Anyone see that star article " stealing to survive " ?

[gazza c 10]

stealing to survive, what a load of rubbish. i have worked in retail for over 18yrs and the article in the star was so false its unreal. like other people on here have said, why do they steal the most expensive steak or the biggest blocks of cheese. if they are hungry why steal deodrants, tolietries, big jars of coffee, razor blades,booze, big diary milk choc bars. they are stealing to fund their drugs or drink. people arent stealing bags of veg loaves of bread/bottles of milk/ready meals etc, the things that people are hungry would eat. ive caught many shoplifters over the years and none of them were stealing to eat.

[mikebatty 10]

We all know stealing is wrong , but here there is no need we have food banks and other help available, When i visit Zimbabwe we have mothers imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread where there is no food or help !! some have been in the woman's prison for more than 4 years ( with their children ) at the age of the 3 the child is removed and taken to the government orphanage if there is no family member to care !!

 

This is what I meant by the remark " Almost Dickensian " . That was what happened here in the early 1800,s .

If people are stealing today , ' in the 21st. century England , that is a sad reflection of our present society .

Fortunately, those people who choose to call for a Dickensian response are in a minority.

You are quite right to say that we all know that stealing is wrong . I suspect that all those who do it out of desperation also know that it is wrong .But, out of desperation , they do it anyway.

[chem1st 10]

The benefit system penalises single people, and young people in particular. Families on the other hand are quiet heavily protected. Indeed a child's tax credits oft exceed the dole.

A household with a single parent working full time with a child for which they are claiming tax credits, faces a very nasty financial shock when their child becomes of age to work/claim benefits, instead of be claimed on the behalf of.

Much like the shock faced by a young person working, whilst living with an unemployed single parent and his younger siblings.

 

Unemployment is highest among the youth. Young men generally have less support from family.

 

Single young people are those most likely to need to steal to survive.

 

And whilst some people on here might idealise someone who in need of food, goes out on a mammoth shopping trip to steal but the cheapest items out there so that he can just get by, or does some 5 mile trolley dash home with smart price items from the local ASDA that is not the real world. Why risk stealing 20 items of little monetary value, and risk getting caught 20 times.

 

Far better to pickpocket a twenty note, rob something that can be sold for a score, steal a 40 bag of cheese and swap it with the local OAPs for 20 in the club and risk getting caught only once.

 

Even better, pick up some cash in hand work to keep your head above water.

 

And best of all, land some full time work, with full time hours and a contract for full time employment, with security of hours, security of wages, and security of employment.

 

There is massive underemployment and unemployment in this country. People out there want to work. And sadly the severe lack of work causes some of them to steal.

 

Some people steal because they have addictions, and are addicted to substances which are priced artificially high.

 

Tobacco = £2/kg

In UK, with £160/kg tax and VAT added, you pay some £200+ per kg.

 

Alcohol = next to nothing.

In UK you pay well over the odds, you essentially pay a small amount + the UK DUTY. And the DUTY is the majority of the price. DUTY is a form of minimum pricing.

 

Heroin = next to nothing.

In the UK, whilst outlawed, this product commands a premium price. Traders involved in this market face loss of liberty and freedom, seizure of assets (theft) etc. and they have to factor this into the price to make a profit.

Heroin costs a lot, and it's cost causes lots of social problems.

 

Methadone = next to nothing.

In the UK, this is controlled, but heroin addicts can access it for free. Many people make a legitimate income out of the trade, and there are massive social benefits to this trade. All the problems associated with the heroin trade are removed. Quasi legal 'heroin' in the form of methadone makes society a much better place in which to live.

 

The UK also has minimum pricing policies on other things, including essentials such as housing, fuel and food.

This is regressive taxation and a theft from the poorest in society. It is pumped into land values and then given to the wealthiest.

 

Until this regressive taxation ends, there will always be theft in the UK, for what the state is carrying out, IS theft.

 

Common thieves stealing from businesses of dubious ownership are often modern day heroes, stealing a bit of their birth-right back from the people who stole it from them in the first place, and they are deserving of much more respect. This society is based upon theft, and the biggest thieves are the most handsomely rewarded.

 

If you have an ancestor who stole lots of land you most likely live a comfy life, off of the rents you can charge to the oppressed whom had the commons stolen from underneath their feet. You are said to be born with a silver spoon.

 

If you are born to hard working honest people, your a pleb, a serf, working class, a servant to the gentry.

 

The whole morals of theft are changing. Suppose a young lad is forced onto workfare at ASDA, works for his dole, then is sanctioned due to some unforseen accident on his way to sign on. Suppose he bumps into a little old lady on her way to spend her state benefit at the ASDA who has never worked a day in her life except for fiddle jobs. Suppose he pickpocketed a bit of her ever increasing pension credit to buy some eggs, bread, baccy and teabags. You could hardly call him the lowest of the low.

 

It'd still be wrong for the youth to steal of the little old lady mind you. But let's not forget the mechanisms of the state which are transferring vast sums from young to old, from landless to landowners and depriving many of the young the ability to accrue earnings or capital in the first place.

 

This society needs to end land theft.

 

Commoners need a right to grow food and construct a dwelling. Because otherwise all their labour will be appropiated by landowners via the charging of rent to access food and housing.

 

If it weren't for the fact we were crammed into manageable urban districts, we would be spread out across the land more growing our own food, manufacturing our own goods/goods for the market, or at least able to glean of off vast estates, instead of people from outside of the EU being bussed/flown in and housed in shacks to pick food throughout the summer months on the estates.

 

People are being forced to pay regressive taxes and national insurance (an increasingly perverse regressive tax). Yet being denied social security when they need it.

They are then forced to beg from charity (family/friends/foodbanks) or steal (X4Y4Z - money for a score for food/fuel/clothes/poll tax/tv tax/housing/addiction).

 

They aren't allowed dominion over land so that they may compete on equal terms with their fellow countrymen, they have no right to grow food, no right to build their own housing, no right to chop and work wood, no right to bake bricks, no right to grow commercial crops for drug production and manufacturing.

 

Theft. Makes me laugh. It needs to be ended really...

 

Give men freedom to access idle land.

 

And make sure those with it, give something back. Ideally with Land value tax, but maybe not if Noblesse Oblige.

 

If somebody owns land, they must use it for the good of society and provide, work, wages, housing, parks, allotments, leisure, poor relief etc.

 

If they don't then their behaviour must be modified with progressive land taxation.

[Penistone999 10]

Tobacco is only a rip off if you buy it from official sources where the Government has hiked up the price with tax and duty. I only pay £7 for a 50g pack of Tobacco , where as the shop price is over £14 . No one needs to pay shop prices for Tobacco and Cigarettes ,there are people on every estate in every town and city selling it a lot cheaper.

[mikebatty 10]

The benefit system penalises single people, and young people in particular. Families on the other hand are quiet heavily protected. Indeed a child's tax credits oft exceed the dole.

A household with a single parent working full time with a child for which they are claiming tax credits, faces a very nasty financial shock when their child becomes of age to work/claim benefits, instead of be claimed on the behalf of.

Much like the shock faced by a young person working, whilst living with an unemployed single parent and his younger siblings.

 

Unemployment is highest among the youth. Young men generally have less support from family.

 

Single young people are those most likely to need to steal to survive.

 

And whilst some people on here might idealise someone who in need of food, goes out on a mammoth shopping trip to steal but the cheapest items out there so that he can just get by, or does some 5 mile trolley dash home with smart price items from the local ASDA that is not the real world. Why risk stealing 20 items of little monetary value, and risk getting caught 20 times.

 

Far better to pickpocket a twenty note, rob something that can be sold for a score, steal a 40 bag of cheese and swap it with the local OAPs for 20 in the club and risk getting caught only once.

 

Even better, pick up some cash in hand work to keep your head above water.

 

And best of all, land some full time work, with full time hours and a contract for full time employment, with security of hours, security of wages, and security of employment.

 

There is massive underemployment and unemployment in this country. People out there want to work. And sadly the severe lack of work causes some of them to steal.

 

Some people steal because they have addictions, and are addicted to substances which are priced artificially high.

 

Tobacco = £2/kg

In UK, with £160/kg tax and VAT added, you pay some £200+ per kg.

 

Alcohol = next to nothing.

In UK you pay well over the odds, you essentially pay a small amount + the UK DUTY. And the DUTY is the majority of the price. DUTY is a form of minimum pricing.

 

Heroin = next to nothing.

In the UK, whilst outlawed, this product commands a premium price. Traders involved in this market face loss of liberty and freedom, seizure of assets (theft) etc. and they have to factor this into the price to make a profit.

Heroin costs a lot, and it's cost causes lots of social problems.

 

Methadone = next to nothing.

In the UK, this is controlled, but heroin addicts can access it for free. Many people make a legitimate income out of the trade, and there are massive social benefits to this trade. All the problems associated with the heroin trade are removed. Quasi legal 'heroin' in the form of methadone makes society a much better place in which to live.

 

The UK also has minimum pricing policies on other things, including essentials such as housing, fuel and food.

This is regressive taxation and a theft from the poorest in society. It is pumped into land values and then given to the wealthiest.

 

Until this regressive taxation ends, there will always be theft in the UK, for what the state is carrying out, IS theft.

 

Common thieves stealing from businesses of dubious ownership are often modern day heroes, stealing a bit of their birth-right back from the people who stole it from them in the first place, and they are deserving of much more respect. This society is based upon theft, and the biggest thieves are the most handsomely rewarded.

 

If you have an ancestor who stole lots of land you most likely live a comfy life, off of the rents you can charge to the oppressed whom had the commons stolen from underneath their feet. You are said to be born with a silver spoon.

 

If you are born to hard working honest people, your a pleb, a serf, working class, a servant to the gentry.

 

The whole morals of theft are changing. Suppose a young lad is forced onto workfare at ASDA, works for his dole, then is sanctioned due to some unforseen accident on his way to sign on. Suppose he bumps into a little old lady on her way to spend her state benefit at the ASDA who has never worked a day in her life except for fiddle jobs. Suppose he pickpocketed a bit of her ever increasing pension credit to buy some eggs, bread, baccy and teabags. You could hardly call him the lowest of the low.

 

It'd still be wrong for the youth to steal of the little old lady mind you. But let's not forget the mechanisms of the state which are transferring vast sums from young to old, from landless to landowners and depriving many of the young the ability to accrue earnings or capital in the first place.

 

This society needs to end land theft.

 

Commoners need a right to grow food and construct a dwelling. Because otherwise all their labour will be appropiated by landowners via the charging of rent to access food and housing.

 

If it weren't for the fact we were crammed into manageable urban districts, we would be spread out across the land more growing our own food, manufacturing our own goods/goods for the market, or at least able to glean of off vast estates, instead of people from outside of the EU being bussed/flown in and housed in shacks to pick food throughout the summer months on the estates.

 

People are being forced to pay regressive taxes and national insurance (an increasingly perverse regressive tax). Yet being denied social security when they need it.

They are then forced to beg from charity (family/friends/foodbanks) or steal (X4Y4Z - money for a score for food/fuel/clothes/poll tax/tv tax/housing/addiction).

 

They aren't allowed dominion over land so that they may compete on equal terms with their fellow countrymen, they have no right to grow food, no right to build their own housing, no right to chop and work wood, no right to bake bricks, no right to grow commercial crops for drug production and manufacturing.

 

Theft. Makes me laugh. It needs to be ended really...

 

Give men freedom to access idle land.

 

And make sure those with it, give something back. Ideally with Land value tax, but maybe not if Noblesse Oblige.

 

If somebody owns land, they must use it for the good of society and provide, work, wages, housing, parks, allotments, leisure, poor relief etc.

 

If they don't then their behaviour must be modified with progressive land taxation.

 

All That I can give you is my complete admiration and support and respect for your contribution . I wish you well in your fight .

 

---------- Post added 21-04-2013 at 19:44 ----------

 

stealing to survive, what a load of rubbish. i have worked in retail for over 18yrs and the article in the star was so false its unreal. like other people on here have said, why do they steal the most expensive steak or the biggest blocks of cheese. if they are hungry why steal deodrants, tolietries, big jars of coffee, razor blades,booze, big diary milk choc bars. they are stealing to fund their drugs or drink. people arent stealing bags of veg loaves of bread/bottles of milk/ready meals etc, the things that people are hungry would eat. ive caught many shoplifters over the years and none of them were stealing to eat.

 

Some of what you say may be of some significance . However , the majority of what you say is not born out by others .

I can think of many individuals who quote instances in order to substantiate their point , regardless of their motives . However , your points ,irrespective of how well meaning they may be , appear to be unsubstantive .

 

---------- Post added 21-04-2013 at 20:07 ----------

 

Spot on mate...... stealing to order from a shopping list of requests from the regulars in the local boozer. Profitable little business.

 

Did you see the "Secrets of the Shoplifters on channel 4 this week ? it showed south yorkshires finest light fingered wasters in action.

 

Channel "4" - secrets of - the truth about - etc., etc., is all about viewing figures . Next week , month , year - they will have present -secrets of the truth about - etc., etc., with a totally different slant on what they said previously .

If you want to believe then go ahead my friend .

When someone says to me " believe me " , " trust me " or , " you know and I know " , then I know that they are going to feed me a load of bull . That is based on experience .

My eyes and logic don't deceive me .

 

---------- Post added 21-04-2013 at 20:19 ----------

 

But then why display a montage of shoplifters with the banner " stealing to survive " but the shoplifters were clearly hardened pro's not opportunist starving people , its like putting a photo of the M1 with the banner " speeding on sheffield roads ".

 

I don't understand your point.

Can you give us some statistics . Some substance about the point you are making .

What do you mean by a " montage of shoplifters ".

I'm sorry but I may be missing the point .

[chem1st 10]

Tobacco is only a rip off if you buy it from official sources where the Government has hiked up the price with tax and duty. I only pay £7 for a 50g pack of Tobacco , where as the shop price is over £14 . No one needs to pay shop prices for Tobacco and Cigarettes ,there are people on every estate in every town and city selling it a lot cheaper.

 

6,4 and sometimes as low as 3.

 

With free trade and no tax in other nearby countries, I would be paying under £1.

[Eric_Collins 11]

 

I don't understand your point.

Can you give us some statistics . Some substance about the point you are making .

What do you mean by a " montage of shoplifters ".

I'm sorry but I may be missing the point .

 

The star gave the impression from the front page that the 10 faces on there were stealing to survive. It then later reviled the true crimes and what they had actually stolen which wasn't related to the headline of " stealing to survive ".

 

How can fags, razors, engine oil, wine, beer and coffee be essential to survival ? Those items are high value good to be sold on in the pub or bartered for drugs. I could have understood if there was a mother there with 4 kids and she'd stolen some coco pops , bread , milk or school items but there wasn't. The photographs were clearly unrelated to the story the star was trying to put out.

 

So like I said , put on front page some killer looking dog with tite " postman savaged " and get to page 8 to read it was a Yorkshire terrier who nipped the postman.

 

The star simply bigging up the story with very loosely related pictures. Is the word sensationalising ?

Edited April 21, 2013 by Eric_Collins

[mikebatty 10]

The star gave the impression from the front page that the 10 faces on there were stealing to survive. It then later reviled the true crimes and what they had actually stolen which wasn't related to the headline of " stealing to survive ".

 

How can fags, razors, engine oil, wine, beer and coffee be essential to survival ? Those items are high value good to be sold on in the pub or bartered for drugs. I could have understood if there was a mother there with 4 kids and she'd stolen some coco pops , bread , milk or school items but there wasn't. The photographs were clearly unrelated to the story the star was trying to put out.

 

So like I said , put on front page some killer looking dog with tite " postman savaged " and get to page 8 to read it was a Yorkshire terrier who nipped the postman.

 

The star simply bigging up the story with very loosely related pictures. Is the word sensationalising ?

 

So then ,are you saying that there were two stories merged into one article ?

[Clown Shoes 10]

Supermarkets, cafe, restaurants, fast food outlets etc should not be allowed to throw away food. They should put it all on display 15mins before closing so people can take it.

[mikebatty 10]

Supermarkets, cafe, restaurants, fast food outlets etc should not be allowed to throw away food. They should put it all on display 15mins before closing so people can take it.

 

That ties in with something I remarked on in another thread .

What supermarkets throw out is a sin before God .

They would not even let their own staff take it home . Rather they would dismiss them on the grounds of theft .

I have seen meat and fresh fruit and veg thrown out by the cartload rather than they give it away .

[Eric_Collins 11]

So then ,are you saying that there were two stories merged into one article ?

 

The photographs and descriptions of the photographs in terms of what was stolen had no bearing on survival. They were stealing to order, to feed a habit or sell.

 

The main text in the article referred to people stealing to survive on limited funds. They were stealing to eat or to provide for others as in food objects.

 

Therefore yes

 

I can see what angle the star went for, lets put 10 Jeremy Kyle guest looking types on the front and we'll sell more copies. Make sure they have baseball caps on, hoodies and look mean !

[Clown Shoes 10]

That ties in with something I remarked on in another thread .

What supermarkets throw out is a sin before God .

They would not even let their own staff take it home . Rather they would dismiss them on the grounds of theft .

I have seen meat and fresh fruit and veg thrown out by the cartload rather than they give it away .

 

Freeganism is actually a lifestyle. Its not for me but families were living completely from what they recovered from supermarket bins.

 

And living well. Especially at M&S, Waitrose etc

 

So the supermarkets put locks on the bins and said they were scared of being sued for food poisoning.

 

Nice!