LARGE Larcenies

 Not Petty Thefts
  I had hoped to get this information to you before the end of the year so as to call your attention to some big stories you may have missed. Now that we have started a new one, I will suggest these past events may portend some trends to which we should not look forward.
  There are two reasons for this subject, apart from the sheer magnitude of the crimes committed. The first is that I will read stories about anything these days to avoid all the political ones. The second has to do with CHICKENS and I will begin with them because most of the work has already been done. If you don't want to bother reading all of what follows, the points are, I guess, that: 1)Very large quantities of things are being stolen; 2) Probably because prices have risen, while wages have not, and 3) because Organized Crime is involved so you can get rid of very large quantities without much trouble (like all of the fancy automobiles now missing from Toronto and which aren't even included below.) So much stuff is missing, I will just proceed in point form by commodities, most of which are edible. 

                                              Nor Mere Pilfering
The Chickens
   I still don't understand how you can steal 30,000 chicks, come back and steal 15,000 more and get away with them and it. See: "The Great Huron County Chicken Heist(s)".

Books
  Books are not much valued these days, unless they are valuable ones. See: "The Great British Book Burglary". 

Syrup
   This one happened a while back, but it is Canadian and it was such a big story that you may be watching "The Sticky" which just started on Amazon Prime Video.

See: "In $18 Million Theft, Victim Was a Canadian Maple Syrup Cartel," Ian Austen, NYT, Dec. 19, 2012. 

"It was an inside job of sorts. Thieves with access to a warehouse and a careful plan loaded up trucks and, over time, made off with $18 million of a valuable commodity...Over time, the thieves helped themselves to six million pounds of syrup."

Gold
  They cannot find your luggage at Pearson, but thieves were able to locate and make off with over $20 million in gold. There is even a Wiki entry for: "Toronto Pearson International Airport Heist." Perhaps this is where COSTCO is getting its product: See, "Gold At Costco!!"

Cheese
  In Vancouver. "On Thursday, B.C. RCMP revealed they'd recently foiled an attempted cheese heist at a Whole Foods in North Vancouver. They'd been on patrol Sept. 29 when they found a cart full of cheese outside the grocery store. A suspect fled on foot, leaving $12,800 worth of cheese behind."

  In the UK. "This most recent attempted heist comes as the cheese world is still reeling after a U.K. cheese heist that saw con artists make off with more than £300,000 (or more than $540,000 Cdn) in clothbound, award-winning cheddar. A 63-year-old man was recently arrested and released on bail. 

The cheese — 950 wheels of cheddar weighing 22 tonnes, stolen from Neal's Yard Dairy in London — has not been recovered."
 In the Netherlands. In 2022, thieves stole 161 wheels of cheese worth about $32,000 Cdn from a Dutch cheese farmer, according to the New York Times. Dairy farms in the Netherlands are frequently targeted, with the website Dutch News reporting in 2016 that 8,500 kilograms of Dutch cheese was stolen in the previous year, worth about $135,000.
 In Italy. "Italy is also often a target for Parmigiano Reggiano thieves. In 2016, CBS reported that about $9.7 million worth of the hard Italian cheese had been stolen in the past two years."
 In the U.S. "The U.S. isn't immune, with 20,000 pounds of fresh Wisconsin cheese worth about $64,000 nabbed by "cheese bandits" in 2016."
 In Canada. "...thieves made off with $187,000 worth of cheese from Saputo Dairy Products in Tavistock, Ont., in 2019."

Butter
  In Canada. "Scott Tracey, a spokesman with Guelph Police Service, said there have been eight or nine butter thefts over the last year, including one theft last December worth $1,000. In October, two men walked into a local grocer and filled their carts with cases of butter valued at $936, and four days later a Guelph grocer lost four cases valued at $958."

"Police in Brantford, Ont., are also investigating the theft of about $1,200 worth of butter from a store on Nov. 4."

In Russia: "Butter prices soar in Russia amid surging inflation in war economy

'The Armageddon with butter is escalating,' Russian economists claim on Telegram

Thomson Reuters. "The steep price rise has prompted a spate of butter thefts at some supermarkets, according to Russian media, and some retailers have started putting individual blocks of butter inside plastic containers to deter shoplifting."
  Perhaps this is where they are getting all the butter for the "Butter Sculptures."

Pies - They Are Even Stealing Dessert
  "Michelin Chef Appeals to Christmas Spirit of Thieves Who Stole 2,500 Pies:

“I know you’re a criminal, but maybe just do something nice because it’s Christmas,” said British chef Tommy Banks, after thieves stole a van full of pies," The Washington Post, Dec. 3, 2024.

Buckets - Big Time Bucket Theft
  "A Bucket Mystery: Compost Container Thefts Baffle D.C. Residents: The number of buckets stolen since the District program began last year has startled administrators," The Washington Post, Dec. 4, 2024.

 "Each of the 9,000 households participating in the Department of Public Works’ curbside composting collection program is issued a five-gallon bucket with a screw-top lid in which to place household compost for weekly pickup. A large orange sticker wrapped around the bucket identifies it as containing food waste and as “Property of District of Columbia Government.”

  But soon after the program launched in September 2023, the heists began. From sidewalks and alleys, front steps and backyards, the plastic carriers went missing. Slowly at first. Then much faster.

  By the end of the year-long pilot program, approximately 4,000 buckets had been  stolen, according to DPW.

   Widespread compost container theft was not something the agency anticipated when it launched the project, DPW Director Timothy Spriggs said in an interview. “And definitely not to the degree of the actual number of buckets that have been stolen,” Spriggs said. “So that has taken me by somewhat of a surprise.”

The motive for stealing such an ordinary, relatively inexpensive item remains a mystery."

BONUS - Bourbon. Over the Christmas holidays a neighbour involved (legitimately) in the booze business told us about a big theft of the stuff. She wasn't lying and you can easily learn about "Pappy Gate" which resulted in a lot of "Pappy Van Winkle" being stolen from the Buffalo Trace distillery. Like the missing cars in Toronto, it won't even be mentioned here.

Post Script: About The Illustration At The Top
  I came up with the title "Large Larcenies" and thought I would check and see if it was frequently used and that you might accuse me of title plagiarism. It is not much used and one of the few references is to the source of the illustration above.

The New Yorker, Nov.16, 1935.

  I suppose the good conclusion one can reach is that there have always been thieves ready to steal and that large larcenies are not a startling new form of criminality. 

Olde Posts Addenda (4)

 More "Breaking News" to add to the older news items already provided in Mulcahy's Miscellany. 

Excessive Drinking - OF WATER!
   Back in 2021 I questioned whether we really needed to carry a large bottle of water with us when we drove to the 7-Eleven to get a Slurpee (see "Hydration: Going Against the Current.") I don't get out much, but apparently students are still putting canteens in their backpacks and carrying large water jugs for the short distance between seminars.
   This was noticed by Frank Bruni who writes for The New York Times. When he was asked to characterize the students at Duke, where he teaches, he offered this description in his weekly newsletter. He makes the point I was trying to make in my hydration post, but he does a better job, which is why he writes for the NYT and I don't. It is really quite good and is found in the Newsletter on Nov.21, 2024:

   "What’s most remarkable about my students isn’t their wokeness or pre-professionalism. It’s their sogginess. They drink water constantly. They carry water everywhere. If the young people who fought in World War II were the Greatest Generation, the young people pursuing their bachelor’s degrees today are the Moistest one. They live on the cusp of some imagined desert, beside an oasis that’s their last call.

Sometimes I glance at the desks in a lecture hall or the big table in a seminar room and think I’m looking at an art exhibit of Exotic Cylinders. There are improbably tall, slender water vessels and squatter, wider ones, though almost all taper at the base, the better to fit into the cup holders of cars and cardio equipment. They are shiny and matte, turquoise and lavender, their provenance imprinted on them in distinctive fonts. Here a Corkcicle or an Owala, there a Stanley or a Yeti.

Those brand names are a clue that part of what I’m seeing is pure commercialism: If you build it, they will fill it with water. Canny entrepreneurs have turned the frumpy canteens of yesteryear, associated with cowboys and mountaineers, into the spiffy fashion statements of today, dangling from student knapsacks and essential for any vigorous Peloton session.

But there’s more to it than that. There are principles, politics: The refillable Hydro Flask or ThermoFlask replaces the disposable plastic receptacle and represents scrupulous stewardship of the environment. There are economics: A beloved, portable vessel with water from a tap obviates an Evian or a Dasani from the convenience store refrigerator case.

And there is self-care, an ineluctable phrase that didn’t exist — or had negligible exposure — when I attended college. My students correctly wager that health-wise, including skin-wise, hydration is best, so lugging around liquid sustenance is a kind of personal optimization. It abets peak performance. Along with a dewy complexion.

I reflect on my desiccated youth — when there were old-style water fountains rather than newfangled water stations, and I had to bend over and slurp up enough to last me several hours — and feel foolish and cheated, the improbable survivor of a parched and primitive time. I now understand why my fellow boomers and I made a mess of the world, and the generations after ours should cut us some slack. We were thirsty."

Excessive Eating - The Obesity Epidemic
  More recently in, "Weighing In" obesity was observed and proof is now offered in: "Three-Quarters of U.S. Adults Are Now Overweight or Obese: A Sweeping New Paper Revels the Dramatic Rise of Obesity Rates Nationwide Since 1990," Nina Agrawal, The New York Times, Nov. 14, 2024. Definitions are offered for the plus-sized people and I will have to check and see if I belong to that growing crowd:The paper defined “overweight” adults as those who were age 25 and over with a body mass index at or over 25, and “obese” adults as those with a B.M.I. at or over 30.
The "sweeping new paper" is found in The Lancet, "National-level and state-level prevalence of overweight and obesity among children, adolescents, and adults in the USA, 1990–2021, and forecasts up to 20," Nov. 14, 2024. "Over the past several decades, the overweight and obesity epidemic in the USA has resulted in a significant health and economic burden. Understanding current trends and future trajectories at both national and state levels is crucial for assessing the success of existing interventions and informing future health policy changes."

More Metals  At Costco - Now You Can Also Buy Platinum
   

   Oddly enough, when I complete this post I will likely have spent as much time writing about Costco as shopping there. Although they are getting out of the book business (see:"More Bad News For Books"), you can find on their shelves, gold(see: "Gold At Costco!!) and silver (see: "Hi Ho Silver??) to take to your compound when the apocalypse arrives. You will have food that lasts years if you have also purchased "Readywise, Costco's Emergency Food Kit" (see: "Evidence of End Times at Costco?".)
   "The sales of silver and gold are going well and now Costco is offering bars of platinum. The Costco website lists the item as a one-ounce (roughly 28.3 grams) 999.5 pure platinum bar “with a proof-like finish.”  The bars bear the image of Lady Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck and good fortune – an image also on some of Costco’s gold bars. Customers will need a Costco membership to buy these bars. Unlike most other products available at Costco, however, you can’t buy this one in bulk. There is a limit of one transaction per membership, with a maximum of five units per member. The bars are also non-refundable."
For more see: "Platinum Rush? Costco Is Selling a New Precious Metal in the U.S." Uday, Rana, Global News, Oct. 4, 2024.

BOOZE At Costco For Ontarians
  While platinum is not yet available to us, we can now purchase, beer, wine, champagne and some 'soft' mixed cocktails at Costco, but not the hard stuff. For that, we will still have to go to the LCBO, but it is not yet clear what we do with all of the empty containers. See: "Ontario's 41 Costco Locations Can Sell Alcohol As Of Oct. 31, 2024," CBC News, Oct. 30, 2024. 

Happy Thanksgiving to Those In the U.S. 
   You have a lot to be thankful for - platinum at Costco, for example. Eat that turkey, but begin a diet in the new year.

Hi Ho Silver !!

Silver Bars Along With Chocolate Ones at COSTCO 
   I don't usually read the commercial emails received continuously, but I was curious about what "Treasure" might now be found at Costco. It turns out it is SILVER. At the end of 2023 I noticed that they also carry GOLD and I don't have much to add to, "GOLD AT COSTCO", where I confessed an ignorance about 'investing' and financial matters generally.

  I can understand that Costco attempts to lure customers to return by offering "Treasure," but I am not sure that silver is, although it might be more valuable than crypto. Still, I thought I should call it to your attention. I know that a silver bar will last longer than a chocolate one and perhaps is a better hedge against inflation. While the prices for most things seem only to go up, however, the value of gold and silver sometimes goes in the other direction. I see in my "Gold Post" that the 1oz. of gold was going for $2,679.99 at Costco back in December, so you should check and see what it is worth now, before you buy some silver bars. Also in that post you will learn about the expression, "Going to Hell in a Handbasket," which may be relevant. 

GOLD AT COSTCO !!

 Feeling Bearish?
   My initial thought was, "This Can't Be Good!" Not wishing to present bad news at this time of year and not qualified to offer investment advice, I was reluctant to post this. It is, however, my fiduciary duty to do so and I call to your attention two CBC articles you may have missed.
   It is also the case that this post can be interpreted  as "good news", since the price of gold is going up. And, you can buy it at COSTCO! Relax and enjoy the new year celebration.
   About a matter such as this, it is better to go directly to the sources and not rely on MM. Here they are: 
   I just read this one today: "The Gold Rush Is Back --- And Now at a Big-Box Store Near You: Amid Global Instability, Gold Prices Are Soaring and Some Retailers Are Cashing In," Anis Heydari, CBC News, Dec. 30, 2023.
   "Warehouse stores in Canada aren't just selling large quantities of toilet paper these days — gold bars and coins and other precious metals are moving out of the realm of banking and jewellers and into their aisles....
   According to Costco's chief financial officer, Richard Galanti, the company "sold over $100 million [US] of gold" during a recent 12-week period. Walmart has also started selling gold, silver and platinum bars online to U.S. consumers.Costco didn't respond to requests for comment from CBC News, but officials had previously told investors their gold bars would sell out within hours of being listed online."

  I had missed this earlier one, which is linked in the article above:  "Costco Now Sells Gold Bars. Are They a Good Investment?" Padraig Moran, CBC News, Oct. 3, 2023.

   "Canadians can now buy gold bars at Costco, but one financial expert warns it might be an investment with limited return — unless you're planning to flee the country.

   "Part of [gold's] mystique comes from the ability that it's easy to carry around … you can carry a lot of money in a suitcase if you've got gold," said Will Huggins, an associate professor of finance and economics at McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business....

     The 1 oz., 24-carat gold bars are on sale at Costco in Canada for $2,679.99 a piece, with member customers limited to buying a maximum of two bars every seven days. CBS reported last week that Richard Galanti, chief financial officer at Costco, said the bars were selling out within hours every time inventory was added to the company's website."

Finding Gold at Costco
   I googled the Costco website for "gold", for which there were 647 'hits'. One of them is for the gold bar and here are the data about it:

1 oz Gold Bar PAMP Suisse Lady Fortuna Veriscan (New In Assay)

Features:

24-kt yellow gold

1 troy oz (31.1 g)

Item cannot be returned or refunded

This item is not eligible for price adjustments and/or any promotions

Limit of 1 transaction per 7 days (168 hours) per Membership, with a maximum of 2 units

Bar Highlights:

Contains 1 troy oz (31.1 g) of .9999 fine gold.

Tamper-evident assay card makes it easy to determine if the bar has been handled while guaranteeing the gold weight and purity. PAMP Mint places a thin plastic sheeting that safeguards your assay card during shipping.

They will deliver the gold bar, but are sold out right now. To find the current price I had to check into my Costco account, but it would be easier to get into Fort Knox. I assume it is around $2700, but remember, you can only buy two at a time. 

"Going to Hell in a Handbasket"
   As you can see, that expression was used in the article and I wondered about it, although I knew it did not generally imply that things are going well. Here are the introductory words from the very interesting Wikiwand entry. "To Hell in a Handbasket": 
"Going to hell in a handbasket", "going to hell in a handcart", "going to hell in a handbag", "go to hell in a bucket", "sending something to hell in a handbasket" and "something being like hell in a handbasket" are variations on an allegorical locution of unclear origin, which describes a situation headed for disaster inescapably or precipitately.

The Bonus:
   At the end of the wiki essay there is a list of items showing how the term is used in popular culture. The last one is: In the American television sitcom Friends (1994-2004), Helena Handbasket is the drag name of Charles Bing, the gay father of main character Chandler Bing.
   The late Mr. Bing was mentioned recently in MM, in "Schott's and Friends."