On the Prowl

Humans can be quite resourceful when they need to be, especially when it involves those things that are essential to life. So, at a time when millions are either struggling to get by or are just barely hanging on, it's no surprise to find, as the following recent reports suggest, that more and more people are relying on unsavory or unlawful tactics to get their hands on something that nobody can do without: food.

"Steal This Continental Breakfast: The Urban Forager's Guide, Vol. 1" (Miami New Times)

Times are tough, so many people are searching for hotels with free continental breakfasts.

Problem is, some of the people eating aren't guests, says Hampton Inn manager front desk clerk Alfonso Tobenas. That's right. Folks walk into tourist hotels and pose as guests to gain access to morning chow. Who would do such a thing? Lots of people, according to local hotel insiders.

"It is what it is, bro, times are tough and they're hungry," Tobenas says. "They're just trying to beat the system and save a buck. The first time you're going to get away with it, the second and third time I'm going to ask you to leave."

...

Tobenas says some people even regularly rotate hotels for their free breakfasts, but he recognizes their faces after a while. When he spots them, he lets them eat freely so they let their guard down. Then he confronts them and asks for their room number. At that moment, they realize they've been found out and generally leave without incident.

"Hunting Deer to Put Food on the Table" (WHIZ News)

A rainy start to deer-gun season has lowered this year's tally, but many of those who are out hunting are doing it out of necessity.

Hunters checking their deer at the Dillon Falls Store say they've noticed more people struggling to feed their families.

"I see a lot more people out hunting, and I know the economy is bad all over," said deer hunter Rich Ambrose.  "I think it's something people are trying to do because it's a cheap way to fill the freezer."

Owner of Dillon Falls Store Kathy McCann said tough economic times are taking people into the woods to hunt their own food.  She said if someone already has a gun, the cost of killing a deer is much less than buying meat at a grocery store.

"This Young Woman Scored $1,200 A Month In Fancy Dinners Using Match.com" (Business Insider)

A young New Yorker we'll call Minerva McGonagall* was tired of dipping into her savings to keep up with her Manhattan lifestyle.

Her $45k salary was not enough and she needed at least an extra $500 a month and sometimes $1,000 to pay her credit card bills and afford her $1,475 a month apartment in Murray Hill.

Then she discovered Match.com– the perfect site for a broke 23-year-old. 

“Before I barely had enough money to pay for food,” said McGonagall. “After using Match.com I found I wasn’t going into debt anymore.”

McGonagall started eating out five nights a week using a rotation of different guys she met through the dating site. McGonagall kept things simple—no more than five dates with the same guy.

"Chris Rickert: Stealing from Food Pantry Shows Depth of Desperation" (Wisconsin State Journal)

I heard about it in church, during the weekly airing of "joys and concerns." It was not a joy.

The food pantry at the Goodman Community Center on Madison's East Side, just two blocks from my home, had been hit by theft. Largely cleaned out, in fact.

"We were a little wiped out, and it was pretty shocking," Kathy Utley, the Goodman's food pantry coordinator, later confirmed.

Pretty shocking, indeed, I thought, and pretty reprehensible, too. What kind of jerk rips off a food pantry? It's like stealing Social Security checks from old ladies.

You might be surprised to learn Utley doesn't see it that way.

When I spoke with her on Tuesday, there were still a lot of unanswered questions about how exactly the theft occurred and "so many different stories on what happened" that Saturday, Nov. 12.

But so far, the theory is that someone pulled up in front of the pantry during pantry hours and simply started loading up on most of the pantry's food.

"Raw Meat Tops List of Most Shoplifted Items This Holiday Season" (Death and Taxes)

Barbara Staib, spokesperson for the National Association of Shoplifting Prevention, states that nearly three quarters of thefts aren’t premeditated. The current state of the economy has also contributed to an increase of 6 percent over the past year with shoppers stealing on a need basis — which sheds some light on the most shoplifted item of the holiday season.

Choice cuts of meat have become a Grade-A target for shoplifters (who, by the way, have also made supermarkets and grocery stores the most popular retail setting for theft). “Many police still believe [this] is the most common item stolen from grocery stores and supermarkets,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Between 2009 and 2011, the loss rate for “luxury meat” has risen by 21 percent.

Unsurprisingly, supermarkets are the most popular venues for shoplifting in the United States. Supermarkets have a high volume of customers as well as merchandise, while possessing little to no security. It shouldn’t shock anyone that people are taking advantage of this opportunity. Nevertheless it’s still hilarious to picture people shoving high-priced cuts of meat down the front of their jeans.

"Confessions of a K Street Freeloader" (The American Spectator)

There are better ways to sponge in D.C. than by hanging out in McPherson Square.

The rest of the country may be in recession, but the lawyers and lobbyists in Washington have not been cutting back. I should know: I have been freeloading off of them. Every day in the last week, I have been treated to a breakfast, a lunch or an after-work happy hour by some group of well-heeled influence peddlers.

The best part about it is that I don't have to pull any strings or gatecrash to get in. Invitations simply arrive in my email inbox, sometimes several in a day. Most are from people whom I don't even know but are nevertheless eager to make my acquaintance.

What makes me so popular? I'm not sure really. I'm a professional writer by trade and I have covered a lot of different subjects in my time. At some point my name appears to have gotten caught, flypaper-like, on the list of "writers who cover our topic" of most every interest group in town. So they ply me with free drinks and food.

Comments

[Tom]

Indeed it is getting to be "desperate times" and your links only underscore the tip of the iceberg as the worldwide collapse in population starts to take hold (read Bottleneck by Wm. R. Catton, jr. - emeritus professor of sociology at Washington State U.). It's going to get much worse and real soon since climate change has been ignored for decades and will soon become irreversible in its damaging effects on food production while resources like potable water, oil, and top soil grow scarce. i believe we're at the end of our run as a species, and it turns out we weren't very "sapient" at all.

[Structurally deficient]

Eliot Spitzer: “In retrospect, I wish we had put more people in handcuffs.”
ELIOT SPITZER: There was an amazing piece of journalism that came out yesterday which analyzed the magnitude of the loans that have been made by the feds to the banks. The six big banks in particular got over $400 billion of secret loans, most of which we had not heard about. Now, at the time these banks were getting these loans, they were claiming to be in great financial shape. So why were the loans made? Is there a tension between the public statements being made by the CEO’s of the banks–
ELIOT SPITZER: The answer is no. And if you or I did that, if you or I went to a bank –
ELIOT SPITZER: Or made any public statement, knowing it to be false, we’d be in handcuffs. So the question I have is, look, we don’t know a lot of these facts. Let’s predicate — there are 100 uncertainties, but where is the inquiry right now about all the statements being made by the CEO’s, CFO’s none of which revealed these enormous loans.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/12/eliot-spitzer-more-people-in-handcuffs/?

[They ate my lunch]

“MF Global – Hoisted on a Petard of Arrogance” by Sydney M. Williams

Wall Street has a maze of rules and, despite the hoots and hollers from “occupiers” and populist politicians, most are designed to protect investors. Perhaps the most fundamental of these is thou shalt not comingle customer cash with company cash. MF Global, which traces its roots back 228 years and which for the last 19 months had been run by Jon Corzine, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and a former U.S. Senator and Governor of New Jersey, allegedly did just that, according to James Giddens, trustee for the firm that filed for bankruptcy on October 31.

How complicit Mr. Corzine actually was in what would be a criminal act of using client funds for the firm’s purposes will be determined by the courts. But the act also highlights the too-cozy relationship – cronyism – between politicians and Wall Street. MF Global’s chief regulator, the Commodity Future’s Trading Commission (CFTC), which obviously did not perform the oversight they should have, is run by Gary Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs partner. Last February, MF Global was named as one of twenty-two primary dealers by the New York Federal Reserve, joining a select group that includes banks such as BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and UBS Securities. The head of the New York Fed is another former Goldman partner, William Dudley. This smacks of crony capitalism at its worse, benefitting a small contingency at the expense of the people.

http://commoditycustomercoalition.org/?p=736

[Don't slip]

David vs. Goliath

This is just more evidence that is piling up which points the fact that
this country is deteriorating into a large-scale banana republic. I can
vividly recall in the 1970's reading countless stories about the way in
which Governments and businesess operated in Central and South American
"banana republic" countries. If you were wealthy and owned your own
politician, you could essentially operate your enterprise with
absolutely no regard for the laws or fear of prosecution. All it took
was big "donations" to the politicians. How is that any different from
what is now happening in this country? Seriously. Why does Jon Corzine
get wait a month before he has to appear before Congress to answer
questions about MF Global? Why is he not in District Court right NOW
answering questions from a judge? He hasn't even issued any public
statements? Leads me to wonder if he's hiding in the closet of his good
buddy Barack Obama and peeling bananas to feed to the politicians...

http://truthingold.blogspot.com/2011/12/david-vs-goliath.html