Phantasmix Stock Market Blog

Source: New York Times via Smart Brief

While other European countries endure harsh spending cuts and tax increases, Germany’s finances are so strong that politicians are considering a huge tax cut. With strong unions and stringent workplace protections, unemployment was 7% in July, compared with 9.1% in the U.S. German policymakers worry about running out of workers, not jobs.

• Shoplifting cost American retailers $11.7 billion in 2009, costing the average retailer about 1.5% of profits. When that percentage grows much above 2%, it can lead to layoffs or even bankruptcy.
• Some estimates suggest that nearly one in 10 Americans are active shoplifters. {Wowzers!}
• Because the retail industry’s profit margins can be so thin, “the theft of one $5 heirloom tomato from Whole Foods can require sales of up to $500 to break even.”
• The term “shoplifting” first appeared in Elizabethan London.
• Kleptomania is different from shoplifting. Shoplifting remains substantially an economically driven crime.
• In the first year of the Great Recession, there was an 8.8% spike in consumer theft in the U.S.

Deadly Sin rings by Stephen Webster

Just an observation (triggered by something in RL).