Homeless man lives off reward points from former life

These stories are always so difficult to read and for me sometimes hard to imagine. It seems like everywhere I love people are having a hard time hiring people and the thought of laying off someone is absurd. It's so bad that I've seen companies keep people they are know are incompetent because they figure it's better than nothing. It seems like there is a huge disconnect between the experience of parts of the economy and the country in this recession.<p>It's hard for me to imagine not being able to earn an income or provide for my family but that's the reality for a lot of people right now. It's good to remember that and be thankful for where you're at and what you have.

Perhaps he should have saved something besides rewards points when he was making 6 figures?<p>It would however make an intriguing plot point in some dystopian movie where everyone's retirement savings plans have been replaced by reward points from various big companies. Be a good consumer all your life and retire happy!

The vitriol around this guy on the O.C. Register's comments section is just too much. Dude's been out of work 19 months and his house just foreclosed on him, and some of the comments are like, "yeah, this jerk is fat and old and he has a giant wine collection and a lease on his car."<p>If anything, he seems pretty resourceful. That Oracle bit seems like a smart little bit of logic for someone in this guy's situation. And why should he have to give up every detail of his life because of his bankruptcy and foreclosure? He could have a job next week for all we know.<p>The people getting screwed by this economy are in this guy's demographic. I've seen way too many newspaper types (many friends) lose their jobs during the so-called "salad days," because it's cheaper to keep around the young guns.<p>Though I will say this much: How much did this guy save while working if he had to file for bankruptcy? And how quickly do you plow through all that savings?

It says something interesting that he can so easily go from making 'six figures' to nothing.<p>If we exclude the 'blame the economy' explanation, then it seems to me that either:<p>a) he was never worth 6 figures in the first place; or<p>b) he has contacted only companies that could have no use for him; or<p>c) he has contacted companies not covered by b) and they have all made six-figure-scale mistakes by not offering him a job.<p>My cynicism inclines me to a).

At 25 dollars a day for a hotel room, with food, a car lease and a storage unit to pay for and paying for bottled water he's spending even more than I am on living expenses and I HAVE a job.<p>Yes, some parts of the country are more expensive than others and by strict definition he's 'homeless', I don't think that term applies in the same way to somebody who has a storage unit full of vintage wine and flat screen TV's.<p>I don't take issue with people living however they see fit, but come on, I'd love to drive a BMW but I buy clunkers with <i>cash</i> because that is what is practical. Don't expect me to feel sorry for you because you chose to make car payments and buy bottled water instead of paying your mortgage.

Is this for real or did I just read an article from the Onion?

I'm struck by how much of the time in this article is spent driving relative to how much is spent building stuff. Maybe that is just the OC Register reporting selectively. I really hope so.<p>He's apparently a well-educated professional recently making six figures and yet he is spending time on the job boards, waiting by the phone, and Tweeting, for more than a year and a half now. What the heck. That's stupid when you're 22, but you're excused a little stupidity when you're 22 and still think that job seeking is a matter of sending out resumes. When you're forty-something that is practical criminal.

Arg, if anyone deserves to be homeless its the IT guy running the ocregister's mobile site.<p>Accessing this link from an Android it redirects to a broken gateway page, which in turn links to tbeir mobile front page, completely losing the original link.<p>Still boggles my mind that a site can be so fucked up. Ironic thing is if they just left it alone and didn't try to be all fancy with the user agent parsing, things would have been fine.