Police ask public to return money after Brinks truck dumps cash on I-70 - Sensationalist Headlines

I wasn't directly targeting you with the terrible people thing, just using a bit more colorful language. As for how it's different from stealing from Walmart, I dunno, that's a tough question to answer. Maybe it's a psychological thing. In the Walmart example you are entrusted to look after the money as part of your job so skimming seems like dereliction of duty in a sense. And shoplifting is taking merchandise that's already accounted-for and prepared for sale. Grabbing bundles of loose cash blowing around in the wind feels like less of an offense even if functionally it isn't any different.

Yeah well, that's what I'm getting at. I don't think it's really any different (okay, I guess employment at the place you're stealing stuff from makes it worse, but still), it's theft at its core. I definitely think people who found notes and returned them should be compensated to some degree - we want to encourage good behaviour, and it is a bit of an inconvenience to have to return something.

On the other hand, if YOU were to drop a bunch of money somehow, and people scrambled to pick it up and refused to give it back, you'd be understandably pissed, wouldn't you?

Yeah, but I'm not a bank. All the bank has to do is start the (likely automated) insurance process and not only will they get it all back but all the dropped money is unspendable. That's a different situation. I'm not saying I'd grab fistfuls of dollars or that it's necessarily OK, just that I don't think it's that big of a deal. I can understand the temptation and the consequences to the money's owner are practically nil.

Exactly... it is actually nearly impossible. The moment that money changes hands, which it likely will do and very quickly, it's tough luck for the authorities.

Well I mean yeah if you want to talk about morals then obviously don't steal free money.

Honestly I know that "redistribution of wealth" is a really dubious moral excuse but a company that made 4 billion revenue in 2013 isn't gonna miss 600k. Unless you are a complete jackass a few thousand out of the blue can substantially increase your standards of living if you're anywhere near poor. To top it all off you're hitting an insurance company, liability is their business.

Yeah but couldn't this be used to justify any kind of thievery?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aL7x3ESiUw

Do you want to join my young socialist chat room

This is a kind of 'Robin Hood' scenario, so you'd have to decide whether taking from the unimaginably rich and giving to the far, far poorer is unethical or not.

Who says the people who stole the money were all really poor or starving, though? I'm gonna say most of the people in this thread are neither, yet they apparently feel they'd be justified in taking the money. How about stealing some rich person's credit card details? Is that alright? Or hell - how about some person from a third-world country scamming some middle-class Western guy out of some money? Most of us could get with way less, yet that money could make a big difference in their lives.