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I have no idea who is telling the truth, but wouldn't it be fair to say that people working for the city do have more of a motivation to spin this than Walgreen

I have no idea who is telling the truth, but wouldn't it be fair to say that people working for the city do have more of a motivation to spin this than Walgreens? If Walgreens is doing what the city claims, then Walgreens doesn't need to blame the city. They might anyway, but there's no big incentive. If they have a lot of stores that aren't closing, wouldn't it even be potentially harming their business for no reason? Whereas, if the situation is what Walgreens says, then the city does need to blame Walgreens. I have never been to SF and don't have any idea about the facts on the ground. Just, coming from ignorance, it seems logical to me to bet the opposite way from you. One response to a decrease in reported theft and an increase in viral videos of theft is that the number of videos is misleading and "the numbers" prove it. Another is that people aren't reporting theft as much because it's either out of control or perceived as such due to the videos. And/or the authorities have ways of manipulating the statistics. I don't know that one or the other interpretation is correct, but if someone presents the first one as obvious without delving into why it is certainly true, then I tend to distrust them overall.

taurath 5y ago
I also am not strongly on one side there, but I can think of a few incentives for Walgreens to not say admit that certain stores are being closed due to lack of profits (indicating perhaps to investors that they've overbought in many areas and that their overall revenue will be going down, and hence their stock prices and the C-suite's bonus). However I also agree that there's not enough info here to be definitively in one camp or another - hence my ploy to say hey these folks at least have data, to try to get the other side to put up their data. The interesting part would be how far off that data is, and then someone's got some 'splaining to do, either to voters or investors. 1. Walgreens is correct - the SF DA is vastly undercounting thefts. This is very much of the public interest 2. Walgreens is lying - this is very much in the interest of walgreens investors 3. Middle ground (probably likely here) - those particular stores had a lot more theft than the average in SF and were particularly targeted. Neither is lying, but walgreens assertion that theft is rampant is somewhat weasel words.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  You can't be too cynical about management, but the investors are overwhelmingly institutions such as the largest index funds in the world. Walgreen's is something like 0.1% of the stock market. If they vaporized tomorrow, so much the better for their competitors which the same entities own. I guess management might be playing to the few people that bet the farm on Walgreens, but I can't imagine what they are like or what the execs think they want. You suggest that management doesn't want to admit they're closing stores for other reasons, but they do admit they're closing some stores for other reasons, right? That was cited in the article, which linked to an SEC filing saying they're spending over $2 billion to close stores. Is it plausible individual investors and/or bonus agreements are critically affected by the reasoning provided for a handful of store closings out of hundreds? Is it plausible even someone who invested every dollar they own in Walgreens cares about SF specifically, when they have 10,000 locations? I don't think there's a way to recover a self-consistent narrative from the article. Of course, that in no way proves that corporate mouthpieces are truthful or that they're not up to something.

taurath 5y ago

I also am not strongly on one side there, but I can think of a few incentives for Walgreens to not say admit that certain stores are being closed due to lack of profits (indicating perhaps to investors that they've overbought in many areas and that their overall revenue will be going down, and hence their stock prices and the C-suite's bonus). However I also agree that there's not enough info here to be definitively in one camp or another - hence my ploy to say hey these folks at least have data, to try to get the other side to put up their data. The interesting part would be how far off that data is, and then someone's got some 'splaining to do, either to voters or investors. 1. Walgreens is correct - the SF DA is vastly undercounting thefts. This is very much of the public interest 2. Walgreens is lying - this is very much in the interest of walgreens investors 3. Middle ground (probably likely here) - those particular stores had a lot more theft than the average in SF and were particularly targeted. Neither is lying, but walgreens assertion that theft is rampant is somewhat weasel words.

perl4ever 5y ago
You can't be too cynical about management, but the investors are overwhelmingly institutions such as the largest index funds in the world. Walgreen's is something like 0.1% of the stock market. If they vaporized tomorrow, so much the better for their competitors which the same entities own. I guess management might be playing to the few people that bet the farm on Walgreens, but I can't imagine what they are like or what the execs think they want. You suggest that management doesn't want to admit they're closing stores for other reasons, but they do admit they're closing some stores for other reasons, right? That was cited in the article, which linked to an SEC filing saying they're spending over $2 billion to close stores. Is it plausible individual investors and/or bonus agreements are critically affected by the reasoning provided for a handful of store closings out of hundreds? Is it plausible even someone who invested every dollar they own in Walgreens cares about SF specifically, when they have 10,000 locations? I don't think there's a way to recover a self-consistent narrative from the article. Of course, that in no way proves that corporate mouthpieces are truthful or that they're not up to something.