This could revolutionize begging. One of the last jobs that has not benefited from the computer revolution yet.
Think about how US dollars declare, on the face of the bill, that the currency is good for all sorts of transactions (all debts, public and private). Even a beggar can get in on the use of this currency. People can easily give to a beggar with almost no overhead, and the recipient can spend the currency almost anywhere.
Credit isn't anywhere near that yet, especially since transaction fees are non-trivial. However, there's been a pretty major barrier to receiving credit payments, and even if someone was willing to pay the fees, there hasn't been a good way to interface with it.
Let's say I pay for two coffees with credit, and a friend wants to pay me with credit for one of the coffees. Even if I were willing to pay the transaction fee, I couldn't take their credit card, easily. PayPal is close to that point, but square is closer.
Settling trivial, private debts with credit will be just as good as any currency that works for all debts, public and private.
In fact, another article I read told about a couple in Portland, Oregon that cleared 50k between the two of the begging.
"Gregory: I was making 60 grand a year, 60 grand, not working hard. If I wanted to push it I could push it to 70. They want you to do over time on Wall Street. Wall Street judges you by your overtime. So yeah, I was raking it in. And I was spending it just as fast on alcohol. I would get up at 8 at night, take a shower, have a pint of Jack Daniel?s on me when I got into my car and drove to work."
Poetry sample:
"A Few of My (cough) Favorite Things"
Waking up achy, And out in the open.
Guard dogs are barking. Before words are spoken.
Wrought iron benches, That causes suff-ring.
These are a few of my favorite things.
Taking a shower, With four dozen others. Moving around,
In a stench that can smother. Finding that you,
Are the source of the stink!
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the bottles dry, And the smokes are gone,
And I'm feeling low
$250 every day = $25/hour if you "work" 10 hours a day. So 1 person donating $1 every 2.4 minutes.
In that 2.4 minute period, there are probably 1,000 people walking by. Is it really that far fetched, that 1 out of those 1,000 people will "give back"? Especially in a city like New York where there are plenty of high income individuals?
This is peer-review. I'm curious what the truth is, so I'm going to consider the validity of someone's speculation and criticize it accordingly.
Perhaps a better way of putting it is: The average beggar doesn't make anywhere near that much. I can imagine some especially good ones that make a solid living doing it, but most don't make much.
I also don't see any reason for two beggars talking amongst themselves (albeit loudly enough for others to hear) to inflate their daily income more than $100 or so, _especially_ if they're commuting (which costs ~$7/day) to do so.
Well, the short answer is pride. The long answer would be that they do it for the same reasons that you or I would do it if we were asked our salary on a form, knowing that it would be compared, even anonymously, to others. It's the reason why HR firms basically ignore any data that asks an employee for their salary as being inaccurate.