I can’t believe I’ve lived as long as I have without knowing this, but the United States has two primary ways of measuring the nation’s crime rate: the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). I’ve always thought that the FBI UCR was the definitive word on crime stats. If you’ve got the UCR data, that’s it. Game over. Not true! The data above are a year old, but you can see that 2022 UCR data shows a drop in the violent crime rate, while NCVS data shows that total violent crime rose in 2022. UCR Data vs. NCVS data The FBI’s UCR statistics reflect crimes reported by the public to police. But most crimes are not reported to the police. To help account for the omissions, the NCVS measures crime in a nationwide household survey of respondents ages 12 and… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Walgreens
Pharmacy Deserts — The Struggle is Real?
Drugstore closures are leaving millions without easy access to a pharmacy — washingtonpost.com The nation’s largest drugstore chains — Rite Aid (which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week), CVS and Walgreens plan to collectively close more than 1,500 stores. Public health experts have already seen the fallout, noting that the first neighborhoods to lose their pharmacies are often predominantly Black, Latinx and low-income. That sentence is written in a way that makes the world sound worse to the casual reader than it probably is. How have public health experts “already seen the fallout” of something that hasn’t happened yet? Predominantly Black, Latinx and low-income neighborhoods are “often” the first to lose pharmacies. Not always, but often. Ok, that makes sense. But it’s phrased in a way that sounds like the pharmacies are being closed because of the demographics. If pharmacies didn’t want to be in predominantly Black, Latinx… Read more →
Regal Cinema is Alienating Me
Went to the movies yesterday and found that Regal Cinema has joined the ranks of Chevron and Walgreens as companies willing to hit up customers for a charitable donation as part of their regular purchase. You’re part of an industry that burns up a billion dollars making pirate movies and Baywatch and special effects science fiction bullshit. Donate that money to whatever cause you’re passing the hat for, instead of hustling the customers for a donation over and above the price of a ticket and a 6-dollar soda and a 10-dollar sack of popcorn, and then tooting your own horn over your generosity and community involvement. Read more →
Microeconomics at Walgreens
“Do you have a Walgreens rewards card?” the checker asks. “Yes I do,” I reply and I hand it to him. “Do you want to redeem any reward points today?” “Can you tell me how much I have available in reward points?” “Yes . . . let’s see . . . you have one dollar.” “One dollar?” “Yes.” “I’ll let it ride.” Read more →