In supermarkets across Europe, inflation is leading to a surge in food theft | Hacker News Reader

In supermarkets across Europe, inflation is leading to a surge in food theft

lemonde.fr

51 pointsLordAtlas50 comments

Headline should in fact read: "In supermarkets across Europe, corporate greed is leading to a surge in food theft."

And that theft is entirely justifiable as these corporate grocery chains are effectively stealing from all of us with this greed disguised as inflation bullshit.

Were they somehow not greedy before? What changed?

Opportunities for price gouging increased due to supply chain disruptions.

This article lays out arguments for and against this theory:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/03/business/economy/price-go...

> supply chain disruptions

Government meddling in the market though lockdowns, embargoes, and other limiting of supplies.

If not government you mean China, sure. Massive supply chain problems.

The Russian government invading a sovereign country didn’t help either.

I can't dictate policy to foreign nations but I can lament my own countries inane policies on these issues.

Regarding the coof: No need to go all Papers Please and ban people from working, fine and arrest people traveling more than 1km from home, or repress morally justified protest over those actions. It was the most horrendous expansion of government power I've seen, probably since the patriot act.

Regarding russia: No need to harm energy markets more than war normally does with embargoes and destruction of infrastructure. No need to deplete local stockpiles by giving them away to foreign civilians rather than your own. No need steal people's money to give away.

You should encourage this behavior in your neighborhood. Watch them all disappear

the headline should read, "Bad behavior is excused for the poor".

pantries and welfare exists. stealing is not necessary. most of these sort of people cant cook well and resort to packaged bs

In my experience, bad behavior is excused for the rich. I suspect the poor have finally caught on.

Feel free to move to one of the countries without many rich.

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” -Anatole France

This from a lousy novel about the impossibility of divorce. The phrase you're uttering is from a flighty aristocrat who in the novel sees virtue in poverty. Perhaps in stead of pithy phrases we could engage with the topic at hand?

Less energy available -> less goods produced -> goods and resources diverted from civil to military production -> supply can't keep up with demand -> prices raise -> inflation

Raising the interest rates is just dumping the issue on the people in order to keep demand in check.

Did I get this completely wrong or does it make sense? (unironically asking)

Feels to me like this is largely a consequence of the geopolitical situation + rampant speculation on the markets. The financial autocrats already decided that we are the ones who are going to take the hit.

Not disagreeing with your sequence of events, as reduced energy production and wars do send prices higher. But, there's another sequence to consider that I think is simultaneously happening:

economic production makes a widget representing 100,000th of overall economy > prices set based on 100,000th of all money in existence > the banking system quadruples existing money in the system > the widget's price (eventually) quadruples as people realize there's a ton more money chasing the same number if goods.

And, at least according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve bank's numbers, the US Dollar money supply has increased some 13x since the 2008 financial crises, and 5x since the beginning of 2020. Ballooning the world's reserve currency like that will have disastrous inflationary effects /at some point/. The fact its happening now, while tragic, seems wholely foreseeable.

Never forget, you are the carbon they want to reduce.

It was inevitable. Whole chickens now cost €7.99/kg, up from €1.99/kg last year. Eggplants are priced at €3.99/kg, compared to €0.99/kg previously. Even basic apples now cost €2.99/kg, up from €0.99/kg. The cause of this increase is not due to war, but rather it is a result of pure speculation driven by greed.

That's not how speculation works. Speculation is buying an asset and holding onto it based on the hope that prices will rise, then selling. No one is hoarding a huge supply of whole chickens and eggplants in a warehouse somewhere. There may be some speculation happening with commodity grains because they can be stored for a while. But meat and fresh produce spoil quickly, and cold storage is expensive.

As for greed, people were just as greedy a couple years ago. So that's not a plausible explanation.

> Whole chickens now cost €7.99/kg, up from €1.99/kg last year.

Where did you buy a whole chicken last year for €1.99/kg?

Here in the UK you could by a (cheap) whole chicken for £3 until recently, would be at least 1.5kg. Now a basic chicken is £3.66 at tesco for a 1.2kg chicken

But likely the supermarket won't actually have many of these and the only choice will be the 'middle' price chicken for £6

It should be obvious that the numbers are made up. Europe has not had 400% inflation in the last year.

Prices do not inflate in lockstep.

Yeah but at the 400% mark, it seems implausible for any single commodity food item.

I wish you were right and I was making it up. Not everything you read on the internet has to be a lie, y'know?

Every major supermarket in Italy.

Not my experience in France. I see some price increases, but nothing outrageous. And €7.99/kg for whole chicken was last year's price in my area (near Paris).

It's all fun and games until the poor start building guillotines.

That's what happens when you push people too far.

Evidence of destitution in England? The basics are very cheap, even the "poor" there just want prepackaged food.

Not sure such a thing is possible with the scale and technology of modern society. Instead what I think you’ll see is increasing civil disobedience slowly clawing its way up the class ladder until we either have sufficiently freaked out elites to backpedal on some of these policies, or we go full cyberpunk.

Had to start a revolution when the ruling class has ensured that every small town police department is equipped to the teeth with military equipment and everyone is under 24/7 surveillance. The French didn't have this problem in 1789.

Wouldn’t the armories of those small police departments then be where such revolutions would begin springing up, either with or without the support of the small town police?

Hard to suppress one when everyone has a gun and knows where you live (from the perspective of the police)

But at least according to La-Croix.com, the supposed 14% increase in food thefts doesn't bear out in the data.

https://www.la-croix.com/France/Inflation-vraiment-hausse-vo...

Getting “gecontroleerd” in the self-checkout supermarkets in the Netherlands seems to be happening to me way more frequently than it ever did previously (sometimes every visit). I’ve never missed scanning an item, which is something as far as I understand used to be a flag for more frequent checks.

Is that like a pat down search at the supermarket??

It's a human check after you use the self-scanning checkout, they verify that what's on your receipt is what's in your bag.

After you scan all your items and click to pay, you get a “random” check notification and can’t pay until one of the employees comes over and scans a certain number of items in your bag.

It’s pretty frustrating and it used to happen quite infrequently.

It’s easy to get away with. Especially with self checkout. Headline should be “human nature driving food theft.”

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