If you are in a major supermarket and see someone stealing food, no you didn't.

What is going on with young people, do they think everyone who owns a shop is a millionaire??

Title says "to some degree". Article doesn't explain what this means, but it very well could include people who say it's ok when the store being stolen from is Coles or Woolies.

What is going on with retailers, do they think every young person who shops is a millionaire??

I have been trying to do all my Christmas shopping at small businesses, and I've found it's nearly impossible. Mom and pop shops simply don't exist anymore. Even when I was trying to buy direct online from small businesses, they send me to their Amazon shop.

Big box stores and corporate chains have cannibalized the international economy. The value they have stolen in the form of monopolies, exploited global laborers, anti-competitive practices, and wage theft more than justifies whatever you can fit in your pockets. Capitalists are stealing from you, so turnabout is fair play.

Theft is a symptom, not a disease.

If you see someone stealing food you didn’t

I didn't see anyone except rich people steal.

Cant speak for Australia, but in the US price increases are a far percentage above baseline inflation. It is profit-driven and greedy behavior, fleecing an already struggling population. So yeah, im not gonna bat an eye at someone taking a candy bar.

I'd love to see the shoplifting loss VS wage theft study... You know, for science.

This rage bait article failed on the major point about theft is that few people care about faceless corporations who already have questionable ethics.

Monash University's report also found a rise in specific behaviours, including shoplifting (27 per cent), changing price tags on products (30 per cent), not scanning some items at self-checkout terminals (32 per cent), and scanning items as cheaper alternatives (36 per cent).

Overall how much of this is made viable by replacing workers with self checkouts machines?

Vincent Hurley, who specialises in the contemporary role of police and policing within criminological theories at Macquarie University, said when it comes to retail theft, soaring prices may be driving the trend. "There is inflation and stagnation of wages, especially for part-time workers. So even to survive, some would consider stealing to be a way to survive in this cost-of-living crisis," he told SBS News.

The cost of everything has gone up. What do people expect to happen? People in poverty, or let’s be real these day, even people who aren’t; just wander off somewhere and quietly starve to death? Woolies and Cole’s have been raking in cash during this pricing crisis. Im fortunate now to have a decent job, that I was incredibly lucky to get. A couple years ago I was on Centrelink. It didn’t even cover rent for a shithole. IDGAF if people steal from large retail chains to survive in economic crisis that they profit off.

From a 2023 article:

Taylor* is a deli worker at Woolworths who is sympathetic to shoplifters.

“I’ve seen people put things in backpacks and just walk off and I haven't said anything,” they said.

“I like to do a blanket assumption that if someone's stealing something, they probably need it.”

While some employees are diligent about preventing theft, Taylor said others turn a blind eye – or even participate in shoplifting themselves.

“If you don't want people to steal, get rid of the self-checkout entirely and pay people to work registers,” they said.

[...]

Taylor also admitted to secretly marking down the price of deli meats and seafood for friends and customers, after witnessing the price of salmon rise by $10 a kilogram in the last three months.

“If I have the power to do it and it’s not that risky for me, then I'll happily do what I can to help out,” they said.

This song explains why.

So, hands up, who's looked at the report or survey? (Yes, SBS didn't link it, I sent them feedback and I encourage you to as well)

"Tasting fruit in a supermarket without buying it" was considered a "blatant form of theft", despite 45% of all surveyed not saying it's illegal.

Taking supplies from a workplace is something even my straight-edge older relatives rationalise - "I'm doing work at home", which was true, but I've never seen those supplies returned, and again, 26% of people didn't say it was illegal.

Interestingly, a pretty consistent 5% of all surveyed said all those above forms of theft are completely justifiable, and an additional 10% said very justifiable. That means around 15% of all surveyed were confident that all forms of blatant theft are justifiable. That's not some outlier of antisocial criminals, that's around 1 in 6 people. Pick six people.

As the article says, the young vs. old difference is huge, but unfortunately the report doesn't give much useful information as the age section clumps everything from "a little justifiable" to "completely justifiable" into one category. Even so, we're talking about 80-95% of respondents aged 55+ saying blatant theft is not at all justifiable, compared to only about 40-45% of those aged 18-34. Those are huge differences in generational ethics.

Orange Supermarket in Sydney's south

The one at Wolli Creek, or is that not south enough?

At Wolli you've got:

• ALDI (cheaper, but half the time out of stock, limited selection)
• Woolworths (expensive for most items)
• Orange Supermarket (expensive for most items)

Someone cut off the trolley keys in the Woolies carpark recently :D

Wolli apartments probably have a big variety of people in different socio-economic conditions, but I feel that woolworths & orange are priced to suit the higher end of the market. In particular woolies seems to stock lots of Wagyu beef.

I wonder if more is lifted at Orange & Woolworths than Aldi. I'd feel more comfortable stealing from places with higher prices.

Was this article written by Javert?

Best buy sold me a broken item and refused to accept the return. Those items were behind the counter so I couldn't lift the same thing, so I lifted the equivalent price in other items.

What a load of bullshit.