[2ndDivisionVet]

The left coast is a parallel universe.

[Bean Counter]

Parallel to what, is the scary part...

[doc1019]

That’s appox. 75K a year tax free and no overhead (allowing for two weeks vacation) … Great Job! ;-)

[Doogle]

...wait till they start washing your window on your just cleaned car with dirty water and expect a dollar. Then when you refuse, they kick a dent in your hybrid Mommie bus (SUV),or rip off your antenna and hammer across your open double moonview roof like a crazed baboon on crack that you see at animal drive thru’s at safari parks

[MarineBrat]

Good for more than just kids.

[Viking2002]

I've dealt with maggots like these in Georgetown and Adams Morgan in D.C. before. More proof that no amount of money can buy a human some dignity.

[Graybeard58]

[healy61]

ome freepers need to pick a few saturdays and go down and panhandle and load the place up. Where clothes like the other panhandlers, and no ID. There will come a point where somebody with significant brains and authority will say, Enough. Just keep panhandling anyway.

[Hugin]

75K a year for holding a sign outside Wally World? Why would they do anything else?

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Every dollar donated to panhandlers is a vote begging them to stand in the doorway the next day, week, or month and continue begging. You get what you subsidize.

I wish generous people would just donate to their favorite charity and not vote to encourage panhandlers. Oh well... I can’t make people not be stupid.

[dighton]

“Most (panhandlers) have lived here a long time and actually have homes,” he said. “This is just their chosen profession.”

Paging Sherlock Holmes!

(Disclaimer: not a real person)

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

He said most panhandlers are not criminals. "They are nearly as likely to be victims of illegal acts as they are of committing them," he said.

B.S. - I'd be willing to bet that very few, if any, of them pay income tax on the money that they collect. Therefore, they are criminals. More than likely tax dollars are transfered TO them because they don't have any stated income. So they get thousands out of your and my pocket on top of the $75,000/year that they make asking people for money.

[martin_fierro]

[mtbopfuyn]

Kumbayah and a group hug!

[weegee]

If the Sheriff of Knottingham isn’t going to police the beggars making $300 a day then the IRS should. Good enough for Al Capone and Alan Freed, good enough for for Hobo Bob.

[fr_freak]

Police say people who have a problem with that needn't look to the law--asking for money is considered protected free speech.

It's official, people. Not only is the average American woefully ignorant of what any of our laws actually mean, but the people in charge of enforcing those laws are just as clueless. "Free speech" is now a catch all term which means whatever the hell anybody wants it to mean, and nobody even knows enough to challenge even the most assinine interpretations. Complete oppression is the only logical outcome of this kind of ridiculous ignorance. Prepare yourselves.

[JDoutrider]

". "These are broken people who will never be able to hold a job," he said. "They need disability payments."

The hell they do!

Pack 'em up, and ship 'em out to the Sheriff down there in Arizona!

[durasell]

Phrased another way:

Wal-Mart Employees Make Less Money Than Bums

[Joe Boucher]

A great Sherlock HOlmes story about an English noblemans wife who goes to Holmes to have him find where her husband disappears for days at a time.
Holmes follows the guy through an opium den and figures out the guy transforms himself in to a beggar. One of those guys on a platform on wheels who rolls around London with a cup in his hand begging.
Guy inherited a title, land and responsibilities but no marketable skills.
He makes loads more begging thane he can at any real job.

[Mercat]

I am a little begger man
A beggin I have been
I put three score or more
On this little isle of green
I’m known from the levy
Up to St. Lu
And I’m known by the name
Of Ole Jimmy Do

Of all the trades that’s going now sir
Begging is the best
For when a man’s tired
He can sit down and rest.
Beg for me supper
There’s nothing else to do
Only cut around the corner
for me ole rigadoo.

[toddlintown]

Loons, all of them.