Homeless Man Robs Bank, Gives Cash Away

[The Straight Story]

Homeless Man Robs Bank, Gives Cash Away

TAMPA, Fla. -- Authorities said a homeless man robbed a Tampa bank, fled on a city bus and handed out stolen cash to passengers.

Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies said 27-year-old Elmer McGuirt handed a note demanding money to a Wachovia Bank teller about 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

Witnesses told deputies he then got on the bus and started handing out money, keeping some of the cash for himself.

The sheriff's office contacted the bus driver, who stopped the bus and pretended to have mechanical failure. Deputies arrested McGuirt and were also able to get some of the money back from passengers.

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/27715452/detail.html

[KansDem]

1. "Deputies arrested McGuirt and were also able to get some of the money back from passengers."

Great! Now go after the banks and try to get some of our money back!

edited for spelling...

[dkf]

6. You do realize the big banks repaid tarp right?

[Bandit]

8. AIG repaid the TARP?

You do know AIG insured the banks and all the money paid to AIG went to the banks and no it has not yet been paid back.. What the "banks" got directly from the US Gopvernment was a pittance of what the USA doled out..

[dkf]

29. They are expected to reimburse us in full.

"Based on current market prices, Treasury estimates that taxpayers will ultimately recover every dollar that the US government invested in AIG," the Treasury said Tuesday.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jx2soUuThCtNLtSY2TEQYBEYUv1g?docId=CNG.2c0c684e4214c133cf7243022e580910.201

[Rex]

47. But they haven't yet, so keep hope alive!

[Poboy]

9. You do realize that talking point is bullshit, right?

[KansDem]

10. They're still sucking the American taxpayer dry.

Big Banks Pay Back TARP Funds—But Still Get Government Aid

--excerpt--
But don’t expect big banks to stop feeding from the government trough. Remember, the TARP funds are only part of the federal aid they’ve been receiving. In fact, it’s a small portion of the help they’ve been getting from the U.S.—and the only one that comes with such onerous restrictions.

For one, banks are aggressively issuing debt guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the banking regulator. Since late last year, banks have issued more than $200 billion in such bonds, according to research firm Dealogic. The rates on the government-backed bonds are much cheaper than could get by selling bonds on their own.

The big banks returning the TARP money show no signs of giving up this perk. Goldman has $21 billion of such debt; JPMorgan Chase $40 billion; Morgan Stanley $23 billion. (JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley did say they wouldn't issue any additional bonds backed by the FDIC. And JPMorgan recently sold corporate bonds without the U.S. backing.)

Banks also are benefitting from ultralow interest rates, engineered by the Federal Reserve. The Fed has cut the banks’ borrowing cost to the bone. That means the banks can borrow money for essentially nothing and lend it out on much higher rates. The difference—or the spread—is one big reason why banks reported such strong profits in the first quarter.

Considering all the forms of government aid, the real question is whether banks are healthy enough to stand on their own. Sure, some of the balance sheet muscle to pay back the TARP funds. But that’s just a fraction of their full financial aid package. The banks—and the financial systems—likely would look a whole lot shakier without Uncle Sam propping them up in other ways.

Business Week

Should we really be rewarding failed capitalists?

[slackmaster]

16. Congress is responsible for banking laws.

Think about it the next time you vote.

[KansDem]

20. HAHAHA!!! "Congress???"

You mean our "elected representatives" who permit lobbyists to write the legislation that they don't read but will vote on according to their masters' wishes? THAT Congress???

Yeah, I'm sure my one vote will cancel out any vote cast by Big Bank, "The Person."

I'll get on the horn with my newly-elected rep., Kevin Yoder, who's already lied about Medicare (he was "for it" before he was "against it"--all in five months), and get him to "rewrite" the banking laws.

:rofl:

[Avant Guardian]

27. They were given tax breaks

That equal the TARP amount. This is considered 'paying it back' by some.

[girl gone mad]

40. No, they did not.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Well, if you gonna be a bank robber, that's the best attitude for a bank robber to have. -nt

[blondeatlast]

39. Well said. nt

[KittyWampus]

4. Glad no one was hurt.

[slackmaster]

5. Ask the teller who was threatened with violence whether or not anyone was hurt

You may be surprised at the answer, because it seems you haven't thought much about what happened.

[Wait Wut]

26. Thanks for that.

I hadn't even thought of the teller.

[Xenotime]

7. Bravo!

[NYC Liberal]

11. Lock him up - ALONG with anyone else robbing banks and that includes

criminal corporate executives.

[socialist_n_TN]

13. Ah if only...........

Only working class/poor who rob banks with paper are locked up. If you rob banks (and taxpayers) with paper in a three piece suit, it's okay-dokey!

[NYC Liberal]

23. "They want to put street criminals in jail to make life safer for the business criminals.

They're against street crime, providing that street isn't Wall Street."

George Carlin

[ecstatic]

12. He probably WANTED to get locked up

At least then he'd get room and board, medical attention, etc. Being in jail is better than being homeless, IMO.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

14. And that, my friend, is the Jackboot's Conundrum. -nt

[slackmaster]

15. That's exactly the impression that the writers of this story wanted you to have

Homeless people are considered more worthy of sympathy than are common criminals.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

17. Claiming that a news story stated a person is homeless when he's in fact not homeless...

...is a pretty big claim. What evidence do you have for that?

[slackmaster]

18. I didn't say he wasn't homeless. I said he's a fucking bum.

:nuke:

If the article had called him a "transient" rather than "homeless", there wouldn't be such an outpouring of sympathy for him.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. That's the weirdest exhortation for ''political correctness'' I have ever seen.

Now we shouldn't call a homeless person ''homeless'' if you don't like them?

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

[TheKentuckian]

25. I'd be supportive if he had 10 million dollars. I'm pro-Robin Hood.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. So what if his children were starving - he stole a loaf of bread, he's a thief!

Hang him!

How very 16th century of you.

[Poboy]

22. sheriff of nottingham

[slackmaster]

31. Don't try to tell me that robbing a bank was his only option

:eyes:

[RaleighNCDUer]

32. As suggested above, perhaps he WANTED to get arrested.

Giving away the loot doesn't indicate he was in it for the money. Maybe he had a pissed off meth dealer after him, and he wanted to be safe. Maybe he has been unemployed for two years, and was just tired of trying. Maybe he's mentally ill, and thinks this is the only way he'll get treatment. Or maybe he was high and just wondered if it was really true that tellers are told to hand over the cash even if they don't see a gun, so he tried it.

You don't know his story.

It's vicious attitudes like yours that led to the hanging of children who stole bread. It's barbaric.

[slackmaster]

35. Don't try to tell me that getting himself arrested was the only way he could be safe

Or that robbing a bank and terrorizing some poor teller was the only way to get himself arrested.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

37. Yeah, the poster above is saying that.

Right. :eyes:

[slackmaster]

38. I asked you not to tell me that

[bobbolink]

34. You are soooo wrong... LOL!

“In the research of Fisk and her colleagues, people were asked how different social groups are viewed by their society. When asked a series of questions about social warmth and the competency of different social and ethnic groups, the answers clustered around four emotional responses: pity, envy, pride, and disgust. For example, people routinely react to the homeless with disgust. This is puzzling enough. You might have thought people would pity the homeless, empathize with their position, and feel sorry for them. Not at all. And in a functional MRI study, when study participants were presented with pictures of members from each social and ethnic group, the medial prefrontal cortex–the site that registers the potential for an object’s social action–popped for all but one group: the homeless. The homeless maybe seen as human, but not fully so, not as social actors.” The Empathy Gap by J.D. Trout 2009

[ThomCat]

41. It doesn't sound like you have much sympathy for homeless people.

Why is that?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

42. I assume your question is rhetorical. -nt

[ThomCat]

43. No. I want a real answer from him.

:shrug:

[bobbolink]

33. My thought, exactly. So, he did a Robin Hood thing.

[Javaman]

24. "some" of the money back from passengers...

The smart ones kept their mouths shut.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

28. Or, possibly, gave back three wads of bills while keeping the other two.

I'd like to think that, for somebody, this made the difference between having to choose between paying rent and feeding the kids this month, and being able to do both.

[Javaman]

30. Oooo, I like your style.

Cheers! :)

[bobbolink]

36. What a good thought.

Thanks! :thumbsup:

[RaleighNCDUer]

44. I noticed that too. nt

[petronius]

45. Aside from the prison sentence, and the harm to everyone in the bank, this

sounds like a lot of fun. :) (But those two points are dealbreakers, for sure.)

I wonder if there's a cognitive issue here, or perhaps he wanted to get caught?

[Cali_Democrat]

46. A modern day Robin Hood

nt