This isn't the type of thing I normally write about, but I want to call attention to this bizarre and offensive NY Post story. Titled, seriously, "A bum you can trust - Honest!", I thought it might be about some government official or about some banker who promised to stop crashing the global economy and stealing trillions of dollars while forcing Americans to pay them. But, uh, no.
Apparently some ad executive somewhere let a homeless guy borrow her credit card. She was, you see, great and awesome and she took a big risk, because we all know poor bums are the ones who steal your money.
So, given that she gave the guy the opportunity to make off with 3 trillionsome cash and he didn't, well, she's a brave hero and he's an honest bum who thankfully didn't steal from her despite the fact that we all know it's the homeless bums who are itching to wreck everyone's lives and take our cash.
"I wasn't tempted at all," said the 32-year-old Brooklyn native. "She trusted me, and I didn't want to violate that trust. I would never do that."
The article doesn't say if this guy volunteered that part or if the reporters asked him how tempted he was to steal this person's money. But the default perception everyone seems to have is that poor, desperate people are the ones who take your stuff - while the rich are loudly and obnoxiously being given our stuff by the government and we just accept it.
It's baffling that after we've lived through this economy we're still more likely to trust the wrong people and to distrust innocent bystanders who are probably bigger victims of all this than we are. It's confusing that this story of potential looting by the poor - complete with pictures of a Scary Black Guy - is even being written. Where are all the stories asking if we can trust the stock market? Where are all the stories asking if we can trust big banks?
Shit, we still don't have any idea where most of the money we gave to the big banks has gone. It's just unaccounted for. We don't have any idea where the trillions of dollars missing from the economy after the initial crash has gone. Then we have people like Madoff ripping everyone off and banks like Goldman Sachs using sneaky tactics to get as much of our money as possible.
And we're in awe that some homeless guy somewhere can be trusted?