From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon Aug 06 2001 - 18:25:10 MDT
Reason wrote:
>
> > Bums in the street would vanish, because begging is a harder way to
> > acquire funds, than working a job. Crime would plummet, because in the
>
> Reality disconnect: most panhandlers have made a very educated decision to
> remain panhandlers, because they make more money that way than they would in
> any job they are qualified to be hired for (== minimum wage or near minimum
> wage). A good panhandler can clear $50-80/day in tax-free money in cities in
> which there isn't so much competition in the panhandling ecosystem (such as
> Houston, TX, or New Orleans, LA, to name two examples in which I've known
> people who panhandled). Here in San Francisco, the competition is way more
> Darwinian; there's quite an arms race, and any human front to the
> pandhandlers that you're likely to see has been subsumed by the tricks and
> falsehoods necessary to compete for dollars. As a consequence of that, I
> don't know anyone here who does this for a living, so can't speak to the
> income.
>
In my misspent youth I tried my hand at panhandling, back in the
days when you did it with a smile and a blessing whether you got
anything or not. You were lucky usually to get enough for food
and a flophouse roof over your head. So the above is utterly
false to my experience.
> But anyway, back to the point: most of these people have made a sensible,
> informed capitalist decision to do what they do. Don't insult their
> intelligence.
>
Well. When I did it I did it because I hadn't figured out how
to plug myself into an economy and workforce that seemed to me
insane and I didn't want to put my brains in service of what I
considered insane (end of the Vietnam era). After a while I
stopped when I realized that I was pretending to take a moral
high road by being dependent on those who for one reason or
another did not take that road. That struck me as unfair and
hypocritical of me. But I certainly wasn't making more at it
than I made in even the lowliest jobs.
- samantha
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