Homeless man finds best reward is honesty

  • Thread starter JamesU
  • Start date
In summary: I guess that's just me.I think the point is that honesty should be rewarded, not punished. In summary, a homeless man in Detroit found $21,000 worth of saving bonds in a trash bin and turned them into a homeless shelter. The bonds were returned to the family of the man who owned them, and the homeless man was rewarded with $100 from the bond owner's son and $1,000 from a man in New Mexico. The story highlights the value of honesty and the mistreatment of the homeless population.
  • #1
JamesU
Gold Member
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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14024565/?GT1=8307

DETROIT - A homeless man who returned $21,000 worth of saving bonds he found in a trash bin is finding out how much honesty can pay off.

Charles Moore, 59, had been searching for returnable bottles last week when he came across the 31 U.S. savings bonds. He turned them into a homeless shelter, where a staff member tracked down the family of the man who had owned them.


Thats a lot of money
 
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  • #2
A 100 dollars in return? What an insult. Not to mention that his son had to do it.
 
  • #3
I didn't read the story but I wonder if he knew how much they were worth.
 
  • #4
A 100 dollars in return? What an insult. Not to mention that his son had to do it.

He ended up with $4,000
 
  • #5
Best reward is honesty?

What?

That doesn't even make sense.

As a side note, if anything he found out that honesty doesn't pay. I do like the comment from the guy in New Mexico though.
 
  • #6
franznietzsche said:
Best reward is honesty?

What?

That doesn't even make sense.

As a side note, if anything he found out that honesty doesn't pay. I do like the comment from the guy in New Mexico though.
I just copied the title of the article
 
  • #7
It's gratifying to hear about these kind of people. Who would ever predict it?

Exceptional definition of kindness.
 
  • #8
yomamma said:
I just copied the title of the article


I know. Thats not the point.
 
  • #9
Kuddo's to him! In a city were there's so many wrong things, he did what was right.
 
  • #10
A homeless guy from Toronto once asked...

"Do you own your possessions or do they own you?"

His name is Fred. Very bright guy.

There are some pretty insighful homeless people out there. It's sad to hear how we treat them.
 
  • #11
JasonRox said:
A homeless guy from Toronto once asked...

"Do you own your possessions or do they own you?"

His name is Fred. Very bright guy.

There are some pretty insighful homeless people out there. It's sad to hear how we treat them.

That reminds me of that time Heartless went around seeking advice from homeless people, that kid is just plain nuts! :rofl: :tongue2:

He has more adventures than anyone else in this place.
 
  • #12
cyrusabdollahi said:
That reminds me of that time Heartless went around seeking advice from homeless people, that kid is just plain nuts! :rofl: :tongue2:

He has more adventures than anyone else in this place.

Since I live near Toronto, I was actually considering to go meet this guy.

Honestly, I hate how they are treated. Toronto once had a well organized "tent city" where all the homeless lived. No reported problem with violence or anything like that. They all worked together and protected themselves. One day, the city decides to trash it because it ruins the city. I can respect that, but they could have atleast gave them another spot to go to. They just left them stranded just like that. How pathetic. Someone should go crack those city councillors in the head.
 
  • #13
$21k? Dishonesty would have been more rewarding here.
 
  • #14
Rach3 said:
$21k? Dishonesty would have been more rewarding here.
Only if he were able to obtain fake identification showing he was the person named on the bond. It wouldn't be incredibly hard to do and still would have gotten him more than $4,000, but it wasn't like he could just cash them.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/mar/marsbomown.htm#loststolen [Broken]
 
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  • #15
JasonRox said:
A homeless guy from Toronto once asked...

"Do you own your possessions or do they own you?"

His name is Fred. Very bright guy.

There are some pretty insighful homeless people out there. It's sad to hear how we treat them.
That's a very old "quotable quote." I don't know the origin of the saying, but I first heard it 20 yearws ago from a pretentious poetry student in college. It was obvious he didn't make it up either.
 
  • #16
More than 85 years old, at least, from this Christian tome published in 1921 (link withheld for compliance with Forum Guidelines) :

The Good News

By Bernard Iddings Bell, D.D.

Milwaukee: Morehouse Publishing, [1921]

...

Chapter VIII. Our Individual Duty

...

5. Do you own your possessions or do they own you?
 
  • #17
Diogenes of Sinope circa 400 BCE

(And probably predates him by a good bit as well.)
 
  • #18
Chi Meson said:
That's a very old "quotable quote." I don't know the origin of the saying, but I first heard it 20 yearws ago from a pretentious poetry student in college. It was obvious he didn't make it up either.
Probably same guy. There's not much of a job market for pretentious poetry students.
 
  • #19
Chi Meson said:
That's a very old "quotable quote." I don't know the origin of the saying, but I first heard it 20 yearws ago from a pretentious poetry student in college. It was obvious he didn't make it up either.

It could be because he was really into poetry so I wouldn't doubt it.
 
  • #20
See what happens when you become a poetry major, you become a homless bum on the street preaching to people!
 
  • #21
He seemed more of Psychology person than a poetry person.
 
  • #22
By my calculation, honesty cost this guy $17,000.
(Anyone want to check my math? I couldn't find my calculator; had to use an abacus)
 
  • #23
Chi Meson said:
By my calculation, honesty cost this guy $17,000.
(Anyone want to check my math? I couldn't find my calculator; had to use an abacus)

If your values are counted by dollars, that might be your answer.

I hope it's not though.
 
  • #24
For his good deed, the bond owner’s son gave Moore $100,

That's kind of sticking him in the shorts... not even 1% finders fee? That's tough

David C. Smith, of Albuquerque, N.M., gave Moore $1,000. Smith said he and his fiancée wouldn’t have thought twice about what to do if the bonds had belonged to them.

“We would have given him the whole amount, period,” Smith said. “No questions asked.”

I thought he was lying at first, but he did give 1,000 dollars to a complete stranger, so he's probably telling the truth
 
  • #25
Office_Shredder said:
That's kind of sticking him in the shorts... not even 1% finders fee? That's tough



I thought he was lying at first, but he did give 1,000 dollars to a complete stranger, so he's probably telling the truth

I personally would have given a generous amount from that $21 000 dollars.

I couldn't believe the actual owner gave nothing. What a loser and the sad part is that it's on national news. The bum and owner should switch positions.
 
  • #26
JasonRox said:
If your values are counted by dollars, that might be your answer.

I hope it's not though.
(bearing in mind this is light-hearted banter...)

I think that in a month or two this guy will find that his landlord will not accept honesty in lieu of rent.
 
  • #27
Chi Meson said:
By my calculation, honesty cost this guy $17,000.
(Anyone want to check my math? I couldn't find my calculator; had to use an abacus)
What kind of suckers do you think we are? Never challenge someone using an abacus.

http://werwolf.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/abacus/abacus-contest.html [Broken]
 
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  • #28
I heard this guy on the radio this morning on the way to work. He lost his roofing job 6 weeks ago in Ohio, and now he's going through trash. ANd a lot of people in michigan are a pink slip away from being this guy. He sounded intelligent, articulate, and his reasoning was sound. He even justified the woman being cheap by saying she was probably from a time when $100 was a decent amount of money. The guy sounded genuine. Within 10 minutes he was getting call in offers of a job, an apartment, a car, and money. This guy will be taken care of.

And he should be, IMHO
 
  • #29
JasonRox said:
I personally would have given a generous amount from that $21 000 dollars.

Did none of you read Pygmalion?

A prole begs for a fiver from our aristrocratic protagonist, and is offered a ten. He refuses it in alarm, saying that a fiver is enough to go and get hammered at the bar and not have to tell the wife, but a tenner is a different story - the kind of money that makes one think about saving, or setting aside for something important. It's nothing but trouble and can ruin a poor man's life.
 
  • #30
BobG said:
What kind of suckers do you think we are? Never challenge someone using an abacus.
Au contraire, being freestyler, I'd take on an abacusser any day of the week, and twice during happy hour.

http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/feynman.html
 
  • #31
Chi Meson said:
(bearing in mind this is light-hearted banter...)

I think that in a month or two this guy will find that his landlord will not accept honesty in lieu of rent.

You don't get it.
 
  • #32
JasonRox said:
You don't get it.
You're right. In fact, I don't even see your post.

Edit: That's kind of odd. Your post finally displayed after I responded.
 
  • #33
What's not to get? (Other than my jokes?)
 
  • #34
cyrusabdollahi said:
That reminds me of that time Heartless went around seeking advice from homeless people, that kid is just plain nuts! :rofl: :tongue2:

He has more adventures than anyone else in this place.

And this comes from a guy he values the SNAFU principle more than the laws of thermodynamics... :rofl:
 

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