I was downvoted in other threads for suggesting (perhaps in a ham handed fashion) that we shouldn’t rush to trust these one-sided articles about the rail theft

I was downvoted in other threads for suggesting (perhaps in a ham handed fashion) that we shouldn’t rush to trust these one-sided articles about the rail theft in LA and shoplifting in SF. People are surprisingly quick to suggest we throw more tax dollars at these “problems” without questioning that perhaps an alternate explanation for the increased theft is due to years and years exploiting every efficiency possible in the supply and retail chains. A store containing tens of millions of dollars of merchandise and “guarded” by a fewer and fewer underpaid employees eventually becomes a sitting duck. It’s the same explanation for why our supply chains were so brittle in the face of the pandemic: years and years of streamlining. Could there be societal or enforcement issues? Sure! But let’s be at least slightly skeptical when images of a few hundred yards of junk-strewn railway are plastered across every headline and trending list out there. The reality is often much more complicated.