What on earth is America come to these days? Wall Street CEO David Moore is just aghast — aghast! — from a thoroughly horrid recent encounter where not only did a New York City street beggar refuse a charitable one-dollar bill that Moore proffered to him, but the beggar (really, you will not believe this) even threw the dollar on the ground! The insolence! Well, this will not do. Rude manners can hurt millionaires’ feelings too, you know! Oh, and these feelings shall not go quietly into the night, no, not this time. Moore must bravely recount his story to local country club bulletin the Wall Street Journal, so that all may ponder and shake their heads. Wherefore the panhandler’s venom against the rich man? Most certainly it is an unprecedented incident in the history of New York City, just as surely as someone put the poor man up to it. The culprit? If you guessed, “Barack Obama made him do it,” keep reading!
We must first read the harrowing tale of ingratitude:
Walking down New York’s 55th Street near Park Avenue last Friday evening, our group of seven men in suits and ties was approached by a panhandler asking for money.
“Here are a bunch of Wall Street guys,” he said, straight out. “Give me some money.”
Although we were not all “Wall Street guys,” all except one kept walking, ignoring the panhandler as we typically do, as instructed by “experts.” Yet over the past 30 years of living in the city, I often have disregarded this advice, and so once more I gave instinctively. I pulled out a dollar, handed it to the man, smiled, and resumed walking.
HE IS THE GOOD GUY HERE, is the point.
But next came a revelation.
“A dollar?” the man shouted. “You Wall Street fat cats! This is what the problem is with this country. Take your damn dollar.” With that, he threw it on the sidewalk.
Apparently, street charity now has a minimum.
Not only have I never had anyone refuse my donation under such circumstances, but recipients are generally quite appreciative regardless of the amount. Not this time. It was as if the class-warfare rhetoric of the left had surfaced on 55th Street, while I was just trying to show some goodwill and help a guy out. He didn’t even ask for a little more, as sometimes happens. (“How about $5 for a meal? . . . $20 for a bus ticket?”) He simply judged that my $1 gift was not sufficient and threw it on the ground. I had not given my “fair share.”
AH! The panhandler was secretly an undercover tax policy specialist, who was “protesting” the record-low income tax rates on millionaires! Right! Oh, and speaking of protesters…
The president’s incendiary message has now reached the streets. His complaints that rich people must “pay their fair share” have now goaded some of our society’s most unfortunate, including one who felt compelled to refuse money because it was not enough. President Obama has become the “Great Divider” instead of the “Great Unifier” that we all hoped he would be.
And here you might have thought the “Great Divider” was the vast, exponentially growing income gap that has forced huge swaths of working people into poverty on top of chronic unemployment! Wrong. It was Barack Obama, the president who mailed billions of dollars to Wall Street banks for just this nefarious purpose.
An isolated incident on 55th Street? Perhaps. But in a sample of more than a dozen people I know who have collectively given money to panhandlers well over 1,000 times in New York during the past few decades, not one could recall ever being turned down, much less having their money tossed away as insufficient. The rhetoric of class warfare has now invaded spontaneous charity.
Those were the good old days, when the beggars were quietly happy with their little pocketfuls of worn shillings. But this terrible noise they are making now! The rich cannot even so much as be kind to the poor, as they have always been. Why must beggar-master Barack Obama trick them into feeling so unhappy?
All of this, over one dollar. [WSJ via Washington Monthly]
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The peasants are revolting!!!
You can say that again!
Said the King of Id.
Remember the Golden Rule!
You said it. They stink on ice!
Mel Brooks reference. Yay!
The good news? People are starting to realize who is reaping the riches of our inequitable society. And it's maybe pissing them off a little.
one can only HOPE?
They're not called the 'unkempt masses' for nothing.
I thought we referred to them as "the bootless and unhorsed.*"
(See, e.g., J.P. Donleavy, The Unexpurgated Code, or A Manual of Social Climbing)
Oh oh the poors are starting to figure out the Wall St. have paid the politicians to rig the game in their favor. Madame DeFarge line 1.
I can take that call.
I don't know what kind of hamster ball this motherfucker has been rolling down the street in for all this time, but I can guarantee you that NYC beggars DO have the balls to crap on your lousy 1-damn-dollar bill.
P.S.: I love NY.
I didn't know that street people had access to the teevee to hear the President's incendiary message….besides, last time I checked the 99% would indicate the only people being divided are the rich pricks that ruined the country.
The panhandler clearly wasn't really a poor, just posing as one, since he has watched teevee. Prolly has a refrigerator too.
Obviously a Democratic plant. Michael Moore was probably hiding in a dumpster with a video camera, recording the whole scene.
"Prolly has a refrigerator too."
Well, he has a refrigerator *box*.
The guy was actually a tourist and had said "Where is Wall Street? Could you please give me directions?"
And wasn't dressed in business suit and tie, so therefore a panhandler/street person/poor.
Who gave the white dude a 'fro?
He was headed up to the new Studio 54.
IT'S GREG BRADY!
Or his brother (and noted Young Republican) Ted.
Dood, it's a Jewfro.
It's a Jewfro!
There's just not enough goats to go around.
Especially the drugged goats.
An Insufficiency of Goats. Excellent working title for a novel or film.
by Larry Flynt.
Let's not be picky, darling.
"There's just not enough goats to go around."
That depends on whether you're sacrificing them to Satan, deflowering them, or offering them to the chieftain in exchange for his comely daughter.
Would those be pet goats, the kind of goat you sacrifice to Satan, or the kind of goat that you offer to the chieftain as a dowry for his comeliest daughter?
Someone hand me my smelling salts; I must be suffering in sympathy due to this rich man's story of woe.
I know, right?
My monocle damn near fell off!
Panhandler wanted some stock certificates that he could shelter in the Caymans. That dollar would have just put him into a higher tax bracket.
I'm surprised he didn't ask for a receipt and proof of 501(c)(3) status.
Here here! That is what Conservatives always tell us. If you raise taxes on the rich, they will just stop working instead of paying $.35 of each dollar they earn above $250,000 to the government. Clearly this person knew that the marginal cost of the $1 would not be worth his increase taxes/paperwork/accountant fees/legal fees that he would endure. Why is it that such a smart man like Moore could not understand that.
The President's incendiary message? Uh, he keeps sucking up to the Wall Street fat cats, just like the rest of the Democratic party; I'd love to hear an incendiary message from him but it just ain't happening.
Please, what is more divisive than saying people should pay taxes. Hell, you might as well just call them a Socialist or something like that.
So where's that panhandler's bailout?
Are there no workhouses?
He made this up. Or rather he stole it from the film "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" where Bogart panhandles from John Huston one too many times.
Say, can you stake a fellow American to a meal?
Fake homily made up to prove a point is fake.
You don't say? I thought for sure this happened in front of the salad bar at Applebees, or maybe in a taxi while chatting to an immigrant cab driver.
To be sure, that's where all other such incidents took place.
wow, OT but I am srsly impressed by your negative p-ness size…do tell what Repugnant blogs are you posting on/ pissing off?
I provide helpful comments and advice on occasion at the Big Breitbart sites.
dollars? we don't need no stinkin dollars
Also "Falling Down", the Michael Douglas vehicle/wingnut cri de coeur. Douglas' unemployed engineer offers the hobo a sandwich, but the hobo angrily throws it back at him.
Yes, I remember all the Wall Street fat cats in 2008 hoping that Obama would be the "Great Uniter." I think there was a WSJ editorial to that effect. Oh, they were so hopeful back then.
You know who else was a "uniter, not a divider?"
Hitler?
The Decider?
Helmut Kohl?
Johnny Unitas?
Voltron?
The crazy dude in "The Human Centipede?"
I don't remember the character's name, but the *actor*'s name is Dieter Laser. I'm not sure the character *could* have a cooler name than that.
as Grandma Bush famously said, "…this is working out quite well for them"
In a related story, an impoverished panhandler asked a Wall Street bankster for some money and the bankster said, "I was just going to ask you the same thing".
"Practice, man, practice."- oh wait, wrong story.
As phony as the Mustache of Understanding's convenient cabdrivers.
~
Friedman should switch to the Old Reliable:
"One thoughtful observer of the ________ scene said to me…"
But he wrote this for the Wall Street Journal, which is known as a bastion of accuracy and fairness which I'm sure fact checks all of its op-eds.
Applebees, anyone?
"As phony as the Mustache of Understanding's convenient cabdrivers."
And Ronnie Raygun's welfare queens with six Cadillacs.
By the way, Mustache of Understanding = Tom Selleck?
No, these mustachios belong to Tom {Mon cerveau est plat} Friedman.
The rhetoric of class warfare has now invaded spontaneous charity.
And as we all know, this was the only crazy street person anyone has ever come across. And Obama made him that way.
We're number one.
On a scale of one to 10.
Obama made me kick a puppy this morning.
"…ignoring the panhandler as we typically do, as instructed by “experts.”"
If by "experts" you mean the GOP… you have it down pat-
"Ignore the poors".
Well it's true give a crack addict 10 bucks he buys a dime bag. Give an entrepreneurially motivated Hedge Fund manager $63M per annum, he buys hookers and blow for ALL his friends, not just himself.
Just like you should give the poor a fishing rod rather than a fish, so you should give crack addicts the necessary raw materials and paraphernalia. Or a gun.
Give a poor man a fishing rod, then wait until he catches a fish. Then you can take away the fish and the rod! Because, Free Market!
Build a man a fire, he's warm for the night; light him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life.
Apparently there are "experts" who advise and prepare people who are aiming to win "Douchebag of the year". Really, though, I think David Moore, CEO of Wall Street holdings, is the kind of natural that needs no instruction. The Mozart of asshattery.
It's part of the standard executive training seminar.
Noonington got a sex change?!
I knew his voice sounded familiar!
he "gave instinctively." $1. Those are some sharp instincts.
That was just because he never carries silver. Pocket change just messes up the lines of a well-cut silk suit. But if they made a fifty-cent bill, he would have given that.
Every comment you've posted today makes me like you more and more, Chichikovovich.
Thanks. Have you any dead souls I could buy?
I have a few dead souls in my basement, and you can have them for free.
hell I'm surprised the Wall St. douchebag had a lousy $1 dollar bill in his pocket, I assumed they all carry Krugerrands
Let's hope to god this guy isn't also a clinical psychologist or a heart surgeon.
I can't imagine the workings of a brain that doesn't produce that as parody.
"Apparently, street charity now has a minimum."
Yet, strangely, no Bottle Service! Riff-Raff.
Street Charity. Sounds like a promising Broadway musical idea.
"A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Journal"
Sounds like a high-priced lady-of-the-night, to me.
Or an ultra low priced one.
But in a sample of more than a dozen people I know who have collectively given money to panhandlers well over 1,000 times in New York during the past few decades, not one could recall ever being turned down, much less having their money tossed away as insufficient.
Obviously, rich dude, you really exude an obnoxious assholey aura. Or the guy didn't like your 70s hairdo.
Is there anything more rhetorically useful than the "unscientific poll'?
I don't have any data to back this up, but the guy above is a giant asshole. Wait… I DO have the data to back this up!
*cough*Bullshit*cough*
The panhandler was actually the former CEO of Bear Stearns, and he wanted to know why he wasn't getting billions by the wheelbarrow-load the way Goldman, Citibank, etc. were. So I suppose Obama, and Bush before him, were indeed partially responsible for his discontent.
+10
I gave a pan-handler a dollar in Bryant Park. He took the dollar yelled somthing is some alien language then kicked this pigion really really hard. He launched it about 15 feet. It was pretty cool. Ever since then I've given money to the homeless in hopes that they will give me free preformance art.
Now THAT would be a WSJ editorial worth reading!
Do you know how fast and/or crazy you have to be to kick a NY pigion? I was impressed.
Plus…don't those fuckers kick back?
In a strangely related story-
Once in Reno I was walking down Virginia St. and there was this guy playing a Saxophone… horribly… but I dropped a buck in his case. About 20 minutes later, as I was on my way back up the street I had to stop for the train (that used to fly through downtown). As I waited at the crosswalk this guy comes up and says,"Hey man, you got a couple of bucks so I can get a Felafel?"
I said, "Dude, you see that guy over there playing the sax… he sucks but he is doing something for his "donations. Can you sing, tell me a joke, something?"
He goes, "There are these 3 bums, a blind bum, a bum with no arms and a bum with no legs sharing a 40. (no I swear he did say this) The bum with no legs is chugging the 40 and the bum with no arms said,'If you drink all of that I'm gonna punch ya.'
The bum with no legs said,'Try it and I'll kick your ass!'
Then the blind bum said,'I gotta see this."
He got his felafel…
I hope it was as good as his joke.
I LOL'd
Bildo Lielly would be impressed, and sad
My favorite Seattle panhandler story: During lunch time, I was waiting for the light to change at a crosswalk on 2nd Ave, on my way to our fancy athletic club. Business suit, regulation Nordstrom raincoat, the whole thing. Alone at first, suddenly I was surrounded by four very obviously drunk Indians. We shared an awkward silence until the iight turned green. All five of us started across the street as the oldest of the group, with a completely beat-to-shit face said to me, "Hey, lady. I'll have sex with you for a quarter. "
His companions flashed horror, probably thinking I was going to . . . I don't know, whatever it was that had them so scared. I started laughing because, really, what can you do? Then the five of us were laughing.
We shared this touching moment until they dropped off at the free lunch charity place and I went on to my expensive athletic club. There's probably a Xian moral in there somewhere, like I'm going to hell and they're not, but 'the fuck if I can figure it out.
^^^
^^
^
Indian guy, felafel guy, and pigeon guy are all made of awesome.
Pigeon, felafel, Indian Tacos…. delicious!
Yeah…whatever the phantom homeless dude called them, it wasn't "fat cats."
He should have given the guy a 20 but made him do a piss test first.
But can one buy piss tests for a dollar?
Did he fork over a scoot because he didn't have any "spare change?"
Did he take a moment to peel that one dollar bill from a large roll?
You bet he did, after extracting it from the platinum money clip, and flipping through the twenties, tens and fives to get to the singles. That is what true compassion looks like.
Sounds like a pretty good bit of performance art to me.
"It was Barack Obama, the president who mailed billions of dollars to Wall Street for just this nefarious purpose."
Dude, you truly are
out of touchFULL OF FUCKING SHIT!! The bailout was a Bush baby… (not in a jar)Certainly Bush takes the Palme D'or in corporate welfare for TARP I. But TARP II was Obama's baby, even if the idea (and the need) was inherited from his distinguished predecessor. Wish it weren't so, but there it is.
I did mean that it was needed due to… that one douchey guy…
Moore: "in a sample of more than a dozen people I know who have collectively given money to panhandlers well over 1,000 times in New York during the past few decades…"
Anecdata FAIL.
Well, one of those dozen was a guy who liked to launch quarters at homeless people from his tenth floor office. He estimated that he'd probably thrown about 1000 of em. The other 11 people had never given to panhandlers at all.
Indeed, what the hell is this business of "paying our fair share"? When did we ever do that? Who does this president think he is, suggesting we start now? No wonder the bums get restless. Fair share my foot, young man, and let it be a lesson for you.
"My rent-boy won't go bareback anymore, not even for the usual quite-reasonable tip. I can't help but think Obama's incendiary rhetoric is to blame."
A whole dollar! That peon should have cleaned David Moore's loafers with his tounge out of gratitude.
And now we know why our government insists on continuing to print dollar bills: plutocrats want to feel generous when they give panhandlers folding money.
After all, he could have just flipped the dude a quarter and said, "Catch!"
Now that's a face even his mother would want to punch.
Looks like she might have.
With a frying pan.
More than once.
w Al Franken's Supply Side Jesus would totally be with the WS gazillionaire on this one.
Every thing is Hopey's fault. According to the folks here in the Dust Bowl. The only thing these morans haven't blamed on him is the drought. At least, as far as I know.
And local country club for WSJ, Kirsten. If you didn't make it up, don't tell me and I'll always believe you are a comic genius.
She really is.
How dare he blaspheme the Dollar.
He only gave a dollar because he didn't have any change. But he did have plenty of dollar bills, seeing as to how he was headed to the titty bar. I'd imagine even the dancers in NYC would spit on a dollar bill in the g-string.
When was the last time you saw some place that would sell a pocket rocket of Mad Dog for a buck?
Kojak reruns on Nick At Nite?
Night Train, my man, Night Train.
I doubt they'd waste the spit.
Well, now that the panhandlers are turning against them when they offer up a buck, they must be getting well and truly concerned. Folks aren't being bought off as cheaply as before, and they aren't grateful to just bask in your benevolence any more. He'll have to start carrying some smelling salts to keep from swooning on the way to work I guess. Either that or have Bloomberg round them all up and shoot them. Probably the latter knowing the deeply humanitarian outlook of most of Wall Street these days.
Next thing you know, the politicians are going to start asking for real money to rewrite all the laws to spec.
Heaven forfend!
How dare the homeless man not grovel at the feet of our CEO overlords!
What does he think? He's better than the U.S. Senate?
The peasants are always ungrateful.
And now that story will circulate throughout the swells so they have an excuse to never give to the poors again when pan handled. Yes, he watched the president's class war speech froom his 52" flat screen TV in the back of his Hummer limo. Yeah, that's it.
Cable hookup in his refrigerator box.
Wall Street CEO David Moore should've done what he usually does: flash a hundred and ask the panhandler if he has change for it.
I have the feeling that the real story is that Moore took out his AmEx Platinum, and then was offended when the bum wouldn't accept it.
"An isolated incident on 55th Street? Perhaps"
"…not one could recall ever being turned down, much less having their money tossed away as insufficient."
"The rhetoric of class warfare has now invaded spontaneous charity."
Well, which one is it, you fucking piece of shit?
Let's hope to god this guy isn't a professional statistician.
Perhaps he's a "Faith-based" statistician.
All of 'em, Katie.
Silly CEO, the panhandler was a traditionalist and wanted a Rockefeller dime.
Perhaps the last straw was when he told the panhandler that he could have *another* dollar, if he pulled it with his teeth from Alan Moore (CEO of Wall Street holdings) 's
ass.
Since the dickface meta-stereotyped the panhandler into an analogy with Obama, so it's just as fair to stereotype this pretty boy clown as a smug, self-assured pustule.
And also, too, is this him?
Seems plausible. The forex connection suggests that his dollar bill may actually have been a yuan or a rupee, which any self-respecting beggar in NYC would be justified in rejecting.
Needz moar nighttime phone number.
His duties at his previous job included:
"Instrumental in developing a direct marketing plan involving cold calling and
interruptive marketing strategies which grew business over 150%."
WTF are "interruptive marketing strategies?"
And
"Daily contributor of market commentary and analysis for Forex Pros.com,
Baron Forex News, Forex Hound, Benzinga and as a ghost writer for several
prominent brokerage firms on the topics of Forex, Futures and Options."
Whatta guy!
I believe cold calls *are* interruptive marketing strategies.
"WTF are "interruptive marketing strategies?" "
When they call while you're eating dinner?
T: I'm afraid you are probably correct.
When it comes to 'investments" in commodities and foreign exchange and the like, the old saying is "Do you know how to make a small fortune? Start with a large one."
If by "pretty boy" you mean "Sideshow Bob-lookin' motherfucka", yeah, I guess he's "pretty."
Crappiest job creating ever.
Hang on a second! That is absolutely untrue, and you know it.
The panhandler provided the raw materials which allowed the sniveling WSJ hack to anally leak copious amounts of butthurt, which in turn is what keeps the snark factory here at wonkette churning out the finest crude!
Imagine his shock this December when the Salvation Army Sergeant kicks him in the nuts and clocks him with his bell.
You do have to admit, Obama did go a little bit too far in that speech a few weeks ago, you remember the one, when he said that the proletariat must rise up and throw off the yoke of oppresssion. I mean, thats not so bad, but when he said "Death to the capitalist pigs and their bourgiousie lackeys," the guy here has a point about the poisonous class warfare. And that bit about how the workers should control the material means of production, and the capitalist parasites should be killed or sent to the FEMA gulags to be re-educated. I think we can fairly call that class warfare. No, Obama is definitely going a bot too far, with the call for nationalizing all industry.
I missed that part. I looked away at the very beginning of the speech when he said, "Excuse me while I whip this out."
In my dreams, both of you.
"Those poors — they take and take and take until we rich bastards have nothing left to give. We should sue them for copyright infringement."
What the bum wanted was some Grey Poupon.
It's the only way to make hobo beans palatable.
Well, he got Pouped on, why is he complaining?
"What the bum wanted was some Grey Poupon."
If I'm remembering the commercials correctly, you're not supposed to ask for Grey Poupon unless there are vehicles involved. The panhandler guy should have pushed the shopping cart containing all his possessions next to another bum's shopping cart, and asked *him*.
WSJ is a wristwatch catalog, not a country club bulletin.
Mmhmm. A Crisco-wristwatch catalog.
What doth Lady Peggith Noonington think of this foul outrage?
She has no doubt fled Manhattan due to a fear of having to share her medicinals with the great unwashed. Perhaps autumn in the Hamptons will ease her troubled mind.
She's still too rattled by that time she saw a Mexican.
These things take time to heal.
Now, the important part of this story, the panhandler had an onion on his belt, which was the style at the time.
+1!
The beggar may have won the argument, but David Moore walked away with the turnips.
And that beggar turned out to be: Rupert Murdoch.
And now you know the rest of the story.
Maybe he asked the rich douchehound to give him five bees for a quarter.
Marie Antoinette: "Now these commoners won't even accept my offers of cake. Robespierre was supposed to be a uniter, not a divider."
Count DeMoney!
Count DeMoney!
Don't get saucy with me, Bernaise.
Aren't these the same douche bags who are always bitching about how it's impossible to live on less than $250,000 a year in NYC. If that's true, then what was the bum supposed to do with $1?
Same thing the eelights do. Wipe his ass with it.
When did they repeal the "knowing your place" statutes? Someone find this ruffian and beat him savagely! For civilization!
Which one is the ruffian?
And then release the hounds.
And the ones with the bees in your mouths. Also, the Kraken. Also.
Clearly this is a bogus story. Like Moore would even lower himself to touch a $1 bill. That is what servants are for.
He probably keeps a stash of them because he thinks it's a proper tip for a waitress, a cabbie, or a rent boy.
Manners cost nothing. However, bailing out Wall Street douches will run you a trillion.
7 men in fancy suits and rolexes walk by. one particularly smarmylooking one slows, and with a supercilious sneer, pulls a dollar from a gold money clip stuffed with hundreds. Mr. Ultimate douchetard is lucky he didn't get his throat slit with a broken bottle.
One stops, the other six keep on walking. Yep, it's all Obama's fault.
This sounds like the kind of late-19th Century poem that Simon & Garfunkel would turn into a pop song.
So, panhandlers are the new metric in measuring our financial and political woe?
We've come so far as a nation.
Yup. It's called the Cadger Index.
Tom Friedman invented it.
It's called "The New Normal."
Dude needs to get back in his Mercedes and head to Connecticut, where the white people will treat him right.
There's something happening here
what it is ain't exactly clear
That song ought to be the new national anthem.
Haha, yes. The homeless guy had NO IDEA of the cruel injustice of wealth inequality until "the Left" got to him.
Too bad the Democrats are passing all these Voter ID laws. This man is a disenfranchised Republiklan voter.
Clearly the bum was repelled by the overwhelming scent of Massengill wafting from Moore's pores.
I needed that bellylaugh!
On a summer eve.
"Mom, sometimes when I'm patronizing the poors, I don't feel so fresh…"
It's funny that he thinks himself the sensitive Nazgul for that lone dollar. Tallest midget indeed.
OT (but only a little,) but the GOP today unveiled their official plan to create jobs.
I found an excellent summary right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgpa7wEAz7I
"His complaints that rich people must “pay their fair share” have now goaded some of our society’s most unfortunate . . ."
Mister Moore, you are one of socieity's most unfortunate . . . but will you realize it before you're on your deathbed–or even then?
Scrooge needs to hit the hay for some dream-time.
Needz moar class warfare. People talk like class warfare is a bad thing. There's more of us than of them, so unless the fight involves pelting money at each other, we're bound to win. And if it does involve cold throwing money at each other, we win that way too.
Am I the only one who is gleefully fascinated watching Rome burn?
The gleeful part, perhaps.
Where's that damned violin…
"Gleeful" might have been a bit extreme. But definitely fascinated, and also more-than-a-little satisfied seeing a banker whine and squirm.
It's been a fantasy of mine to be alive when the apocalypse happens, and watch (or, more likely, die) in real time.
I suppose seeing the fall of an empire is a good enough consolation. Sucks for my job prospects, though!
David Moore will be coming to HBO soon in an improvised sitcom called either "Curb Your Ingratitude" or "Pardon My Wealth."
"Boardwalk Distemper", "Deadwood, The New Millenium", "En-courage", "Poored to Death". Shit – I clearly watch too much teevee.
"Breaking Broke" – best show on television.
Boardroom Empire.
The Superioranos
or maybe the panhandler was an undercover economist, who knew that you derived some utilitarian value from feeling "good" about yourself for "helping" someone. when he saw that you paid less than he believed was fair for the service of making you feel good about yourself, he deprived you of your good feeling – the commodity for which you bargained — by rejecting it.
isn't this just a vindication of the notion that everything has its price? why is he a better capitalist than you, wall street banker?
The panhandler's invisible hand made an appearance.
Or one of his fingers, at any rate.
Needs moar self-pity and blaming outlandish conspiracies on the Magical Negro.
That whole article needs to be rewritten in 19th century Victorian London dialect.
Calling Dame Noonington.
Maybe the panhandler was a Paultard and wanted to be paid in precious metals?
Yeah we're just a bunch of dumb zombies, but we're almost to Fiddler's Green. And zombie union thugs still know how use a jack hammer.
Man…that George Romero is a visionary.
Next time he should hand out one of those presidential dollar coins; there are only a billion of them sitting in vaults. They're up to Rutherford B. Hayes. I've collected all of them so far except I can't seem to find a Ben Franklin.
I gave a squeegee guy a dollar at an intersection near the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel one time. As I pulled away when the signal changed, he touched the hood of my car with two fingers, looked upward toward the sky and muttered something.
He was blessing the car. I'll never forget it.
You Wall Street fat cats!
You can tell this is a true story because the guy talked so "street".
Yes, if it were 1920 and the streets were made of cobblestones.
I suspect there was an insufficiently grateful hobo at the root of the story ("you can't spare no more, man?"), but that the Obama 'context' was 100% interpolated.
Christ, that reads like something from The Onion's T. Herman Zweibel. Next he'll be complaining about the under-age urchins working in his factories and who are demanding a six-day work week.
I miss Herbert Kornfeld.
From his bio:
In addition to his professional and charitable activities, Mr. Moore is a professional stand-up comedian. He also lectures on the subject of using humor as a leadership and motivational tool. He is the creator and producer of "Funny Business," a series of sold out comedy shows featuring business-themed comedy.
Oh, and here's one…when is !% greater than 99%? When the 99% is the filthy, unwashed, ungrateful masses….*laugh track*
David Brent?
Oh, so maybe this was satire. Swiftian!
Oh yeah, that account has the ring of truth to it; it reads like a Penthouse Forum piece, but sexier.
We need to talk. Despite the horrible, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Just kidding. I always knew you were a prevert.
Guilty, yo Honoh!
So well, before the Kenyan Muslin was president(I believe it was my pet goat man, Dubya), there was a woman- about 3 blocks from the White House- who would refuse change. It is possible that she knew Barack Obama though.
Egads, the comments sound like robber barons wrote them.
The comments at WSJ have too many complete sentences, which may trick one into believing they're not reading the unfiltered rants of a bunch of deluded ass-kissing jerks.
Don't be fooled! It's a wingnut in sheeple's clothing.
You *know* these people, do you?
Jesus spoke of this in "The Parable of the Lousy Samaritan."
You know, the only two words that belong in the comments here are: Jesus wept.
And he would, too, if he could see these rapacious lying bastards.
Also, in "The Ingratitudes." Also.
Blessed are the job creators, for they shall…
This guy puts the Dick in Dickensian.
Oh, yes.
Actually, i was thinking about calling him Summer's Eve.
Obviously the little bugger's just holding out for his great expectations, duh!
A more succinct message from the indigenous denizens of Noo Yawk:
Fuck you, you fucking fuck!
That picture really looks familiar, but I do tend to look at sex offender registries semi-regularly.
OT: But here's proof that Romney's one of us!
Oh how fabulous, needs must it should go viral.
Immediately after the picture was taken, they used those bills to light their cigars.
Missing from the photo: Scrooge McDuck.
Then again, a dollar isn't worth as much as it used to be.
It's a wonderful day in Manhattan! All this angst for a lousy dollar? Five suits scared of one panhandler? His proper response to the panhandler should have been an upraised middle finger and a resounding, "Fuck you, asshole." Instead he whines to his fellow pansies at the WSJ.
Reminds me of the time my husband panicked and ran out of a NYC subway stop cause he thought this guy was chasing him. The guy yelled after him, "DON"T BE SCARED, I"M JUST A BUM!"
Seriously…fuck this guy.
My first thought: It didn't happen. Second thought: It happened but not like that. Third thought: David Moore is an asshole.
David Moore failed to explain to the mendicant in Europe one may purchase twenty copies of that same Wall Street Journal for just one dollar!
that face could use a shot of pepper spray
Actually, I think it would be greatly improved by the flinging of some feces in its general direction. A sort of Jackson Pollock Santorum effect, if you will.
How dare he! A dollar will still buy a bowl of soup…er, a cup of coffee…Well, damn it. It's the principle!
I would not hit that. I would not. And I have very low standards. There's a reason these Wall Street fellas need all that cash money. It's the only way they have access to poon.
For just a minute, I thought you meant "hit" as in "beat with a stick," and was thinking, "Why not? It's just BEGGING for a severe bitchslapping!"
And then I remembered I was at Teh Wonketz. Carry on.
Dude looks like an old lesbian, not that there's anything wrong with that BTW.
Isn't there a website for that? Geezers who look like old lesbians, I mean.
Yeah, it's one of those internet memes that the young folks are into. Innit?
I'll bet he wouldn't even have given the dollar had he not had six friends with him as witnesses. He probably puts a quarter in the Salvation Army's bucket and deducts it from his taxes.
Although we were not all “Wall Street guys"
That's right, some of you were Wall Street Shemale hookers.
So many things to throw on the ground. Like this, and this, and that. And even this.
You're envisioning this guy and his pasty billionaire buddies, when you think "throw on the ground," aren't you?
this makes me think of trading places only i'm not laughing.
Anyone else here wish that the ratio was one CEO to seven angry bums instead?
Trick Question!
"Don't poo-poo a nickel, Lisa. A nickel will buy you a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake and a newsreel… with enough change left over to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the Polo Grounds."
more than a dozen people I know who have collectively given money to panhandlers well over 1,000 times in New York during the past few decades
I'm not good at math, help me out. If a dozen of our brave friend's peers gave a total of $1,000 across a few decades, their individual "giving back" ratio would be?
Roughly 1:305.42×10^-27, measured in Panck's units.
You know, when you step back for a minute and realize that the US is going collectively insane, not over Endless War, not over torture or TSA-induced Gate Rape, but over possibly raising rich people's taxes to what they were in the 90s, you almost lose the will to keep breathing.
If a spurious anecdote is printed in a newspaper that inflates its circulation figures, did anyone really read it?
"Pulled out a dollar/"
cripes these guys
obviously panhandler tax rates are too low.
The only thing surprising about this story is that the rich bastard didn't ask the panhandler to write out a receipt so he could take the dollar off his taxes.
Does a bus ticket in Manhattan really cost $20. these days, or is Crybaby McRicherson just out of touch with reality about that, too?
Nobody likes to be trickled down upon. It leaves a yellow stain.
Just think about this: "Past few decades" has to mean at least 30 years, so we're looking at (being generous) maybe, say, 48 handouts per year — that would be 1,440 handouts over three decades.
So, "more than a dozen people", means that, on average, each of those philanthropists gave money to panhandlers fewer than four times per year. Not exactly an obsessive behavior on their part.
Shit, I hardly ever give money to panhandlers, and I still do it more than four times a year (I get soft during the holiday/cold season). And the last time I gave a single dollar was probably during the Carter Administration.
He's lying. Plain and simple. I don't have any snark for this. He's just making up shit, at the very least what the man supposedly said to him.
Actually, let me try some snark…
"Them uppity, lay-about negras, what, with their self-worth and meager amounts of intact human dignity even in amongst squalor. To hell with the peasants. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?!"
I just read the article again and now I'm madder than I was the first time.
Here's the real story. Business dude was trying to score some rock, end of story.
Yeah because surely a panhandler has all his faculties and isn't deranged because Saint Ronald Reagan cut mental healthcare funding in the 80's.
or hell, maybe he handed the dollar bill with the attitude that teabagger was pushing a dollar bill in the face of the disabled guy with a sign in support of "Obamacare"….
The panhandler's only mistake was not wiping his ass with the dollar before throwing it down.
Right, because no one ever aggressively panhandled in New York before the Obama presidency.
We aren't rich but when asked we give more than expected.
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