Beggar, sick of loose change, introduces minimum tariff

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Is this a sign of the times??

A beggar has introduced a minimum tariff for donations because he is fed up with people dumping their loose change in his box.

The Bosnian beggar who lives in the Italian town of Ventimiglia now only accepts donations of at least one euro.

He says he had to come up with the measure because, since the introduction of the euro, people were only giving one or two cent coins and this was too little for him to survive.

He said: "Life for us beggars has become even more difficult with the introduction of the euro. People are not willing to give as much anymore."

[fwgx]

Good for him. If he can get by that way still that's a good thing. respect to the man

[lemon_chicken]

lol - so much for 'beggers can;t be choosers'.

on a vaugely related topic, when i have lotsa loose change a just pump it all into a vending machine and then press the refund button to get the money back in a better form.

[Twilightseer]

I guess no one can reproach him for deciding the best way to do his job

[MetallichicA]

Erggghhhhhhhhh

When we were in New Orleans, these two kids were out on the street tap-dancing, with an open suitcase next to them. They were really cute, and pretty good. Someone walked by and threw a dollar bill in, and the older boy says, "What the hell is this? We be lookin' for fives and tens!"

I would have taken it back out.

[CremoNe]

here in Italy almost every beggar or windscreen-washers have a sign saying "no 1,2, 5 eurocent coin please."

so i refuse to give them any money at all.

[Bilbo Baggins]

Most beggars are opportunists who usually have a home to go to at the end of the night.

[fwgx]

Your sounding more like Barroness Thatcher by the day Bilbo

[Bilbo Baggins]

But they annoy me. I only want to give my change to people who actually need it, not to people who are in better clothes than i am!

Thats why I buy the Big Issue.

[J. Burnaway]

Bilbo is right on this one. There are a lot of people here who hold up "will work for food" signs. Just try to get them to work though. I've done it. They make lot's of excuses why they can't right then. Most of these people are standing at stop lights where they have a captive audience. They are just looking for money, and it's all tax free, so all they need is a buck every 4 or 5 red lights and they are actually making more money per hour than that guy behind the counter at McDonald's.

I've also had a guy yell at me to turn out my pockets when I told him I didn't have any spare change. Yeah, now I'll give you some.

[Banjo]

the public are not responsible for sustaining beggars and are not obliged to give them money, introducing a 'minimum tariff' for themselves is pathetic, they should be grateful for anything and everything they get. like bilbo says, a lot of them are just people who are at it and don't deserve anything.

[pixiefied]

there was one guy in everett that had a sign that said "i wont lie.i need beer money"!
there was also an investigation done a while back on "street people".come to find out that most of them choose this way of life,and that quite a few had nice homes! there was also a bag lady from somewhere that was a millionare and she chose to live on the streets. we had one man here in our town that was a bum basically. his name was cecil.he was pretty old and was mentally incompetent to manage his money. we all knew he could afford things,but he chose to "borrow".he use to ride his lawn mower to town

[missyob]

I worked in a very slum area of Atlanta for about 4 months last year. It was a very poor and drug filled area.

There were many beggers on the street right near where I worked. Most of them were drugged out and just begged to get enough money to buy that quart of beer or hit of drugs, anything to get high.

Having the huge heart I do, I asked them if they wanted a job for a few weeks, come to work with me every day. I really thought I could help them out and "re-hibilitate" some of them. Well, none of them wanted to work. They were perfectly happy begging on the streets for their drugs.

Very sad.

~ Missy

[Jon Deaux]

The ungrateful bastich!
Where's he at????????
Let RUFUS The Stunt Bum get him!!!!!!!!!
BUMFIGHTS!!!!!!!!
YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wanna see him on BUMFIGHTS!