Tuesday 24 September 2013
Lost wallet test shows rich are most likely to keep the cash
Seven out of 12 wallets ‘dropped’ in Amsterdam in an experiment to test people’s honesty were returned to their owners. But none of the wallets ‘accidently lost’ in Amsterdam’s luxury shopping street PC Hoofdstraat made it back to their owner, Readers Digest magazine, which carried out the research, said.
‘Succesful, rich people can look after themselves well,’ psychiatrist Bram Bakker told the magazine. ‘The dark side of this is that, given the chance, they take what they can.’
The other Dutch wallets were lost in the less well-off districts of Bijlmer, Pijp and West. Middle rank In total, Readers Digest researchers lost 192 wallets in 16 cities.
The most honest city was Helsinki, where 11 out of 12 wallets were handed back. Next came Mumbai, Budapest and New York with nine and eight returns. Amsterdam and Moscow were in joint fourth place. Lisbon, where locals returned just one wallet, was bottom of the list. The wallets contained phone numbers, photographs and around €40 in cash. © DutchNews.nl – See more at:
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
A man finds a wallet with $700 in it. A few days later, he reads a notice stating that a wealthy man has lost his wallet and is offering a $50 reward to anyone who returns it. He soon locates the owner and gives him the wallet, and the rich man counts the money and says, “I see you have already taken your reward.”
The poor man responds, “What are you talking about?” The wealthy man continues, “This wallet had $750 in it when I lost it.”
The two men begin arguing, and eventually they go to court to sort out their differences. Both men present their case, the poor man first, then the wealthy man who concludes by saying, “Your Honor, I trust you believe me.”
The Judge says, “Of course.” The rich man smiles, and the poor man is devastated. Then the Judge takes the wallet out of the wealthy man’s hands and gives it to the poor man who found it. “What are you doing?” the rich man yells angrily.
The Judge responds, “You are, of course, an honest man, and if you say that your missing wallet had $750 in it, I’m sure it did – but if the man who found this wallet is a liar and a thief, he wouldn’t have returned it at all, which means that this wallet must belong to somebody else. If that man steps forward, he’ll get the money – otherwise, it stays with the man who found it.”
“What about my money?” the rich man asks.
“Well, we’ll just have to wait until somebody finds your wallet with the $750 in it.
🙂
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Good judgement. Amazing that Mumbai was the second best city of wallets being returned. Perhaps not so amazing, seeing that priorities are somewhat different there.
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Excellent story. A good judge there too.
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Very interesting.
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