Carpark Money

Peatle,

I get so upset when I see the so called homeless people with their signs - "can you spare a buck", "Veteran - need $ for Hospital bills",   etc, etc, etc... lots of pity signs.

Then You look closer and see they are on their I-phone or are wearing  a nice watch, or $200 sneakers 

I took a picture of the guy that always sits outside of our local mall the other day...... in the back ground of the picture, were four businesses all with help wanted signs.

I pulled up - he came over for a handout - I rolled down the window and asked him if he wanted a couple hundred bucks-  he said yeah - I then pointed at the signs and said go apply for a job there and pointed at the signs - slowly pulled away dropping a $1 bill out the window.

I suppose he still won bc he got my $1,

They are all over.  I read once that if a beggar was on a city street, and and the flow of human traffic was 200 people an hour and if just 1 in 10 people gave him $5 - an 8 hour day would net them - tax free - $800 !  x 5 days a week  = 4,000  x 52 weeks = $208,000   (tax free)

Peatle - I know that are many that truly need help - but there are so many that are looking for ........ well, as P.T. Barnum said  " There's a sucker born every minute" !

Thanks for sharing your poem.

Jim     

Cheers Piri and Jim plus Brian, a pint of beer has risen a lot here in the last few years as the government raises its excise tax on alcohol. Pints vary in price from $7 to about $14 dollars depending on where and what you drink. At my local club for a pint what you  pay $7 dollars for will cost you around $10 at our local pubs in our town.  In the main city prices vary depending on which bar you go to.  A pub I go to  sometimes to have lunch at in the city food prices have skyrocketed from last year. Last year $10 to $25 for a basic pub grub this year.  Back to the poem we very rarely use to see street beggars in this part of the world but now they are everywhere. Many are on drugs and don’t want to work or contribute. Also like the rest of the world we do have a housing and cost of living crises creating the working poor.
These people  do it hard but keep on going, doing it tough but not begging. One friend of mine is getting ahead by living of grid in a caravan and growing his own veg and keeping chickens while him and his wife hold down full time jobs. Some  people I know who have full time jobs are living in camper  vans they have fitted out themselves  to save on rent to get ahead. A young couple I know are paying $800 a week to rent a house in my area when only two years ago they were paying $600 a week for rent.  Energy and food bills have skyrocketed for some. The guy that I gave $15 to is a professional beggar and caught me in a weak moment. That didn’t really hurt me but also in the same week I saw a true story on TV of  “Mr Gates Verses The Post Office” which got me thinking about government and corporates who for want of a better word are destroying lives and get away with it. So that in a nutshell  is where my poem comes from. The other reason why I put up two poems this week was to see if I could prompt people to comment by talking about frustrations with the human condition that affect us all. My gripe is not with the poor but the bludgers and scammers. I am not against giving a hand up but against giving hand outs. if you don’t know about “Mr Bates vs The Post Office” please check it out on Tv or the internet.. Alan Bates was one of 900 UK subpostmasters wrongly accused of theft by the British postal service in the early 2000s. In an attempt to cover up the failings of faulty accounting software, British post office management "dug themselves into a deeper and deeper hole" with false accusations. Ruining many lives innocent people put in jail and so on. The British post office in real life became like the Mafia . Here endeth my rant and thank you for reading this.     BTW a NZ  dollar  is equivalent very roughly to 50pence Uk or 60cents USA. So $6 USA buys $10 NZ and 50 pence UK buys $1 NZ.

Cheers Piri, it is definitely not fair what has happened in the UK. “Maybe it is only me,” is an illusion caused by people putting too much faith in computer technology. I can’t help but think by becoming so dependent on electronic and AI tech it is inevitable the tech could cause a major crash and people won't know how to cope with it. We are basically being socially engineered by the powers to be. Everything is going online and people are being taken out of the system. Humanity is being replaced by machines.
Here in NZ we had dodgy things happen by Merchant bankers when our government sold our taxpayer assets with deals that didn’t reflect the asset value. Most of it related to insider trading relating to the company advising the Government. A New Zealand politician who was ostracized by the Government at the time finally got enough public support to make the government have an enquiry.
The Merchant Bankers behind those sales were later on investigated by the Security Commission of NZ. This Commission settled out of court for NZD$20million without admission of liability by the Merchant Bank. The settlement payment was only a little over half the amount claimed by the Commission, including interests and costs. It was less than 1/5 of the Commission’s maximum claim at the time it commenced proceedings.
The same Merchant Bankers were also the prime focus of the "Winebox Inquiry" here which dealt with, among other things, tax-avoidance arrangements in the Cook Islands. The publicity surrounding the inquiry generated considerable public ill-feeling towards them. That company is now based in Geneva Switzerland. As you rightly pointed out the rich and powerful get the get of jail card where as the poor don’t. It is a worldwide phenomenon bankers being bailed out by the government the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Monsanto is a case in point of a big company ruining people lives. Check out the movie Percy verses Goliath. The shorts for it are on YouTube. Corporates are taking over the small person and everyday people are getting crushed more and more. The cashless society is not going to do us any favours.     

Right on the ball again Richard. A bank manager actually told me that that was the government ambition. For the likes of jobbing musicians for instance making sure the cretins in stripey  trousers get their taxes. No more bartering etc. The infernal net is a two edged sword with the advantage firmly on the side of the elite billionaires. VIVA LA REVOLUTION.  I don't actually mean that     

This is the "go to" for media bias (from https://www.adfontesmedia.com/):

I like that one, as it's more legible, but this is the newest version:

Cheers

Richard     

I'm glad the kids have followed my example of being on social media for a limited time (usually looking at guitars!) .. the teenager would rather make music, and by the time the 9yo gets there, I think it would have petered into the next phase (whatever that might be!).

Cheers

Richard     

Peatle, sorry to hear you got scammed, they are so clever these days with the tactics they use.  I mostly ignore them these days, with the odd exception, if I feel led to help them out.   An example is one time I was up Cuba Street and I saw a lady sitting and begging with her sign wanting money as she sat there.  She looked pretty messed up and in need of help.  She was sitting outside a diary/small grocery type shop.  So, I asked her if she was hungry to which she replied yes.  So, I said I am not going to give you money but if you come with me into that grocers shop you pick some food and a drink to fill your tummy up with.  So, she followed me into the store, and I let her pick whatever she wanted, which at first, she didn't pick that much (I think she was being polite).  So, I made sure she got more food, once she realized I didn`t mind.  She picked some more items of food and drink, I paid for it and walked out with her to her spot outside.  She was very grateful, and I knew she was going to have something to eat.  I knew if I had given her money, it probably wouldn't have gone on food but other stuff.     

Laugh Lots ... Forgive Much ...  Love one another     
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