Brother, Can You Spare a Swipe?

19 Comments on Brother, Can You Spare a Swipe?

1. Because…ObamaPhone!

2. Typical politician.

3. This might be what a Sanders presidency looks like.

4. I’m halfway tempted to say good for him. Just for originality sake alone. Those cars reader companies take 2% of every swipe. I hate mine.

   Cash is king. ?

5. Well when you stop and think about it he adds more to our economy than an attorney and just as much as most serviced based jobs. They add value to nothing.

6. Or a “mid-level manager”
   Or a “Human Resources Expert”
   Or a “Quality Assurance Agent”
   Or a “Professor of _____ Studies”
   Or a “Student of _____ Studies”
   Or a … &c., &c., &c.

7. ANY college professor. He’s more productive than any Dean Of Students. And all of congress. I think Ill send this guy some money.
   LOL

8. You have to give that guy a lot of credit…

   ?

9. Yeah right, I’m going to swipe a card with a $15k limit on a bum?

   I worked for many years in the heart of the shitty, I knew every bum’s routine. You should have heard the laughter around the office when I’d walk through and say, Help me Lord, I’m hun-gray.

   They never changed or rotated out, I think they were permitted by the shitty. Now and then I’d see a new one, but never saw them again, probably because they had no permit. Also they only seemed to be around during the morning and evening rush. They set up on a corner, lay there with a dog or some other attractant and collect money. I’m fairy certain they had regular donors, as I’d sometimes see someone walk by and give them a bill and acknowledge each other by name.

   Not me. I have handed out food and pumped a couple gallons of gas, but that’s only because they were fairly convincing and I was in a good mood.

10. He probably owns a mansion and Mercedes.

11. …or used to.

12. They were called bums back when I was a kid in the 50’s and I guess they still are.

    I hope he paid for that shopping cart. Those things are expensive.

13. Is that Brian Williams?

14. “need a new excuse?!?!?” What’s wrong with, “Go #@$% yourself!”?

15. No, Obama is the one who turned homelessness into a business.

16. A sales rep from AL came to meet with us in Atlanta. Walking on the way to lunch, a bum stopped us with a story about his car being broken down on the interstate and his family (wife and 3 small kids) was starving. The sales rep told the guy “I bet they really are hungry by now”. The bum looked at him quizzically and the rep said “you tried the same story on me when I was here about a month ago”. The bum just turned and walked off.

17. Here’s my favorite (true) panhandler story, and it is literally 50 years old (mid-60’s). Where I live, there used to be a regular gauntlet of winos that I had to run in order to walk the last couple of blocks to work. There was one really old gal, called One-eyed Mary, who had a glass eye. She would take it out and accost young male office workers on the street, pointing to the empty socket and saying, “Can you give me a couple of bucks to take a taxi to the hospital, Mister? I think there’s something wrong with my eye!”

    Now that’s creativity that you rarely see anymore.

    Rest in peace, Mary. Rest in peace.

18. I gotta give him props but it really isn’t surprising. Homelessness is a cottage industry based loosely upon roving bands that work together. Quite profitable actually. Think of the Artful Dodger without any literary potential. Here in Oakland, I have seen and spoken to the same bums on the same corners the last 6 years. I always ask how the job is going that day. During the occupy Oakland days they would beg from those that they would attacked at night and the irony was not lost on anyone. It’s a job, a lifestyle, a choice.

19. When they ask me for money, I tell them I just spent my last $20 on ammo. They always walk away.