The Depressing Rise of People Robbing Banks to Pay the Bills
Despite inflation decreasing their value, bank robberies are on the rise in the United States. According to the FBI, in the third quarter of 2010, banks reported 1,325 bank robberies, burglaries, or other larcenies, an increase of more than 200 crimes from the same quarter in 2009. America isn't the easiest place to succeed financially these days, a predicament that's finding more and more people doing desperate things to obtain money. Robbing banks is nothing new, of course; it's been a popular crime for anyone looking to get quick cash practically since America began. But the face and nature of robbers is changing. These days, the once glamorous sheen of bank robberies is wearing away, exposing a far sadder and ugly reality: Today's bank robbers are just trying to keep their heads above water.
Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson—time was that bank robbers had cool names and widespread celebrity. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jesse James, and John Dillinger were even the subjects of big, fawning Hollywood films glorifying their thievery. But times have changed.
In Mississippi this week, a man walked into a bank and handed a teller a note demanding money, according to broadcast news reporter Brittany Weiss. The man got away with a paltry $1,600 before proceeding to run errands around town to pay his bills and write checks to people to whom he owed money. He was hanging out with his mom when police finally found him. Three weeks before the Mississippi fiasco, a woman named Gwendolyn Cunningham robbed a bank in Fresno and fled in her car. Minutes later, police spotted Cunningham's car in front of downtown Fresno's Pacific Gas and Electric Building. Inside, she was trying to pay her gas bill.
The list goes on: In October 2011, a Phoenix-area man stole $2,300 to pay bills and make his alimony payments. In early 2010, an elderly man on Social Security started robbing banks in an effort to avoid foreclosure on the house he and his wife had lived in for two decades. In January 2011, a 46-year-old Ohio woman robbed a bank to pay past-due bills. And in February of this year, a Pennsylvania woman with no teeth confessed to robbing a bank to pay for dentures. "I'm very sorry for what I did and I know God is going to punish me for it," she said at her arraignment. Yet perhaps none of this compares to the man who, in June 2011, robbed a bank of $1 just so he could be taken to prison and get medical care he couldn't afford.
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http://www.good.is/post/the-depressing-rise-of-people-robbing-banks-to-pay-the-bills/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Now they'll just have to work harder to pay off their debts. Unless they're bankers or Wall Street CEOs...
...there you have it!
I was being sarcastic!
I was using the ridiculous argument about "buying too much house" used by Repubs to place the onus of the TARP scandal on the victims rather than holding the bankers accountable.
"Bought too much life" would be taking that "argument" to an insane level.
Sorry to have misled...
I was being sarcastic...
By Jennifer Glickel and Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo Staff
EAST VILLAGE — The Tea Party protest outside of President Barack Obama's speech in New York City was more like tea for two on Thursday, with only a handful of members present at the event.
The protesters, who were part of a local arm of the movement called Tea Party 365, carried signs and spoke to passersby about their distaste for the Wall Street reform package Obama is promoting.
“I’m here as a New Yorker because Obama is bad for New York," said tea partier Ayton Eller, a Brooklyn accountant. "I’m here to protest the legislation Obama wants to pass, because Wall Street is Main Street. If the banks are regulated, it will have a ripple effect on the country and the world."
Kevin Donahue, an Upper East Side resident, said he is a Democrat but he is also a member of Tea Party 365 because he believes government is getting too big.
"The more government grows, the less freedom we have because we're the ones paying for it," Donahue said. "This is a capitalist country and we want it to stay that way."
Obama's speech had five main points: Protecting taxpayers when large financial firms fail; limiting the amount of risks taken on by banks; setting new transparency rules for derivatives and other complex financial instruments; stronger consumer protections; and giving investors more of a say in who runs firms and limiting executive pay.
"Join us, instead of fighting us in this effort," Obama urged at his speech at Cooper Union, only blocks from Wall Street.
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20100422/east-village/tea-party-protest-against-barack-obama-draws-only-five-people
Five people??!!!
I kind of feel sorry for the woman claiming the demise of ma and pa businesses, like her pharmacy, were the result of Freddie and Fannie...Really??!!! What about companies like WalMart? One would think she would know about how WalMart and other mega-stores led to the disappearance of "ma and pa businesses" with the blessing of Wall Street. Pathetic...
