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What America Has Devolved To: "Online Begging Has Become The New Economy"
With a record 46.7 million Americans living in poverty (9.4 million more than before the financial crisis), it is perhaps not entirely surprising that the need for 'help' is surging. However, as NYTimes reports, there is a spreading epidemic on social-media that smacks of anything but providing for the needy - and one man whose mailboxes have been increasingly filled with monetary requests, has a theory about it all - "I think online begging has become the new economy."
“I woke up to four new people today asking me for money on four different donation platforms,” one friend said. “One was my ex-babysitter announcing her wedding and where I could send cash. No invitation to the wedding. Just cash.”
“I’m a believer in giving to real charities: medical research, school drives, the Red Cross, et cetera,” said Heidi Knodle, owner of a picture framing store in San Francisco. “I’m tired of people asking for a vacation, funds for a wedding or their college tuition.”
Of course, there are plenty of worthy causes and worthy donation recipients, as The New York Times' Judith Newman explains,
A visit to GoFundMe or YouCaring yields site after site of people whose homes were wiped out by natural disasters. People with diseases I’d never heard of, with no insurance and staggering medical expenses. Kids trying to pay for their parents’ funerals. Parents with seriously ill children wanting a trip to Disney World, and sick animals owned by people who couldn’t afford the vet bills.
One man had set up a fund for a friend who needed to take a couple of months off while his wife died of brain cancer.
But then, there were others. Many, many others...
Education funds are great, but do I really want to pay for a friend to travel to Peru to become a shaman?
Should the woman who has lost a lot of weight (good for you!) ask her friends to pay for $2,500 worth of laser skin tightening? What about the girl seeking $600 for her “personal development journey”? (Not much to ask, but she was so beautiful, I didn’t understand why she didn’t develop herself into a model and make a whole lot more than that.)
Another woman was asking for help with the legal bills for her divorce, as her new husband had bolted to Israel. She was a little dramatic in her plea: “My life — the innocent, carefree life which I had known, and the blissful happy life of hopes and dreams shattered overnight. Instead of partaking of gourmet meals and donning my kalla/bridal trousseau, chaos and turmoil, sprinkled with vicious gossip became my daily food and clothing.”
The requests continued.
Sponsorship for a child’s figure skating lessons from a mother who, according to the friend who got daily reminders to donate, just renovated her kitchen.
Money for a power generator for a guy in Brooklyn who holds parties for artists, writers and musicians in a shack in his backyard, who said he is doing a project on “the history of shacks.”
A talented writer who was having a rough patch put up a “birthday plea” for $2,000 – no, make that $200,000. A guy who needs a new MacBook after someone spilled a drink on his. The woman who just asked for $20,000 for plastic surgery because she had children early and “struggles with body image issues.”
Or take the recent page of Larry Paciotti, a.k.a. the famous pornographic film director/drag queen Chi Chi LaRue, who was asking for $40,000 to extend his stay in rehab at Betty Ford. One non-funder on his funding page called the request “a gross abuse of fame … Larry has plenty of personal resources available to secure this funding on his own.”
And that, of course, is at the heart of the backlash: the sneaking suspicion that someone of considerable (or at least ample) means and/or connections is asking for help.
Here’s the question I can’t stop asking myself: Has social media made our craving for attention and validation overwhelm all other considerations? There is nothing new about asking your friends for help (remember rent parties?), but that help was confined to a small group of people you actually knew.
Now, no such boundaries exist. Your 4,000 Facebook friends should know if you can’t pay for your rent — or your plastic surgery. And who knows? They may just pay up.
There was a time when there were needs, and there were wants, and we knew the difference. Now?
Now I’m not so sure.
Welcome to the new normal... where the Free Stuff Army has now morphed with the cult of narcissism into "The Begging Economy" where everyone expects that a required standard of living - because it's fair and deserved - should be paid for by someone else... and never ever paid back... and if you disagree, you are an extremist, racist bigot oppressing the minorities and under-privileged who deem the latest iPhone and Caramel Vanilla 3-pump extra-hot fuzzychino to be their forefathers' given right.
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"Just say: No."
say no to bums
dude, lol! adult pee pie
Dear ZeroHedge,
I am going through a rough patch in my life. My wife divorced me and moved in with a corporate tax attorney, costing me the $379,000 townhouse I'd bought after my settlement with Costco a few years back. My dog was sick with a kidney infection last month and his $4,200 hospital bill is now due. Plus my disability check got shut off, and now my Excursion needs a brake job. It'd also be kinda nice if I could finally go back to school for that Ancient Assyrian Poetry degree I've always wanted. Could you folks possibly spare some change to help a fellow out?
Thank you in advance,
Oliver Klozov
Buy Bitcoins
Thanks The NSA
Oliver Klozov (I'll leave her clothes off?)
"all of her..." you dolt
Wait wait .. come to Thailand and get yourself a girlfriend.
In two weeks, you hear of the 'sick water buffalo', and 'how mom is so sick' and how 'dads motorcycle got stolen'.
'Can you help me?'
Thainessss...
It's a natural evolution from that totally fucked-up US 'tipping culture.'
The US is like one big strip joint: everybody begging for $1 bills. The taxi driver, the waiters, even at the Starsux they have cups where you can 'donate' your change.
All this is of course for the "great service" of serving watered down coffee or shitty processed genetically altered Frankenstein food that tastes the same from Florida to California, driving you from A to B, while showering you with fake friendliness like "how are you doing Sir" and "have a greeeeeaaat daaaaay."
The employers underpay their staff, so the customer is taken on a guilt trip to compensate....well, that's just GREAT fucking 'service!'
I have a solution to these trivial crowd fundees
I get a few emails every day from a representative of a nigerian prince, or the deceased estate lawyer of someone utterly unrelated to me, asking if i want a slice of their $20 million 'endowment'
we should tee them up with each other
I've avoided this by cleverly having no social media, and few friends.
TIL what the word "trousseau" means: the stuff a bride collects for her marriage.
BTW, if anyone wants to throw some cash my way, I'm about 500K short of the 500K I need to buy an EU citizenship through an investment citizenship deal in a certain East European country.
For the stretch goal of 750K, you can come stay in my guest house, and clean my pool.
I ran across this stuff about a year ago and was seriously considering it. I just could never actually do it.I guess I just don't have something the younger generations have, that something that allows them to straight-out beg for money.
I had my whole sob story, ready to paste into gofundme, then I just didn't do it.
Maybe I should go back and do it....
Wonder if that fat skank who wants the laser surgery is the same one who keeps asking me for money to run for president?
Why is this surprising when the wealthy in our society feel that the poor should open their pockets for them to run for high office?
Dude... how about my dong transplant?
I don't wanna be a racist anymore...I wanna have a BBC of my own. That way I can win back all those marxist hoes so "politically correct"
http://www.thepornster.com/video/461/hot-tattooed-brunette-streches-her-...
"The employers underpay their staff, so the customer is taken on a guilt trip to compensate....well, that's just GREAT fucking 'service!'"
Another liberal who wants the US to become more like Europe. What do you want employers to pay workers livable wages instead of relying on your precious tips? /sarcasm.
Some, like WMT, orchestrate pay so that employees will qualify for more govt freebies.
No different than the above type of social media begging except that it's hidden, but ultimately it's another tap on the same middle-class wallet.
be grateful for your service industry job :)
Yeah, until your employers cut that too.
Dear ZHer,
Please send Boris money for extraction of fat lazy nephew from couch. Hire of crane and enlargement of doorway is cost prohibitive, but YOU CAN HELP!
Please do not send $US because is get steal by mafia, please to send in BitCoin or Ruble.
SPASIBO!
I recommend the use of explosives to remove that inert object from your couch. It's messy, but a lot of fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAW4mntPM-w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ1Remb1rz0
This bad boy carries 4 rounds.
Not even the Russian mob wants rubles?
Is not because Mob is not want Ruble, but is because is want $USD and because when ordingary non-mafia citizenry is show up with $USD, mafismo is suspect there is more money where that is come from. NEVER sending common Russian or Ukrainian citizen $USD in mailing envelope as they are become target for mob.
Say no to me
I'd rather give homeless people food, clothes, a phonebook, and a couple of quarters to make some calls for a Job interview.
I'd rather PAY the homeless for the jewelry and other usable items which they find while dumpster diving.
(You be amazed at what the heirs of dead people throw away and there is a Retirement Center right across the street...)
Paying them FAIRLY for their WORK and GOODS is much better than giving them anything. It builds up their DIGNITY.
Of course I will feed them when they need it. But I'd rather PAY them.
Most homeless are mentally ill, drug and alcohol dependent, or both, and are unemployable.
They have Obamaphones for job interviews. You are wasting your money.
Hire them for odd jobs, dude. Let them earn it and allow them to have some pride and dignity. Please?
I had no idea there was an Obamaphone. Oh lawdy that's scary.
i agree in theory, and that's what i used to do, except for the fact that they are often unstable, addicts, and dealing with them is many times a downer, not worth it at any price. plus, i had a couple of them bring me stolen itmes which i got in trouble for, so now i don't deal with divers.
Yeah, being that I am not a mental health counselour, I usually avoid them as a general rule. I like not being mugged, killed, or jabbed with dirty needles.
as with feeding the homeless, im sure it will soon be illegal in 20 states to give the homeless a job.
because, you know, only specifically govt contracted multinationals are allowed to provide them jobs
It's already illegal in EVERY state. Try talking to the IRS about the measly few dollars you are slipping a deserving case to do a little yard work.
Besides, theres a reason the guys sitting outside home depot looking for day-labor work are all mexican. No whites/blacks/yellows/mad cunts/drunks/homeless/transgenders/women. All from south of the border. It's something to do having a work ethic.
I'd rather PAY the homeless for some Reality Porn. Sick , filthy , itchy shit just like the Mother Nature intended. :)))
OOPS:
http://www.thepornster.com/video/475/homeless-blowjob-reality-porn
Question to you Anonymous:
Is the zerohedge comments section fertile ground for clicks to your porn site? Just curious about the results you have obtained by advertising here for the last few weeks.
As you probably already know, it will be several months before the administration here catches on to you and you are forced to change your username. So enjoy the free advertising rates for quite a while longer!
Meanwhile, I read from fellow commenters who don't use an adblock, that the ZH site is polluted with intrusive ads that take their browsers speed down to a slow crawl. Don't you think that these advertisers would be smart to just sign up and embed all their ads in the comments section?
Ive never heard of anyone using a phone to call for a job interview.
Its called a video conference call. Colleges use it all the time.
Way back when I worked for others, all my jobs were gotten over the phone. I welded pipelines, and later ran a small oilfield bus with 4 welding trucks. People would call and I never once did anything- other than tell em to go to work, I could usually tell within the first hour just by the way he handled himself and went about things if I was going to have to give him a check at the end of the day. It was kind of a grapevine type thing. Most everyone knew each other in the Bus or you knew someone that recommended you. Your butt was on the line if you brought in a phony. We hired helpers to learn too for about 1/4 of the pay, but we needed to know that upfront.
Didn't matter if you were a faker and a fraud. You didn't drive halfway across the country if you couldn't. (well a few always tried). You would be gone the next day when they shot the x-rays, you either could or couldn't do the work.
What the heck did we need a bunch of bull crap and lies typed on a resume for? It was like state of Missouri---- DON"T TALK ABOUT IT SON, SHOW ME:. We were not hiring secretaries to prove they could type ;7)
- outstanding - about time Zeros got back to our roots,
avatars like that used to be common as the sunshine ....
may you have a blessed day :)
Stopped by a bum in the city. Asked me straight up for a dollar. I said I may have some loose change, but couldn't give him a dollar. The bum said 'fuck that, I needs a dollar, man'. I just walked off......didn't want to accept change. Boggles the mind.
Amen brother! Every time I go to a grocery store, at the checkout it's: Would you like to donate $1 to 'Wounded Warrior' or some other emotional sponge charity project.
My default answer: NO.
The cashiers often look surprised and disdainful at my lack of charity. Thing is that most organized charities like that keep most of their donations for salaries and travel; only a small percentage goes to the people they purport to help. I offer up Red Cross, March of Dimes, and basically any other national charity organization (except the Salvation Army).
I had an acquantance lately set up a GoFundMe to start a brewery in this clapped out town full of mothballed factories, government workers, healthcare workers, and extremely poor people (that's the classes here, if you don't work for .gov or .healthcare, you make shit).
It failed. No one in their right mind woudl go out drinking here and try to drive home. First the local hereos know where the bars are, and they set up checkpoints right down the street. They can give you a dui even if you blow zero. Fuck that.
Let it burn. I'm ready for what comes next, this shit we call a society/economy is getting really tiresome.
We don't need no water let the motherfucker burn.
"The cashiers often look surprised and disdainful at my lack of charity. Thing is that most organized charities like that keep most of their donations for salaries and travel; only a small percentage goes to the people they purport to help. I offer up Red Cross, March of Dimes, and basically any other national charity organization (except the Salvation Army)."
When I donate, I usually go to my local food pantry with food rather than a monetary donation. Non-Profit does not mean the guy in charge earns a modest wage.
i'd rather give the cashier a dollar than give it to some maggot's favorite charity.
yes, iirc the recent report on the Clinton Global "non profit" - apparently keeps all BUT 6.5% - total slush fund money moochers, influence peddlers
Can't wait for Black Friday!
Christmas shopping bust 2015. Crushing.
get on it, it's now Black November, All Fridays Everyday All Black !
Brother, can you spare a trillion?
No, Barack, you fucking jackass.
Shame is a forgotten emotion.
'shame' - what's that? We have a generation where becoming a porn star or prostitute is a 'career choice' on the same level with becoming a lawyer or politician...
oh wait..... nevermind
Now that's funny.
Kroger knows no shame.
They're always hassling me for a donation to this or that at checkout.
I always say yes as long as they contribute to my daughters college fund.
or an actor which i kind of similar but you earn less
I believe the phrase you are looking for is "But I repeat myself."
I knew we were lost when young men were high-five'in right outside the Social Services office when they came out with their Food Stamp vouchers and figuring what they were able to sell them for for cash.
It's been going downhill since.
Resourceful of them.
Now they just sell their EBT card for half of it's contained value, cash of course. They also take their 'free' pain meds and 'free' anti-anxiety and 'free' anti=aDD (read amphetamine) and sell those for supplemental income as well.
Keep working hard and maximizing your income, tax donkeys. The underpriveliged in America need your money
It's beyond the point where your tax dollars really make an impact on what free services the government hands out. When was the last time we had a balanced budget? One thing I find hilarious about the social security debate is that people in the government act like the Social Security fund should not be funded better at this point, when they were robbing the fund blind to pay for wars and welfare.
When the winners of a game cheat their way to get ahead, Shamefulness becomes a burden that keeps the losers losing, its unfortunate that sometimes when the system games you you have no choice but to game the system.
Thank Hollywood for that.
Dear Heidi, I hate to bother you, but I'm down on my luck lately. I was in a freak accident when a meteorite didn't burn all the way up as it entered the atmosphere, and as my luck has been, it struck me in the head. My insurance paid $5.73 on my Baboon Brain Transplant, (BBT), but it left me with a $998,000.00 hospital and vet bill. I'm paying my debt as I always have, at $15 dollars a month. If you would find it in your precious heart to help monetarily, I'm eating fucking bananas out the wazoo, and the price has gone up thru the canopy. ANY money would be appreciated. Send cash via PayPal @ www.ou812.net. Bless your pee pickin heart girl.
The meteorite that hit you in the head will be worth millions once you gey the right tribal agent.
You'll get your own reality show.
I just found out I'm being layed off from Stalag 13. I told Sgt. Schultz but he knows nuutttthink. Can you spare a D-mark or two for this hard working Nazi? I've put in my application to Auschwitz but I'm told there are millions waiting in line for a job.
I've got a wheelbarrow you can have- you'll need it to carry around all that hyperinflated currency.
I'll take any of that hyperinflated currency you may have left. I'm sure I could put those Reichmarks on e-bay for a pretty pfennig.
One more reason to avoid any and all forms of 'social media'.
The level of narcissim in our society is mind blowing, almost equal to the feelings of entitlement seen in most people. The concept of working hard to achieve goals and taking responsibility for one's own life seems almost anachronistic these days. It's NOT an even playing field and some people have beed screwed through no fault of their own but life has always been so. Life is NOT fair - get over it. You can try and leave things fairer than you found them but expecting any higher power - much less government - to make things 'right' is naive. Any entity with THAT much power works only to accumulate MORE power and pursue theor own self-interest.
Exactly. Fakebook Ive never understood,(although I know many a devotee/addict). the lure and missed the stock run.
I will overhear the sheeple going on and on about who posted what to their stupid fakebook page.
Narcissim central. How disgusting
Get your friends & family off FB. How to permanently delete it (not just deactivate it).
http://www.groovypost.com/howto/security/permanently-delete-your-faceboo...
do fbook users even care? does anyone have any actual cases of telling someone all the reasons to get off fbook and the person actually deleting their account?
seems like they're fbook H-Junkies, beyond the experimentation phase, they're all in, no matter what breach of trust/privacy
My wife deletes her account about once a year, which is approximately as often as she takes the slightest bit of notice of anything I have to say. Like "stop wasting you time on that bullshit".
Never seems to stay off it too long.
EDIT: come to think of it, that's about the frequency with which I go cold turkey on the Hedge. When her constant refrain of "stop wasting your time on that bullshit" finally gets to me. Never seem to stay off too long. And I don't delete my account, I know I'll be back.
Fuck me, did I just compare the Hedge to Facebook?
Extremely well-put, cynical skeptic.
Oh god, I am so sick of people asking me for money and all the stories. I just stopped, I have lent out a LOT of money and have never seen a dime of it back. Lots of promises, but not a dime. Guess I learned my lesson the hard way. I no longer lend out money and am in the process of sueing some people right now. But good god people have a little respect for your neighbors AND YOURSELVES!
While stuck in a massive DC Beltway traffic jam, I was recently harassed for a donation.
A man was going car to car speaking briefly with the occupants, when he arrived at mine, I asked what was going on.
He said ISIS had stormed the White House, the Capitol, and K Street. They were demanding $50 Million cash, or said they would douse the hostages with gas and set them ablaze. He asked if I'd be willing to donate, and I said sure, how much are most people giving? He replied, a couple gallons.
A few days ago I walked into a thrift store and a man called out asking if I wanted to donate a dollar to needy veterans. I informed him that I am a needy veteran. (Which is why I was walking into a thrift store in the first place.) He asked me if I needed any help. I said no thanks.
My god promises to reward each of you who contribute to me.
Sorry Reaper, I guess he should've told me instead.
Let me guess...Xenu?
Tzeentch.
Or maybe it's Baal... whichever prosperity god Joel Osteen is pointing people to.
Why Lie... I need a Beer..
please donate.
God Bless.
I've seen people in our town sitting on the sidewalk with a sign & cup. The sign says "Need money for weed". Hey, at least they're honest!
He wants water! He can drink paddy water!
Apocalypse Now
Haha online begging indeed!! Kinda like when the Tyler's and friends beg me for market guidance...then they tell me I've fucked up when I'm right. A true microcosm for the world today.
Which reminds me it looks like it's time to start positioning for a little tidbit I dropped about six months ago. I'd suggest you look into it but alas my comment contributions are archived into the secret ZH database on a fairly regular basis. Probably for my own safety.
I was actually considering trying this online begging routine. I could really use some startup capital for a venture that I see a solid amount of aggregate demand building for, but every time I try, I find I slip into this growling guttural language. It doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions? Pointers? Anyone?
just say you're a director making a documentary about the movement of capital that the occupy wall street protestors keep trying to make news about and that you need $500,000 to complete the film. make a short video showing some pretty screens like you see HFTers use and then some gimmicky rewards for contributing at different levels for the film and then post the handout request to indiegogo kickstarter and gofundme. get funded, invest in your thesis, pay a few fiat dollars to an actual film student to make the movie and then keep all the profits from your handout forever.
That sounds feasible, too feasible... So listen I'm working on this exposé on the national football league's officiating oversight on certain high profile plays that are conspicuously not subject to video review dispite their obvious influence on game play momentum. If I had $500 000 I would be able to purchase the rights to a select group of games that support my thesis. The impact of this documentary would surely ripple through the industry and I can't help but invision a bidding war developing between 60 minutes and Netflicks that could net myself and my investor enough profits to literally live forever!! Know anyone who might be interested?
I'm putting together a master list of all Banker's home addresses, and the closest Lowe's, Home Depot, or other source of nailguns, but I need YOUR help to complete and distribute this list!
I have a sneaking suspicion nail guns aren't going to have the necessary range
I'm always happy to see aggregate demand increasing...since we mine, crush and sell rock and sand.
lol I was talking grass roots but you have taken it to a whole other level!
Never, not even the thinnest dime to this scum.
Why tempestuous demeanour friend?
I recently lost all of my guns, ammo and PM's in a tragic boating accident. I lost the boat too, and if not for the heroic instincts of my faithful dog, Buster, who is now suffering PTSD and in need of psychotherapy, I would not have survived. Buster and I need your help. Please send PM's, guns, cash and snorkel gear........
The only thing I see aggregate demand building for is pitchforks and rope.
You must live near the 1600's.
I like your handle though, despite it's contradiction to your insinuation
And with this encore I present a dead sailor....
.....
......
It's a ceiling joke...
The only economy in the US is the Federal Reserve supported bond market which devalues the currency, making loans easy for big business and money hard to use for poor people.
The real metric is when people cannot afford their cell phone and internet bills.
Those folks will simply begin to drop out of the economy simply because Google, Facebook and the government cannot count them and in the minds of the Singularity they don't matter in the new economy.
They are like the monkey-dwarves living in the bowels of THX-1138's world - a separate species to be scorned, abused and ignored.
When the Obama-phone/tracking devices are not being used then there is no method to beg, borrow or twitter.
People (families) in the America are once again making choices as food and housing take a larger portion of the monthly income and now that Obamacare is tearing Amerika a new asshole - untreatable by the broken healthcare-gulag there is even less of the lie to cut.
The entire country is a garage sale - 10 cents on the dollar for anything for cash.
they were originally just dwarves (shell dwellers) before Lucas fucked that movie up with 'digital' tinkering
Another metric will be when more data caps are in place.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/11/05/comcast-internet-usage-caps/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2490795,00.asp
https://bgr.com/2015/10/02/why-is-comcast-so-bad-56/
I think there's something wrong with you if you help people you don't know and don't help people you do know.
how relevant. Inaccurate, but relevant.
I agree. I think think the world would be a better place if people focused on helping their friends and family first, then worry about people you don't know. However, Part of helping though is making sure those people really need it because the line between helping and enabling is thin.
What ever happened to the days when people were so proud of standing on their own two feet that they would actually take offense at the suggestion that they accept help from other people.
But...but...I've got 8,435 friends on facebook. Easier to help strangers buy their wedding dresses.
Donate to me and I'll turn your dollars into gold.
I just raised 25K in a crowdfunding campaign that I worked my ass off to make successful.
So fuck off if you can't figure it out.
*edit: nothing intelligent to say? then downvoting is your perfect option! wanna be know it all assholes.
ANOTHER fundraising strategy! insult your target investors!
You miserly aholes would never support a campaign like this. Who are you trying to kid?
Cause the world needs another craft beer.
Go home and get your fucking shine box.
YEAH FUCK SMALL BUSINESSES THEY SUCK
For f*cking alcohol?
Is there anything you wouldnt do for money?
The way you react is not how a business owner should react. To emotional for even the smalest stings.
So if you have partners like you say, you'll need to change or you'll destroy your own dream. If this is the way you communicate and find it normal, you have zero chances of making it.
But on a side note:
We're offering some awesome perks for your support; including beer for life, growlers, your own personal seasonal beer and launch party - and more!
Beer for life????!!! Do you realize what you offered these people???
Beer for life for only 200 dollars??? And your own personal seasonal beer and launch party? Did you ever organise something like that???? It's even hard to do that with 200 dollars let alone you're also giving away free beer for life!
Do you realize that there will be people who will actually demand this? Do you realize that you didn't add a disclosure in your text?
Any drunk can give you 200 dollars and sue you if you don't give him a crate of beer a day! What will you do if you have to give away 10 crates a day away for free? That means you need to sell at least 100 crates after expenses to break that even. A DAY!
And that for 2000 dollars.
You now have the money but you just put yourself in a very dangerous possition my friend. You should have told them that they could get their money back in beer in a timespan of 2 to 3 years for example.
So unless America changed and people stopped sueing people for peanuts, you should see a lawyer to try to contain the situation.
HELL! IF YOU CAN GIVE ME BEER FOR LIFE FOR ONLY 200 DOLLARS, SIGN ME UP!!!
ps: I live in Belgium so you'll have to add a massive shipping fee and import tax, but as there's no disclosure, you won't mind paying that EVERY DAY!
And would I sue you if you didn't deliver?
YES!!!
One crate costs about 15 euro's, times 30 is 450 a month, let's assume I'll live about another 60 years...
U PROMISED ME OVER 27000 EURO'S IN BEER FOR ONLY 200 DOLLARS!!
and the exchange rate is 1.1 so you do the math :)
Nice investment :)
The math doesn't matter when the plan is to take the money and disappear!
I've invested over 50K of my personal money into this project. Why the fuck would I disappear at this point?
Umm... that's a pint a month for life, SD, not the barrel draining amount that it sounds like.
It doesn't say a pint a month, it just says beer for life :)
And one beer a month? Even my doctor would find that funny :)
Beer for life is beer for life.
I'm fairly confident you didn't read the description (there is disclousure in the text), since you didn't even have the dollar amounts correct...
Considering it costs me $.4 per pint, that would be 250 months for that to start costing me money. And by then, the amount of money brought in from people coming in far surpasses the cost. Furthermore, it's a very common 'perk' offered by start up microbreweries. Please do look it up. No one has been sued over it... and it's too late for you to donate, so there went your chance.
Thanks for the advice, though... I think? I appreciate your support for small business!
Now feel free to resume the vitriolic gibberish about how crowdfunding is the devil.
Hope you're paying your workers more than minimum wage.
it's only me for now, but I'll have to pay them north of $20 and hour to retain anyone worth their salt in the bay area.
The only crowdfunding I've ever contributed to was for my niece who was raising funds to get 32 flashdrives and some specialized books for her experimental class. She had raised something like $10 of the $200 or so needed. So I paid the balance. To me this was a direct investment in her and her ideas, that I don't necessarily agree with, but felt she should have a shot. She's done amazingly well so far.
I'm the sort of guy that if you say you're hungry, at the entrance to a restaurant or grocery store, I'll buy you something to eat right then, right there. I might even give you a dollar or two. But I'm not going to give money to some idiot standing in a hardware store parking lot, at the drug store entrance, or anywhere else. If you're hungry, you'd better be pretty close to were actual food is, otherwise you're shit out of luck.
10 years ago, a waitress at the local bar I used to drink at asked me to lend her $650. She'd gotten a job offer testing blood in a pathology company but she needed to fix her car. I gave it to her, knowing I would never see it again but she wasn't a bad person and she'd given me a few drinks over the months I'd known her. I was pretty much floored when she turned up one evening a couple months later with a check for the whole $650. Even offered to buy me dinner. Go figure.
Are you still in the friend zone?
What I've learned about women is that if you lend them money and then piss them off for some reason, in their mind they don't owe you the money anymore. Woman and men think differently about that stuff. Anybody here ever have that happen to them?
geez all i want is for the police to stop my neighbor from killing me with directed energy weapons.................they better hope i drop dead quick
Or the economy of teaching people how to make money:
"Send me $29.95 and I'll teach you how to make a million dollars at home on the internet..."
i would never go to such a seminar, so would someone ask at the next one:
"WHY are you selling the secret to making a million dollars instead of USING your secret and making a million dollars"?
good way to kill your 'business'
Even better: Why doesn't the 'genius' hire hordes of people to work for him and keep the millions for himself? I mean, really. Shortchanging yourself for a mere $29.95 to give away all that money? Duh.
those beggers should learn how to trade..so we can take the other side!
Read the fine print -- these "donation" sites keep 8-10% of the funds for themselves.
Except the Clinton Foundation, where they got confused about the %s, and spend 8-10% on charity cases and keep the rest for themselves.
I see it all the time, being in the graphic and arts industry it is not unusual, but for fuck sake you can not click on a artists profile and not see the begging ads. I moved from flat art to motion design, there is less of this in this industry. I have always struggled, but I have more pride than asking strangers for help, unless I was on the street of course, but I have been close to the street level a few times. Somehow I always manage to find a save myself.
So these people asking for money for weird and crazy shit, Fuck them !
I give 10 euro's a month to amnesty international and 10 euro's to 11.11.11
That's it. Enough karma for me.
And if anybody else asks me money, I always tell them the same: I don't loan money to friends because I lost to many friends that way, sorry.
And it's true. I actually lost friends in that way.
They weren't friends. It just took some money for you to find that out.
THAT 46.7 Million USA people should walk into the White House and kick that "president" and his cronnies out of office.
But no, they would even support his dictatorship because "he looks and talks so nice"....
Just like Hillary Clinton, the first woman to become "president" because it's now more important "WHAT You Are" instead of What You Do. Dont confuse with We Can, because that is just 100% B.S. talk.
Dear ZH,
I am in dire straits thanks to the bottom falling out of silver. Can you help me by buying about 40 million ounces so that we can start something that looks like a short squeeze...possibly before the end of the year.
A. Maguire
That is funny. The last prediction I ever made on silver was in 2011 with you over at Turds and I sent him $50 because I lost the bet. My calls here failed as well that year, so I quit saying anything about prices.
And why people are still listening to spectacular assclowns like Harvey Organ, Marshall Swing and Bo Polny is remarkable.
... to extend my stay in rehab at betty ford. . . Shit i pissed my pants laughing. (lack of prostate) Our whole country just went full retard.
Just become a banker and get the taxpayer to pick up the tab. Just ask Hank Paulson and Jamie Dimon.
I once gave a relative $500 to start her life over. Holy shit, was I surprised and she did it and paid me back! She now makes like $100K a year, owns a home, and is basically a hard working person who will hide me when the great purge of Christians begins. The moral of the story: keep it in the family.
I remember when this online begging shit started on Craigslist. It seems to be evolving quite quickly. Up next www.ebeg.com
Yes, keep it in the family of people with the right values. That she treated it as an investment and paid you back tells you everything you need to know.
Is there a go blow me website? I really don't need much money to be happy but a bj would be nice.
This is consistent with the prevailing mindset that routine or discretionary events and long-odds catastrophic events should be treated the same. If health insurance is appropriate to pay for checkups and birth control, why wouldn't charity be appropriate for utility bills and vacations.
Today people grossly abuse, over-use, and over-expand the concept of charity. All long-odds disasters should be prepared for in advance by obtaining insurance. Those who failed to properly prepare could take out loans or offer personal shares yielding a cut of future personal earnings to investors. Investers would correspondingly flood into disaster areas injecting relief cash liberally to capture the high yields possible by arbitraging the difference between earners struggling with basic necessities for long periods compared to their promptly getting back to maximum productivity.
Between these mechanisms, everyone would be paying his own way in life even amidst catastrophic events. There would be no leeches.
What acts of charity that remained would then be restored to the original, true essence of what a gift is: something un-asked for. Something driven by the pleasure of the giver rather than the pleasure of the recipient. Not recognizing need, but recognizing laudable qualities.
Do you blame them? We live in a world where the career options of a young white man without connections are begging, cannon fodder, cooking meth, and not much else. Everything else can be outsourced.
vet bill, that one cracks me up the most. see it all the time. my neighbor said she rescued her dog from a shelter. i said yeah bitch but who's going to rescue it from YOU?
ROFL! You just won the internet!
Feed the pigeons and they will certainly circle back to shit on you.
? Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
Society devolving into a collection of Raskolnikovs.