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#1
12-02-2006, 10:59 PM
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Morality of stealing money
Let's say that you are an expert in finances and can make on average ~20% return per year by investing. Unfortunately, you have no money. Luckily, you have access to an extremely wealthy person's bank account and can withdraw any amount of money without him noticing. He just keeps his money in the bank and allows it accumulate interest at 4%/year.
Your plan is to take $10 million out and keep it for ten years without his permission. After ten years, you will return the $10 million + 4.01%/year (more than he would make letting his money sit in the bank) back to his account, and keep the rest. Let's assume that there is negligible risk to losing money over ten years. Is this wrong? Would it still be wrong if you were a billionaire, took out the money, and planned to pay back everything to the wealthy person's account if your investments went bad? Also, forget how stupid the wealthy person is for just letting his money sit in a bank. 
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#3
12-03-2006, 01:59 AM
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Re: Morality of stealing money
[ QUOTE ]
"losing money" meaning 10 million + 3.99%? [/ QUOTE ] I think he means bad investing on OP's part and losing money.
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#4
12-03-2006, 06:32 AM
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Re: Morality of stealing money
[ QUOTE ]
Let's say that you are an expert in finances and can make on average ~20% return per year by investing. Unfortunately, you have no money. Luckily, you have access to an extremely wealthy person's bank account and can withdraw any amount of money without him noticing. He just keeps his money in the bank and allows it accumulate interest at 4%/year. Your plan is to take $10 million out and keep it for ten years without his permission. After ten years, you will return the $10 million + 4.01%/year (more than he would make letting his money sit in the bank) back to his account, and keep the rest. Let's assume that there is negligible risk to losing money over ten years. Is this wrong? Would it still be wrong if you were a billionaire, took out the money, and planned to pay back everything to the wealthy person's account if your investments went bad? Also, forget how stupid the wealthy person is for just letting his money sit in a bank. [/ QUOTE ] the idea behind property rights is that the owner and the owner only may dispense of it as he pleases. The ends never justify the means, so it doesn't matter if you steal 1 penny to make 1 billion. It's not your penny. If such a thing were possible, I would suggest discussing it with the owner and negotiating a deal.
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#5
12-03-2006, 09:43 AM
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Re: Morality of stealing money
How can it be the same for the wealthy man to have 10 million + 4% interest/year to having 10 million +4.01% interest/year, but with a considerable risk of ending up with 0?
As for the morality part, I really don't care.
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