Bums asking for handouts

[random]

I produced a video on this subject. It's called: Panhandlers Extreme

cheers,

Random

[Hawkins]

Its always at Quiktrip where I get hit up by panhandlers.

Most, like the Police Office mentioned, are professonial scammers.

One guy pulled up behind me at the pump and gave this elaborate story about how he was in town to visit his son at college, but he didn't have enough gas money to get back home to Arkansas. That was a great 'my offspring are trying to be like you' story.

Another guy pulled up to me at midnight while I was pumping gas! Now, I'm a concealed weapon license holder, and proceeded to reach into my pocket and hold onto the grip of my Kel-Tek .32, as this idiot tells me that he's not a panhandler, but that his wife kicked him out of the house and he would like some cash to get some Wendy's.

Then, low and behold a 2nd panhandler tries the same thing at a different Quiktrip after midnight, (which really ticks me off because that makes me nervous to be approached by a stranger that late at night) and this guy is driving a decent-looking truck, and is obviously well-fed (he was quite overweight). I cut him off mid-story and told him "Nope," because I've already heard that crapt, and it's all B.S. He gave me an angry look, and I stared him down with "I'm going to kill you" written in my eyes, and he slowly drove off.

Sometimes you have to follow your heart, but most of the panhandlers around here are scammers, and they take advantage of people's need to feel like they are giving back to society.

Oh, and I've also met the guy who walks around with the gas cannister, if you gave to that guy, you got scammed again, unless of course, it was halloween, because all that gas can is--is a costume. Part of the ploy.

But hey, its not just downtown where this stuff happens! Its everywhere. South tulsa Quiktrips are the heaviest spot for it, IMO.

[sauerkraut]

That's the oldest trick in the book, running out of gas money. How many people would drive far away from home and forget to bring gas money? Then they say they left their ATM card at home or the girlfriend has the ATM card and she's no where to be found. For Every helpful answer you try and give these guys they have an excuse on why it won't work and they need your hand out. Lugging around a gas can and a outta state drivers license is not new.That stuff is called "The tools of the trade"

[Conan71]

Many people confuse a string of poor decisions with bad luck because they refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions.  To them, their problems are always someone else's fault.  That is the cornerstone belief of just about every addict and alcoholic.  That also extends on to people who blame their own lack of ambition on the government for their low paying job, or lack or any job.  Poor work ethic is no one's fault but your own.

Call me a cold hearless bastard, I see myself as a pragmatist and realist.

I would go on in detail about my own hard life and times of being near destitute, but that will just veer this subject off into a big d!@* contest.  Those times were due to my choices and not someone else's fault, nor the result of a poor local or national economy.  

I have lost a house to foreclosure in the past.  It wasn't the big mean bank's fault nor a sagging economy- it was my own personal choices which put me in that position.

I don't know what hard-core homelessness is but I have lived in less than stellar living conditions, I have been two weeks away from having any foreseeable income, with $10 in my pocket, and very little in the cupboard.  I've always been willing to help friends through hard times, and so at the times when I needed help, I would call in a chip.

The reason people were willing to help me is because they knew I was headed in the right direction, I wasn't lazy, and that I would always be willing to repay a favor when needed.

My definition of a hand-out is something that keeps someone on the ground.  My definition of a hand-up is helping someone up one more rung on the ladder when they are trying to get up the ladder on their own.  (Whoops, IP, hand ME the shampoo).

You aren't doing anyone favors with hand-outs, just prolonging a miserable existence.  As long as people think they can have things for free, they will continue to do nothing to earn a better life.

We have a very similar situation with one of my grown step-children right now, but I'll save that long dissertation for another time.  Just suffice to say that she is doing very little to help herself and is expecting everyone else to hand her an easy life.  It's not going over very well with her mother.

[iplaw]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Many people confuse a string of poor decisions with bad luck because they refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions.  To them, their problems are always someone else's fault.  That is the cornerstone belief of just about every addict and alcoholic.  That also extends on to people who blame their own lack of ambition on the government for their low paying job, or lack or any job.  Poor work ethic is no one's fault but your own.

Call me a cold hearless bastard, I see myself as a pragmatist and realist.

I would go on in detail about my own hard life and times of being near destitute, but that will just veer this subject off into a big d!@* contest.  Those times were due to my choices and not someone else's fault, nor the result of a poor local or national economy.  

I have lost a house to foreclosure in the past.  It wasn't the big mean bank's fault nor a sagging economy- it was my own personal choices which put me in that position.

I don't know what hard-core homelessness is but I have lived in less than stellar living conditions, I have been two weeks away from having any foreseeable income, with $10 in my pocket, and very little in the cupboard.  I've always been willing to help friends through hard times, and so at the times when I needed help, I would call in a chip.

The reason people were willing to help me is because they knew I was headed in the right direction, I wasn't lazy, and that I would always be willing to repay a favor when needed.

My definition of a hand-out is something that keeps someone on the ground.  My definition of a hand-up is helping someone up one more rung on the ladder when they are trying to get up the ladder on their own.  (Whoops, IP, hand ME the shampoo).

You aren't doing anyone favors with hand-outs, just prolonging a miserable existence.  As long as people think they can have things for free, they will continue to do nothing to earn a better life.

We have a very similar situation with one of my grown step-children right now, but I'll save that long dissertation for another time.  Just suffice to say that she is doing very little to help herself and is expecting everyone else to hand her an easy life.  It's not going over very well with her mother.

What's the old adage, give a man a fish...  What I really object to are those people who knowingly prolong other people's misery by creating social dependents with hopes that it may score them feel good points or even worse, votes.

Social services abound in this city.  If they are truly in need there are places to go and people to take care of them...

No one NEEDS cash to survive in this town if you're truly in need.  Food and shelter can be found if that's what they are truly looking for.

[Hometown]

You are something else with that hand on the gun, Hawkins.

Let's face it; no one's going to ask for your voting record if they want that dollar bill in your pocket.  They don't care what I've spent my life doing.  They just want my dollar bill.

First thing you learn in the big city is don't make eye contact, look like you know where you are going and don't slow down.  My first response to most panhandlers, and I'll interrupt their stories right away to say this, "I don't have any money."

Surviving New York meant having a dumpy old overcoat you could throw over your outfit, never wearing jewelry and if you carry anything, make it a 5&10 shopping bag.

I just love Republicans.  They gut education.  They gut the safety net.  They debase the middle and working classes, and when the predicable outcome happens, they moralize about the people they beat down.  All this so they can hang onto some change.  Their greed is killing us.

We've had 30 years of ascendancy of the Republican Party in this country and Hawkins I'll tell you this much, before the Republicans took over you never got panhandled at South Tulsa Quick Trips.  I grew up in South Tulsa and the corner store was a Get & Go and I never got panhandled once.

Oh wait, I forgot the hippy panhandlers.  Remember hippy panhandlers?  Nice kids from middle class homes.

Ippy, You've traveled.  What's that word the French use?  You've been in one of those situations where someone was criticizing someone and it sounded like they were describing themselves.  The French have a word for it.  What's that word, Ippy?

[Conan71]

My, my walk right past beggars and don't make eye contact, how compassionate.

Well then HT, how about conceding that during the Republican ascendency we are seeing very low un-employment.  Maybe the increase in panhandling is because of liberal values which don't emphasize personal accountability, responsibility, and productivity.  I'd bet on that before I'd blame it on a robust economy.

[Conan71]

Here's a new one you can try:

"Sorry, I gave at the office via my payroll taxes."

[RecycleMichael]

Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day.

Give a man a job and he can eat for an hour, usually between noon and one o'clock.

[Hometown]

Love that Troll Conan.  You were kind of cute and loveable anyway.

You know I read your earlier post and I hear you.  You work your tail off.  You haven't had a whole lot of help along the way.  Paying the bills and just maintaining a pretty basic lifestyle is not easy.  It's a tough world out there.  It's not easy to make a living.  Men don't help each other.  They compete with each other.

We've seen historically high unemployment throughout the Reagan era.  Four percent was considered high unemployment before the Reagan years.  We have ratcheted down our expectations.  

Robust economy?  When is this robustness going to show up in wages?

The outcome of liberal values is a matter of record now and it was a huge success.  Liberal values created the middle class in the span of one generation.

We are where we are now because of the revolt of the rich which began in the 1970s.  The upper class decided it didn't want to contribute its share of the burden of running our country.  What they haven't been able to eliminate they have shifted onto the backs of the middle and lower classes in the form of sales taxes and fees.

They found a willing partner in the Republican Party and your coalition of the Greedy and the Religious Nuts has been able to muster the thin majority you've needed to stay in power for close to 30 years now.

But what was more damaging was the way you caught our imagination.  Reagan told us we could have something for nothing.

You had the consummate salesman in Reagan.  But, the same words he spoke are repeated now without effect.  

Those same words no longer have the ring of truth because we have the outcome of your theories before our eyes.  The rich have grown richer than ever before and middle and lower classes have taken a terrible hit.  Your greed has done serious damage to our way of life.

[Mike G]

I believe one of the local news stations did a bit a few years ago where they dressed up one of their guys and put him at a busy highway off-ramp all dressed up to look like a bum.  I think they said during the six or eight hours he was out there, he averaged something like $12/hr (which is more than I make).  They donated the money to a charity.

There is a city, forgot where,  maybe in Texas, that requires anyone asking for money on the streets to have a tax stamp of some sorts that they have to buy.  Although not very expensive, it does deter a few and bring money back to the state for their laziness.

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day,
teach a man to fish and you can sell him equipment!"

[Hometown]

Folks, here's the crux of the problem in Oklahoma.

Mike G.: [The panhandler] averaged something like $12/hr (which is more than I make).

Mike is an adult male worker and he makes less than $12 an hour.

Most Tulsans are in this boat, and they are trying to find someone lower on the totem pole that they can pile up on.

Mike you do have a rather serious problem but you need to look up the social ladder instead of down the social ladder, to find someone to blame.

Panhandlers don't craft monetary policy.

[sauerkraut]

Tulsa's Sunday newspaper Job section is full and overflowing with jobs, some even offer bonuses, and one ad I seen even offered advance paycheck cash of $50.00. I counted well over 100 job ads for unskilled general labor in Tulsa's Sunday paper, (the only hang up may be if someone has a criminal record then finding a job is not so simple)... However,rents are low in Tulsa compaired to other cities. The beggers just seem to be lazy folks in most cases.. or so it seems to me. thanx.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

Tulsa's Sunday newspaper Job section is full and overflowing with jobs, some even offer bonuses, and one ad I seen even offered advance paycheck cash of $50.00. I counted well over 100 job ads for unskilled general labor in Tulsa's Sunday paper, (the only hang up may be if someone has a criminal record then finding a job is not so simple)... However,rents are low in Tulsa compaired to other cities. The beggers just seem to be lazy folks in most cases.. or so it seems to me. thanx.

HT is right about one thing. This did not occur so much in the 70's. What has happened that it is so common now? You think it is laziness but that is a subjective analysis. Those jobs you see in the paper are piss poor jobs. The employers treat you like s**t because thats what they think you are. They plan to replace you as soon as you're spent and drag in the next gaggle of toxic workers. They use agents to hire you on temporary basis, which shows their committment to training. This also allows them to avoid the costs of real employment.

You heard the Oreck story? They moved their manufacturing plant out of the Katrina damaged Gulf area up to Tennessee. It seems that they were having problems in getting enough workers to meet production. This meant that they were having to abide by the rules of capitalism (high demand for workers & shortage of workers = higher pay to attract them). But they couldn't swallow raising the pay of their workers from $5.15 to $7.15!!! So they left for Tennessee where them folks will work for coal for the stove. They noted that the plant they were moving to had taken their operations to Mexico to keep their labor costs at the magic $5.15 level. That was a threat from them.

This is not global marketing folks. Oreck started here, made its brand here, and primarily markets in America. This is bastardized laws of supply and demand. We called it administrative pricing in the day. It has resulted in poorer and poorer quality products. The cheaper price is illusory. Example: Bought a 12volt Eveready car battery from our friends at WalMart Dec.31st. Good brand, good price $39.95. On January 21st after sitting in an unused car for less than a month, it discharged and refused to take a recharge.

I of course returned it because of the free replacement within 30days Eveready offer. That offer should have tipped me off. Companies have eliminated their quality control employees in an effort "to meet the realities of global trade". This means that the function of quality control has been passed on to the consumer. I now am responsible for determining that it was a faulty product, remove it and return it at my own cost where they will cheerfully exchange it for another one. All to save labor costs. And we lower our expectations and keep taking this bs. I told the automotive mgr. that I had never had an Eveready battery fail me before. She said "Oh, we get lots of them back. We didn't use to, but now we do." No surprise there. WalMart insisted on the low price, which led to the poor quality. Just think. They're doing that with your food too.

[Conan71]

Well, when you consider that it says "Eveready" with a $40 price tag comes with a 30 day warranty and the average car battery costs about $30 to $40 more and comes with up to a 72 month pro-rated warranty, that should be your first clue.  You can be assured that some company in India is either making cheap-o car batteries for them, or the Indian company is paying a licensing fee to Eveready.  Either way, it's not the same quality control as their smaller batteries.  Not lampooning you WB, just saying that if no one was willing to buy a $40 car battery, they would not exist on the market.

The large consumer demand for low-priced goods doesn't help the wage picture.  It puts pressure on companies to control labor costs so either they continue to pay piss-poor wages here in U.S. factories, or they move over the border to Mexico, or set up shop in India or China.

Raising the minimum wage will result in more items being produced out of the country or inflation.  

We want higher wages, but we don't want the price of our consumer goods to go up.  If prices go up due to higher wages, then the mentality becomes that corporations are being greedy and sticking it to the consumer.  A higher minimum wage is a zero sum gain unless manufacturers move the jobs to an area where they can legally pay less for labor, in which case unemployment goes up.