Yet another reason why I don't give a cent to anyone on the road/sidewalk - especially if they are able bodied.

If you are capable or standing on the road all day to ask people for money, you're capable of standing at the door and greeting me to Wal Mart.

And if you're able bodied - ever heard of Labor ready? Work today, paid today?

Moving this video to Trancecoach's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 3 days.

*beg

Sending this video to Beggar's Canyon to plea for a little attention - beg requested by original submitter Trancecoach.

way to expose Meghan! Damn you Meghan, you LIAR!
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Seriously, they paid him a guy to follow around Meghan for a couple months...hard hitting reporting fellas.

In the intro the guy makes it sound like now one of these people holding up a sign is homeless, they showed images of groups of homeless people, they investigated 1 girl, gimme a break. Mike Headrick, is a peeping Tom.

I agree MG, fuck these people but can you blame them? Why work at labor ready when you can make more money just asking people for it a few hours a day. And speaking of which, what does that say about the world we live in. I don't want to get all whiny liberal or anything but how is it that some of these people can make more money in a few hours than I can as a contractor working my ass off every day?

http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Oregon_panhandlers_make_300_day

The most I ever give to beggars is a promote, but that's just here on the Sift. In the real world, I never give no more than a bag of food to solicitors. (Give a beggar a fish and he can eat for a day, give him cash and he'll get high for a lifetime. Or something.)

There is, however, a fellow I've seen for more than a decade living around the same few blocks, and I have seen him countless times eating at McDonald's, sitting on a bus stop, or pushing his shopping cart down the sidewalk, but not once ever begging for a handout. To him I've given cash several times.

One time I came upon him at a bus stop and he was watching a handheld portable TV. I wonder who gave that to him.

I live in a community known as a good place to go when you are living on the streets. We have the resident weirdo homeless, we have the down-on-their-luck families and we have the transient kids. I sometimes keep mcdonalds and taco bell bucks in my wallet and give them to homeless, and they are always very gratefully received. I've lived here a long time, and I know the regulars, and I know the look of the transients. I also know there are kids who come to downtown to beg as a lark. As a matter of fact, my own son has cadged for change downtown.

All that is to say that I know there are fakers, but I also know there are people who really need it. I think I have some chance of telling who is who. I think if I never gave a bit of coin to a beggar, it would be worse for me than it would be to give coin a few times when it wasn't really needed. Now, granted, I am much more likely to give money for a product or service (the people selling tamales or strawberries, for instance, or even a song), but sometimes, as a human being, you have to look at another human being asking for help, and for the tiny amount it costs you, just not say no.

This is an important topic, and I think that investigative reporting is good, but somehow, I can't bring myself to upvote this, because the story seems somewhat meanspirited.

Yet another reason why I don't give a cent to anyone in the office/cubicle - especially if they are able bodied.

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Most of what people in the white collar world do is non-productive, why is freelancing an equally unproductive activity such an issue for people?

Begging is a job, and unless you are young and female, it's not nearly as lucrative as shown here. She has turned her young-femaleness into a good paying job without having to be sexually objectified in the process, good for her. If people are willing to pay her for the egoboo of "doing good" then she s providing a service, and like many services, deception is part of the product.

I never made more then $10 a day when panning, and as for labor ready, the tag line should read "come sit in the office for a week waiting for a job until you get on the staffs good side and then they might give you a job, which they will attempt not to pay you for your full hours, then you can use their "cash machine" which takes a cut of your measly check!"