In Canada we have a subculture of several thousand people who live off the streets and station themselves at highly visible and strategic locations to beg money from passers-by. Most are perfectly capable of getting a job and earning an income but choose not to. They represent unpleasant blots on our cities, additional costs to our businesses which then must recover these costs from customers and a source of crime and the best way to scare off tourists ever invented. Panhandlers face a tough lifestyle and universally have armed themselves with knives and other weapons.
These people understand math and surprisingly are not as stupid as most of the people that walk by.
A panhandler understands that there is a relationship between the volume of people asked for money and the number that will give money. They also understand that there are techniques that can be applied to reduce this ratio and improve their income. Their income is tax free too!
The techniques are all designed to trick or coerce people into giving money to the panhandler and vary from near entertainment to outright crime. Wikipedia has a good write up on it here.
A 2002 study of 54 street beggars in Toronto indicated that the average annual income of a panhandler was $638 a month of which they spent $200 on food and $192 on alcohol, smokes and illicit drugs.
The entire industry depends on one thing. The person that actually gives money to panhandlers. Without them there would be no panhandling in Canada. I propose a simple law to solve the problem. Overnight it would remove panhandling as a problem activity on our streets.
I propose a $5000.00 automatic minimum fine and attendance at a course about panhandling for a first offence to ANYONE who gives ANY MONEY to a panhandler. The second fine would be an automatic $10,000 fine. The third fine would be a year in jail in hard labor and forfeiture of all assets. Sounds like tough love but it would work. If you think its too tough simply water it down a bit to the level you can accept it at. But the lower you go -the less effective it will get.
Problem solved.
Will it happen? Absolutely not! Not a chance. In Victoria, BC the panhandlers and drug dealers have taken over the streets and tourists who encounter them are vowing never to come back. The locals avoid the streets in the afternoons and evenings. Taxpayers are paying for lawyers to protect the "rights" of the street people to panhandle and to buy and sell drugs. And the world is developing as it should. Some claim.
In summary the problem is NOT with the street people. They are simply trying to earn an income and eat. The problem lies squarely with the people who give money to them in a misguided attempt to help. There are lots of better ways to help these people including employment and education and housing.
There are other situations where it is difficult to understand just where the problem is. Which came first -the chicken or the egg? Who is most at fault -the teenage prostitute or the middle aged man paying for her services? Who is the criminal the poor person stealing food or the rich person who greedily keeps all the good stuff for themselves? Who is at most fault the dumb person who leaves their keys in their car or the 15 year old who steals the car and kills a family going for burgers when he speeds through a red light? Who is to blame- the bar owner who provides parking for cars then serves a person booze until they are drunk or the drunk driver who kills himself on the way home?
So, if we agree that panhandlers are a problem then who is at fault -the panhandler taking up sidewalk space or the persons feeding them money so that they stay there?
back to the index for over 100 interesting topics!
JewelryShackInc.com -thousands of well priced jewellery items. For once in your life buy before that special occasion so you get the best price and are ready for it. You will be repaid. And you will not be forgiven if you forget. Bracelets, rings, pendants, children's, men's and women's jewellery right to your door no driving around town required no huge gas bills just shiny nice stuff that will make you and your spousal unit very happy! SuperiorWebs.com -high end web design-hold onto your wallets but we have links to quite affordable alternatives too! I hesitate to use the word "cheap" but the fact is our custom build rates are so high that we had to do something to help with the sticker shock. We can now offer automated template built websites that will get you up and running with minimum fuss and time for a less than $50. You can find those on our subsidiary website elitewebsitelayout.com When you strike it rich and can afford more we will be lurking in the weeds waiting for you! BattistonPublishing.com -our Publishing Company- we enlighten and entertain and perhaps occasionally annoy. We published the best book every written on Business in Canada YOUR VERY FIRST BILLION Not that we usually brag but son of a gun this is an excellent book and we published it! Ha! 420 pages ThanksForExplainingThat.com -read free published articles explaining popular topics. The articles are concise and readable and cover nearly all the subjects you are interested in. The idea is just in time knowledge. It makes sense. Want to learn how GPS works, how to grow hair, how to diet or cook or write or whatever? Its all here.Try it out! Soon you will be so smart nobody will be able to put up with you! Maybe your Mom... YourTimeHere.info Discount name brand watches -why pay more? Why run all over town wasting gas when you can order here and get what you want at the price you want. Its a no brainer (to visit the site!) Your local retailer can afford to stock a couple of dozen watches we have a few thousand. Hello! NorthTreasure.com -our unique collectable website with one of a kind items! Cool site and we designed it ourselves. You will find things here that you never thought existed. GiftsDesire.com A nice little website where we offer you a great selection of affordable gift items. The smart thing to do is buy your gifts BEFORE the events. Hide them someplace. Its much better than forgetting about the event and then experiencing the wrath and retribution of the person wronged as a result. Everyone likes getting a gift. And when you give something invariably you receive something back so its like a good Karma thing. And every time they look at the trinket they think kindly of you... Attorney-guide.info -our excellent guide to lawyers-your best friend when you need one! Good information on how to pick one with excellent links! Are you in trouble? Will you be in trouble? Got a spouse you would like to dump?Have an accident and have the insurance company offer you a hundred bucks to settle. You need "your people" working for you. Velvet Deer Antler We try our best to have a selection of very interesting products for you and here is a good example! Some may ask why on earth would I want to ingest powdered deer antler from New Zealand? Why indeed and you can find out here! PervertGallery.com How on earth did this get here?? Adults only. Sex is something that seems to occur a lot on the planet. There is a rumour that it has something to do with storks and hospital maternity roooms. Since over 18% of all internet traffic is related to porn we thought what the hay lets buy a porn site. Ours follows all the legal rules but to tell the truth its pretty explicit. Don't visit if you are troubled by these sorts of things or have a bad heart. VerySpecialPerfumes.com A huge source of name brand perfumes that you can order right now. Excellent idea for a gift or special day. The prices are really good too. Every time this gift is used they will think of you. If you buy it for yourself you will think of the wonderful website where you bought it at without loosing your shirt doing it. What a happy thought. GENERALDUCK.COM our massive army surplus site that changes minute by minute with jeeps, humvees, army gear, military collectables and interesting stuff available now at a fraction of what the govt paid for it! There is some nice stuff here! You can have a lot of fun just looking at it. ParisThingsToDo.co.uk Paris is one of the greatest cities on the Planet. Everyone should go there at least once in their lives. Lots of useful information on what to do and where to stay. Start your research today! We bought this site because we are planning to go back to Paris and thought we should check it out first. You can do the same and save a ton of money too! Well maybe not a ton but a lot! AlienUFO.Info Some people believe in them some don't. Are we being watched? Now?? Are we the only life forms in the Universe? Like that would happen eh? Another one of our fun sites to enlighten and entertain! You need to take a break from the serious stuff every once in a while and here is your chance. When we bought this site some people said we were nuts. Then they got into their UFO and headed off to Pluto. What do they know we don't! Cash-Overflow.info Hmmmm this one is a bit of a strange beast that frankly we are still trying to figure out. It chugs away getting thousands of hits every day. Its a mystery. When we figure it out will let you know. If you can figure it out please let us know! It appears that you can make money from it and it looks like fun if that helps. Especially the making money part... Addiction-Tips.com After completing our pages on alcoholism, drug use and obesity we were very interested in helping out people with addiction problems be it drugs, alcohol, shopping, food, gambling or even internet addiction. So we purchased an entire website with great information and links to provide you with greater detail than we can provide here. Good Luck! You can do it! I did it with food and alcohol and if I can you can too! YourPhoneNow.info We got so ticked off with cell phones that we bought a cell phone website that offers great prices and deals. Shop around and save some money. Or go to the mall and get ripped off by a merchant who must cover his outrageous mall square footage rental rates. This is an industry where everyone seems to be screwing the customer. Not us. Ha! We provide a website where the suppliers really need to work for your business. JogaDogDay.com! Do you love dogs? So do we so we bought a dog website with free information and tons of stuff for dogs at great prices. Fido will love you for it and possibly not pee on your rug or chew on your new cell phone. Your doggie may save your life some day so its wise to treat the beast well. They are always glad to see you when nobody else is. Now why is that? Don't waste gas running all over town - all the doggie stuff you will ever need is here. Just add a dog -hold the fleas. EliteWebSearch.com One of our newer sites. We decided to give google and yahoo a run for their money. Why not. I didn't get to where I am today by not trying new things. I am not sure this one will work but it might... ElectronicsPlus.info We are surrounded by electronics so we purchased a huge electronics website that offers you just about everything you want or need at excellent prices. Its silly to pay more that you need to and depend on your local retailer to stock everything you might want. We offer a larger selection of electronics goods than Wal-mart and some people are wondering why. Check us out and save gas driving all over town just to find out they are out! We are in! ForexAdvice101.info Currencies are bouncing around like a yo yo these days and people are making a fist full of money off them. Here we show you the basics. The banks do it every day. You can do it too with just a couple of hundred dollars. We purchased this website to even the score and help the little guy out. And to save the planet. SelfDebtHelp.info Are you totally screwed with so much debt that there is no way you will ever get out of it. Did the nice banks give you so much credit that now they get all your paycheck? Did the credit card companies give you a low intro rate and then boost your rate when you missed a payment? Sound familiar? So we purchased this website to help you become financially happy again. It could happen!
|