Photo: Hey, callin' it your job ol' hoss sure don't make it right

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Current photo on the Huffington Post home page:



Now, I understand debt. And I understand people who can't pay their debts. And I understand it's the state marshal's job to go to the home of the guy with the walker who didn't pay his debt and physically remove him from his home and put his non-debt-paying ass out on the curb with all of his shit. That's life...don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Don't buy the house if you can't keep up with the mortgage. So the hard-liners on debt can save their rhetoric, because I just laid it out so they wouldn't have to.

I just don't understand what makes someone look at a photo like this and think "Oh, YEAH. That's my calling. I wanna be THAT guy. Dragging people out of their homes would ROCK, bro. Is there a class I need to take or something?"

:rant:

[hedgehog]

1. Jim Traficant got his start in national politics by refusing to

evict people when he was sheriff of Mahoning County.

[Schema Thing]

2. Ain't that America, you and me?

this picture makes me cry.

[Barack_America]

4. It's somethin' to see, that's for sure.

But it's a different kind of spectacle these days.

[Schema Thing]

7. I just realized that this isn't connected to any specific story

so it may just be an illustration.


oh well, it got me anyway.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

11. It's the photo Huffington Post is using on their home page to link to this story:

http://www.tnr.com/article/unhampered

"UnHAMPered
FDR’s superb fix for our housing crisis."

[Schema Thing]

17. Right, but the pic isn't connected to the story, except as an illustration

Unless I missed it somewhere in there.




The reason I noticed is that I reposted the pic on another discussion board, and then thought "yikes, I better check to make sure there is a story to go along with this pic".

I suspect it is a stock photo, and my fear of re-posting it is that it may well never have been a news photo.

[Barack_America]

3. Yup, this country is officially a hollow shell.

It's easy to blame the politicians, but we did this to ourselves.

[Vincardog]

5. As Tonto said to the lone ranger "What do you mean 'We' Paleface"?

[Barack_America]

9. "We" in the sense that none of us are without fault. nt

[HillbillyBob]

24. No, It started with folks voting for RunnyRaygun or there about.

I did not vote for any repuke ever. WE are not all to blame, just a good portion.

I tried to keep above water, with falling wages and working 2 and 3 jobs till I got too sick and injured.
I only took credit to buy a pick up. I rented because as hard as I worked, it took all the keep shelter and save a little bit.

When I got sick bcbs dropped my ass so fast it made my head spin..then since I was sick I lost my job, then the truck which was only about 5 payments from being free and clear, then I was left homeless.

Not so fast is right.
A lot of us 'did the right thing' but still got royally fucked. When bcbs refused to pay for my treatment calling a first illness an pre-existing condition it cost every penny of my savings and still left 30,000$ in bills.

I never had credit cards except a shell gas card(paid in full every month).

I have taken every opportunity to try to wake people up.
Folks have been to busy being taken in by American Idiots and Free For All Trade tactics instead of Fair Trade..in going along with the corporate lines..
See where that has gotten us.

I was not homeless just once.

I never once voted for any Rs at all, and always tried to pick the least evil and I was never taken in by the piratization schemes of them.

[Barack_America]

29. And when Americans accepted Chinese-made goods. nt

[roguevalley]

22. a people is defined by how they treat the most vulnerable. end of

empire here. incredibly awfully sad picture. he can move in with me. Reminds me of my grandpa. :(

[annabanana]

6. heart breaking. . . n/t

[fascisthunter]

8. thank the wealthy and their tools, the right wing

[mdmc]

10. I bet that poor worker is better off then I am

I would take his job if it were given to me.
Welcome to right to work America..

[Greyhound]

12. Yeah, but without those brave enforcers of wealth and privilege we'd all

go on a murderous rampage ending only when the last survivor crawls from the rubble that was civilization.
:eyes::sarcasm:

[davsand]

13. We had a DUer at one time that did eviction work.

I remember that he got a raft of crap on here for how he earned his living. He ultimately got tomb-stoned but I can't remember what it was for (something lounge related maybe??)

One time I remember him saying that he figured that at a least he was not hurting anybody physically and that was more than some guys doing that job could say...





Laura

[tularetom]

14. Don't kid yourself - there are people who would get together in the bar with their buddies

an laugh about how the old guy almost pissed himself as he was escorted out of his home in a walker.

In college I worked for awhile for a collection agency, repossessing cars, appliances and whatever. I had several physical confrontations and it was pretty scary, but that's not why I quit. I didn't have the heart to take stuff away from people who really needed it, but for some reason were unable to make payments on it.

But I knew guys who got their rocks off doing just that.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

18. You're right...

...I've known people with that kind of personality. It's sport, it's a goof, it's a power thing that is all rooted in some form of short-circuited brain cells.

Like I said in the OP...debt is debt, I'm not trying to say that it isn't. I just wonder about the person who WANTS to be the guy removing the guy with the walker from his home.

:patriot:

[Bobbie Jo]

15. Won't mom be proud.

:puke:

[notadmblnd]

16. I have nothing but disdain for people that make their livings off the unfortunate circumstances of

others.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Meh.

They've got debts to pay, so they do their job.

:shrug:

[tkmorris]

31. Such logic could justify every mercenarial occupation

But it ignores the root question. Does the need to make a living outweigh moral principles? Does the professional hit man have a right to do what he does?

[rudy23]

While there are definitely some thugs who'd get off on it, to me this falls under "it's a dirty job"

but somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to be the person who collects debts, even when the debtor is in a sad state. It's probably not the favorite part of that person's job, but I definitely wouldn't put it past some people to be sadistic about it.

[pleah]

20. Very sad. n/t

[piratefish08]

21. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

[HillbillyBob]

25. When I was homeless the second time I took a job

at a medical collections agency..I stayed about 2 wks. I could not bear to listen to the stories knowing that I was more or less in the same boat. In the end I told the 'crew chief' that I am not heartless enough to rattle the cages of those who got sick then when they could not pay (most had insurance at that) they had people like us pushing them.

Think about the old lady with cancer who gets collection calls on her medical bills, who lives in an apartment and is eating catfood.
I may sound like a hard ass and am to a degree, but towards bullies not those who need kindness.

[Edweird]

27. I tried regular 'collections' a long time ago. I lasted maybe two weeks. If that.

I'm not that kind of an asshole.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

23. Wasted effort, too. One more empty condo sitting on the market for months/years. nt

[Edweird]

26. Ok, here's the dilemma. If the marshall (who isn't in this to evict people) doesn't do this,

he loses HIS job. Then he's getting evicted by a former co-worker. It sucks, but the economy is in the shitter. You can't quit right now. There's no place to go. So you gotta suck it up and do what you gotta to do to keep a roof over your own head.

In my job, I sometimes have to disconnect stuff. I don't have a choice. If I don't do it, I lose my job. I am living paycheck to paycheck, and a job loss would render me homeless in a matter of weeks.

[sufrommich]

28. That photo just makes me ill. Shame on us. nt

[SoCalDem]

30. Two things come to mind when I see that photo

1. A man his age should not HAVE a mortgage
2. A man his age, probably has children/grandchildren

At the very least, someone would have/should have had enough time to at least move his "stuff" to a secure place prior to the actual eviction.. (these processes take MONTHS, and there are MANY notifications prior to the event)

While it's possible that this man is one of the truly "un-connected", it's probably not the case... If there are people who call this man Dad/Uncle/Grandpa./..well shame on them!

Any one of them could have made some phone calls and at least gotten him some help to move somewhere or to at least help him sell his stuff before he had to move...hell even to GIVE it away would be better.

I fear that this may be the fate of many older people who fell for the "reverse-mortgage" scam, thinking that the equity would outlive them, and while they were alive, their house would be "paying them" .

This may have worked well for an 80 yr old with a paid off house worth a million bucks...but for people of modest means with older homes that were artificially inflated, the amount they got out of it might have already exceeded what the home is now worth. Does anyone think that the people running this scam are going to keep sending Grandpa/Grandma a check when there is no equity left?