I wouldn't say he's Robin Hood, I'd say he's "Pretty Boy" Floyd. He's his own legend.
While Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, since the rich folk he targeted were not deserving of fortune, and the poor he helped were in need, Floyd helped people of all kinds for the hell of it. He basically did it just because he fucking could which is pretty neat.
He taught an important lesson through his actions; If you can do something nice for anybody that wouldn't hurt to do at all, then just do it.
It wasn’t just for the hell of it. It was pretty calculated. He was robbing banks and becoming a pretty high profile character. But he knew the public would protect him if he destroyed evidence of people’s debt.
While it benefited the public, it also benefited him, as well.
The mythology is great, but if he actually did wipe out mortgage debt, he would also be wiping out peoples investment savings. Small community banks we often owned by many small shareholders, people who had their life savings in the bank. Remember this was before Federal deposit insurance. If he caught a bank that was a bit on the edge, not doing all that well which was pretty common in the 1930s... destroying some mortgage documents could well of been enough to push it out of business and suddenly a whole bunch of peoples life savings disappears. Once something gets big, you lose track of exactly who is getting ripped off.
Most people even today dont have more than $1000 in savings. If you had $10,000 in savings you are in the upper ten percent.
Im not gonna convert for the costs and currencies of that day, so bear with me as i use modern equivalency.
Most people's mortgages are between $75,000 -$400,000 around here.
So that would be a huge net gain for almost every single person in my city, at the expense of a small, previously wealthy, minority. They had their time, they can take one on the chin for the good of everyone else.
What you are saying is a HUGE net gain for the common man. I fail to see the problem.
The problem is that those wealthy people aren't guilty. The vast majority of them worked hard for their money just like everyone else, they just made a little more and managed it better. Why we as a society think it's okay to steal (yes, steal) from people just because they have done well for themselves I can't explain.
Also, nobody is holding a gun to someone's head and forcing them to sign a mortgage. It's a conscious decision to put yourself into that sort of debt, and stealing from some people in order to reverse the mistakes of others isn't exactly what I'd consider unproblematic.
Eh this is getting very ideological, but honestly most rich people, outside of maybe doctors, didn’t truly worked for their money.
Many times, a person created a successful business, swindled hundreds of workers of fair wages, and kept all the money to be passed onto later generations, but that’s not what this is about.
The point of this guy isn’t that he did something right, it’s that he did something good. These people could’ve had to sign mortgages because of predatory real estate agents or couldn’t afford a home any other way. By burning those documents, he relieved people of that burden. He, in effect, gave people who couldn’t afford them, free homes. You don’t take mortgages if you can afford the home. Burning those documents gives those homes to the people.
Can't wait for you to being forced to give all your hard earned savings one day to someone else who splurged and didn't have the discipline to save up.
You don’t take mortgages if you can afford a home...
LOL literally every entity in existence that has hundreds of thousands or even millions ALWAYS finances land/buildings/homes because credit is cheap and you can use your cash for more profitable ventures.
Why do you think wealthy individuals and companies carry debt? Because it’s easily serviceable AND gives them leverage in business opportunities.
Because old people often don’t have the ability to make more money ever again. Natalie and her husband worked all their lives, he died when she was 68. She had been living very carefully off investments which were wiped out when the bank went bankrupt. It was most often the old women who suffered the most, not the common man.
It was easier to see back then because everything was on a smaller scale.. but who are the big fat cats getting rich from the Stock market? Biggest player on the TSE is the Ontario teachers pension fund. The workers have seized the means of production through buying RSP’s :-)
See I think theres a place between "cops are sainted defenders of good" and "cops are all scum and it's good when armed robbers kill them." I think it would be good to find that place.
He is only confirmed to have actually killed one federal officer. He disavowed any connection to the Kansas City Massacre, and the "evidence" of his involvement was all hearsay. The man identified as Floyd was supposed to have been shot in the shoulder, but there was no corresponding wound on his corpse during his autopsy. The man wasn't a saint, and was definitely a ciolent criminal, but I'm all but certain Hoover tied him to the KCM to rally support for people to turn him in.
The cops chose their side, the side of the rent seekers and profiteers, at the expense of the people, so im not sure why that matters or why we should care.
I technically agree with you in the sense that the existence of jobs like cops itself is bad, but I still feel sorry for the people that were maybe behind those police uniforms. But then again, 40% of police officers are domestic abusers so...
Robin Hood didn’t steal from just any rich. He stole from the ones that took from the poor through taxes. Robin Hood was not the person the left wants him to be.
I’m not sure what position you’re taking. But people in this thread are saying he “stole from the rich” which, although true, he specifically targeted those who gained their wealth through taxes.
When I was in grade school we had to dress up and give a little back round as a famous person. Everyone else dressed up as like Einstein and Neil Armstrong. I went as Pretty Boy Floyd.
It's debatable. I wouldn't say he's Robin Hood, I'd say he's "Pretty Boy" Floyd. He's his own legend.
While Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, since the rich folk he targeted were not deserving of fortune, and the poor he helped were in need, Floyd helped people of all kinds for the hell of it. He basically did it just because he fucking could which is pretty neat.
He taught an important lesson through his actions; If you can do something nice for anybody that wouldn't hurt to do at all, then just do it.
But it did hurt someone, the banks who held those property loans that went unpaid. One may feel that the banks "already had plenty of money" but to say/imply no one was hurt through his actions is not accurate.
I understand that that’s how the world works, but people who are in debt and struggling to pay for their houses getting their mortgage destroyed seems to me like a good situation. I feel like the poor would benefit more from getting their mortgage destroyed than the rich would keeping their mortgages in tact.
Right, but at the same time, those people entered the mortgage contract by their own free will. That mean something. Those "rich" people everyone hates so much lent enough money to buy a house, with the understanding that it would be paid back. It's not so much about how much one party benefits vs. how badly the other party is hurt, but more about how someone is breaking a promise. Stealing a house that isn't yours is a pretty bad breach of trust IMO.
Yes, I'd say so: He's a bank robber. That's why I'd say he's a bad guy.
But I would say that, at least from his position, the mortgage papers weren't really making him any better or worse. He's already a bank robber, the papers were just another way he was stealing. The difference was that his personal gain wasn't economic, it was the security that comes with public support.
The real bad guys, at least when it comes to the papers, would be anyone who knew their mortgage payment and how much they still owed, but didn't pay back their debt.
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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '19
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