenant (Big Lots) and makes shutting those specific stores down more at risk if they weren’t strategic and operating less efficiently on the margin.

I’ll give you a takedown if you promise and honor liek a man that promise to truly try and understand. I stink do business analysis on “man that’s store has some bad urban teens walking around it”…

I just would like for you to stop chasing your tail long enough to answer my very simple question. I'll try it yet again... How much shrinkage of inventory can a store like Big Lots continue to sustain? Once we get past that then please climb back up on your soapbox and continue on trying to enlighten me. The secondary issue which you overlooked was the manager of this store witnessed his assistant manager being assaulted by the alleged thief. I will do you a favor. This Big Lots store has hit its own iceberg and is slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I'll let you know when their going out business sale starts. Maybe you can find some good steals, oops I mean deals.

First of all it’s company wide not store specifics. Store locations come and go. Secondarily it involved. Gross margin - cost of goods sold.

There no one answer it’s based on VARIABLEs like labor costs and supply chain and others. Your need for a ways button solution says it all. But as pointed out by another its far higher than they are experiencing. Only an idiot would think one number fixed is an answer for this. Microsoft allowed Vhins to private windows for years there’s internal communication that’s been made public to this effect and heredity as getting everyone hooked on their software and OS. So they accepted massive theft. Anyone dealing in China does.

Give you a number and you still won’t understand anything and make the same stupid localized anecdote claims about the world you are honestly afraid of stepping into at this point. I wish could help with that rather than give you a useless number here.

You love your petty everyone’s an jerk soapbox as we can see from the genesis of this thread. But oh god anyone explain anything to you rationally and it’s a soapbox. heck it not worth it-your behavior you still serve the same human rights as others but beyond that you just are increasingly ignored by the world and your solution is to shout louder. Brilliant.

FTR everyone is not a jerk with the exception of you. Why did you choose to deviate from the topic at hand and make this personal? If that is the road you want to go down then a piece of white trash from Rochester is more than up to the challenge. How is your ticker doing? You seen your cardiologist recently?

[youthathletics]

@Seacoaster1 @njbill - have you seen this? Looks like the Judge had some shenanigans going on and the defense learned of it. You can see the judge boiling as he is demanding who told him. Seems this Chief Judge might have just Found Out, after Fuggin' Around.

Initial: https://x.com/KaladinFree/status/1800244505464934648

In contempt: https://x.com/KaladinFree/status/1800244505464934648

[MDlaxfan76]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

Statistics are fun things to manipulate. I don't know of any Americans who feel safer in our country today.

Emotions are much easier to "manipulate".

Especially fear.

These are "statistics" gathered the same way over time by the most credible non-partisan group we have.
At different points in time, the numbers may indicate bad news just as they may indicate good news, all based on same fact gathering practices.

The trendlines are real. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

However, the peddler's profit is in the fear. Beware the source who profits from fear. Examine whether they are peddling anecdotes to demonstrate a reason to be fearful and ignoring actual facts that belie their hyper fear mongering. That's likely on purpose.

Note the numbers don't indicate causal reasons for the trendline, that's where additional analysis of correlation and causation is necessary. And indeed, it's worth examining whether such analysis has an agenda and there may be other, more accurate analyses.

But these numbers are just reported as the best estimate available of factual reality, for better or worse.

I actually agree with you that people are more fearful right now about street crime than they have been in a couple of decades despite good factual reasons not to be, and especially in contrast with several earlier periods in our lifetime, much less earlier times. But I don't chalk up that fear to actual reality, rather it's a combination of our hyper media attention to "if it bleeds it leads" and the ubiquity of instantaneous awareness of various tragic events in a much wider radius, regardless of whether the actual incidence of such is going up versus down. We're simply more aware of more events.

And some of that media, heck all of that media, profits by drawing our attention...and some media and politicians specifically profit from the manipulation of our emotions, doing so quite intentionally and with no compunction about untruthful information.

[get it to x]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

Statistics are fun things to manipulate. I don't know of any Americans who feel safer in our country today.

Emotions are much easier to "manipulate".

Especially fear.

These are "statistics" gathered the same way over time by the most credible non-partisan group we have.
At different points in time, the numbers may indicate bad news just as they may indicate good news, all based on same fact gathering practices.

The trendlines are real. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

However, the peddler's profit is in the fear. Beware the source who profits from fear. Examine whether they are peddling anecdotes to demonstrate a reason to be fearful and ignoring actual facts that belie their hyper fear mongering. That's likely on purpose.

Unrelated to the topic and sorry if I shortened your post, but this same fear and hysteria applies to "Ice Age", "Acid Rain", "Global Warming" and "Climate Change". Man will eventually adapt to actual change. If the seas are rising at less than an inch a year we can probably out run the advance.

[old salt]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/rest ... out-crime/

Bad data from the FBI mislead about crime

by Mark Morgan and Sean Kennedy. April 5, 2024

The fourth quarter 2023 crime report from the FBI, the federal government’s keeper of crime data, is unreliable at best and deceptive at worst.

The FBI’s preliminary 2023 data show murder declined by 13.2% across the country and violent crime dropped 5.7% compared to 2022 levels. Various news headlines have reported the FBI’s numbers unquestioningly, claiming murder is “plummeting” and violent crime “declined significantly” to pre-pandemic levels.

But these latest figures warrant skepticism, as we outline in a new report. In fact, violent crime is up substantially from 2019 levels, and last year’s apparent drop is less significant than it appears.

Part of the problem is how police departments report offenses to the FBI. The FBI asked, then demanded, that law enforcement agencies “transition” away from the system they used for decades to a new, more detailed but onerous one. The 2021 mandate to use NIBRS to submit crime data proved a disaster as overstretched departments, especially in large cities, failed to reach compliance and thus did not submit data.

In 2019, 89% of agencies covering 97% of the population submitted data, but by 2021, that coverage plummeted to less than 63% of departments overseeing just 65% of the population. Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City all failed to submit crime data. To increase participation, the FBI relaxed the NIBRS requirement in 2022, allowing agencies to report via the legacy system.

But many other cities, such as St. Louis, which had transitioned to the new method, still struggle to comply and submit partial or faulty data. The FBI compensates by relying more heavily on “estimation,” or informed guesswork, to fill in the gaps and produce aggregated data.

That method of inferring offense totals is based on similar jurisdictions and past trends but is prone to error since it cannot compensate for local factors or events. For example, comparing Baltimore’s 2015 homicide total to similar cities’ trends would produce a skewed result. Baltimore, beset by riots and a police stand-down, saw murder rise 62% that year. In peer cities, murders rose in Cleveland only 15% and fell in Detroit by 1% and Memphis by 4%.

And the figures the agencies do report to the FBI do not match the agencies’ publicly reported figures. For Baltimore, the FBI reported 225 murders in 2023, but the city reported 262 — which means the FBI left out 37 murders. In Milwaukee, the police department reported a 7% increase in robberies, but the FBI showed a 13% drop. Nashville’s own data tallied more than 6,900 aggravated assaults in 2023, but the FBI counted only 5,941, leaving almost 1,000 of those offenses “missing.” This trend is consistent across the board: While 2022’s FBI city-level figures track the police’s own data, the 2023 numbers consistently undercount offense totals. Any year-to-year comparison overstates decline.

Other measures of crime levels undermine, or at least muddle, the veracity of the FBI’s data, which rely on “reported” offenses by victims and law enforcement themselves. The federal government’s own victims’ survey, which attempts to capture the gap between the number of actual offenses and the number reported to police, shows much higher offense rates than the FBI does. Moreover, a rising share of victims are failing to report their victimizations at all. In 2022, only 42% of violent crime victims and 33% of property crime victims bothered to report the crime to police.

That underreporting reduces the reliability of FBI numbers in measuring actual offense levels. For example, robbery offenses, which constitute roughly 25% of all violent crime by volume compared to 5% for murder, declined 18% between 2019 and 2022, according to the FBI, while the victim’s survey suggests a 30% rise.

Another complicating factor is underreporting by the police themselves, who might be under pressure to “downcharge” offenses or dissuade the victims from reporting the crime at all. While the prevalence of underreporting by the police is hard to quantify, an investigation found that between 2005 and 2012, the Los Angeles Police Department erased thousands of crimes, mostly violent assaults, by reclassifying them as lesser offenses or not capturing them at all. The fuzzy math artificially reduced the city’s crime rate by 7%. Any such malfeasance, when officials are under immense pressure to show progress in fighting crime, would inject bad data into the FBI’s estimation model, only compounding its errors.

Our analysis of 40 jurisdictions that both reported data to the FBI and the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which collects data from the largest police departments, shows that homicide declined 10.2% across 40 major cities in 2023 since 2022, but the FBI reported a 12.8% decline in those same jurisdictions. Similarly, the FBI reported a 6.6% decline in violent crime since 2022, but the same cities reported only a 4.5% drop, with the FBI counting 3,200 more violent crimes in 2022 than the MCCA and 2,600 fewer in 2023 — a net discrepancy of almost 5,900 offenses. That gap conveniently results in a more significant drop in crime levels year to year.

In reality, violent crime is up substantially from 2019 levels. In big cities, murder is still elevated — up 23% since 2019 across all 70 cities tracked by the MCCA and up 18% according to a 32-city analysis by the nonprofit organization Council on Criminal Justice. For aggravated assaults, CCJ’s 25-city sample found those up 8%, while the MCCA larger sample of cities reported a 26% increase over the same period.

To say crime is down is like descending from a tall peak and standing on a high bluff and saying you are closer to the ground — a true but misleading statement. Worse, the FBI’s crime data serve as a poor altimeter to judge how high (or low) crime actually is.

Mark Morgan is the former assistant FBI director and acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and now serves as the president of the Coalition for Law Order and Safety. Sean Kennedy is the executive director of CLOS.

[cradleandshoot]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

Statistics are fun things to manipulate. I don't know of any Americans who feel safer in our country today.

Emotions are much easier to "manipulate".

Especially fear.

These are "statistics" gathered the same way over time by the most credible non-partisan group we have.
At different points in time, the numbers may indicate bad news just as they may indicate good news, all based on same fact gathering practices.

The trendlines are real. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

However, the peddler's profit is in the fear. Beware the source who profits from fear. Examine whether they are peddling anecdotes to demonstrate a reason to be fearful and ignoring actual facts that belie their hyper fear mongering. That's likely on purpose.

Note the numbers don't indicate causal reasons for the trendline, that's where additional analysis of correlation and causation is necessary. And indeed, it's worth examining whether such analysis has an agenda and there may be other, more accurate analyses.

But these numbers are just reported as the best estimate available of factual reality, for better or worse.

I actually agree with you that people are more fearful right now about street crime than they have been in a couple of decades despite good factual reasons not to be, and especially in contrast with several earlier periods in our lifetime, much less earlier times. But I don't chalk up that fear to actual reality, rather it's a combination of our hyper media attention to "if it bleeds it leads" and the ubiquity of instantaneous awareness of various tragic events in a much wider radius, regardless of whether the actual incidence of such is going up versus down. We're simply more aware of more events.

And some of that media, heck all of that media, profits by drawing our attention...and some media and politicians specifically profit from the manipulation of our emotions, doing so quite intentionally and with no compunction about untruthful information.

So unless my memory fails me MD lax you live in such a secure home environment you don't even feel the need to lock your doors at night. It must be nice to have that sense of security that a rich Republican like you enjoys.

[cradleandshoot]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

Statistics are fun things to manipulate. I don't know of any Americans who feel safer in our country today.

Emotions are much easier to "manipulate".

Especially fear.

These are "statistics" gathered the same way over time by the most credible non-partisan group we have.
At different points in time, the numbers may indicate bad news just as they may indicate good news, all based on same fact gathering practices.

The trendlines are real. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

However, the peddler's profit is in the fear. Beware the source who profits from fear. Examine whether they are peddling anecdotes to demonstrate a reason to be fearful and ignoring actual facts that belie their hyper fear mongering. That's likely on purpose.

Note the numbers don't indicate causal reasons for the trendline, that's where additional analysis of correlation and causation is necessary. And indeed, it's worth examining whether such analysis has an agenda and there may be other, more accurate analyses.

But these numbers are just reported as the best estimate available of factual reality, for better or worse.

I actually agree with you that people are more fearful right now about street crime than they have been in a couple of decades despite good factual reasons not to be, and especially in contrast with several earlier periods in our lifetime, much less earlier times. But I don't chalk up that fear to actual reality, rather it's a combination of our hyper media attention to "if it bleeds it leads" and the ubiquity of instantaneous awareness of various tragic events in a much wider radius, regardless of whether the actual incidence of such is going up versus down. We're simply more aware of more events.

And some of that media, heck all of that media, profits by drawing our attention...and some media and politicians specifically profit from the manipulation of our emotions, doing so quite intentionally and with no compunction about untruthful information.

So what are you afraid of? A hardcore life long Republican like yourself shouldn't have a fear in the world. Unless of course if you suddenly realize that Republicans understand finally your blowing smoke up their ass.

[MDlaxfan76]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

Statistics are fun things to manipulate. I don't know of any Americans who feel safer in our country today.

Emotions are much easier to "manipulate".

Especially fear.

These are "statistics" gathered the same way over time by the most credible non-partisan group we have.
At different points in time, the numbers may indicate bad news just as they may indicate good news, all based on same fact gathering practices.

The trendlines are real. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

However, the peddler's profit is in the fear. Beware the source who profits from fear. Examine whether they are peddling anecdotes to demonstrate a reason to be fearful and ignoring actual facts that belie their hyper fear mongering. That's likely on purpose.

Unrelated to the topic and sorry if I shortened your post, but this same fear and hysteria applies to "Ice Age", "Acid Rain", "Global Warming" and "Climate Change". Man will eventually adapt to actual change. If the seas are rising at less than an inch a year we can probably out run the advance.

How do you feel about "probably"??

I agree, alarmists, like extremists, can come in all shapes and sizes, including political persuasions.

On this particular matter, the issue isn't a slow change, it's the potential for a tipping point to accelerate the problem beyond our immediate capacity to withstand without enormous human tragedy and financial collapse. At a minimum, even slow change is going to mean huge financial costs.

That said, I agree that a slow change is bearable, at least to some extent, through migration and mitigation, and slow change allows for the possibility of technological answers to reverse the course that is pretty clearly happening otherwise.

But a tipping point in which trapped gases are released from tundra could rapidly accelerate the problem. We need to not get to that tipping point.

So, can we do reasonable things now that slow the change enough to find superior answers in time?

[MDlaxfan76]

Dark times here in America.
Chaos in the streets.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-vi ... index.html

Statistics are fun things to manipulate. I don't know of any Americans who feel safer in our country today.

Emotions are much easier to "manipulate".

Especially fear.

These are "statistics" gathered the same way over time by the most credible non-partisan group we have.
At different points in time, the numbers may indicate bad news just as they may indicate good news, all based on same fact gathering practices.

The trendlines are real. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

However, the peddler's profit is in the fear. Beware the source who profits from fear. Examine whether they are peddling anecdotes to demonstrate a reason to be fearful and ignoring actual facts that belie their hyper fear mongering. That's likely on purpose.

Note the numbers don't indicate causal reasons for the trendline, that's where additional analysis of correlation and causation is necessary. And indeed, it's worth examining whether such analysis has an agenda and there may be other, more accurate analyses.

But these numbers are just reported as the best estimate available of factual reality, for better or worse.

I actually agree with you that people are more fearful right now about street crime than they have been in a couple of decades despite good factual reasons not to be, and especially in contrast with several earlier periods in our lifetime, much less earlier times. But I don't chalk up that fear to actual reality, rather it's a combination of our hyper media attention to "if it bleeds it leads" and the ubiquity of instantaneous awareness of various tragic events in a much wider radius, regardless of whether the actual incidence of such is going up versus down. We're simply more aware of more events.

And some of that media, heck all of that media, profits by drawing our attention...and some media and politicians specifically profit from the manipulation of our emotions, doing so quite intentionally and with no compunction about untruthful information.

So what are you afraid of? A hardcore life long Republican like yourself shouldn't have a fear in the world. Unless of course if you suddenly realize that Republicans understand finally your blowing smoke up their ass.

That's the best you could do in responding?