The Great Theft is a searing exposé of one of the most overlooked financial crimes in modern history—the silent, systemic siphoning of billions of dollars from American consumers under the guise of a national “coin shortage.” Richard Sweeney meticulously deconstructs how a temporary crisis was weaponized into a permanent business model, where unreturned change, casual rounding, and silent theft became everyday norms. Far from being about mere pennies, this book uncovers the deeper theft: of standards, dignity, expectation, and fairness. Through psychological insight, cultural critique, and economic dissection, Sweeney reveals how corporations turned indifference into profit, and how the public—conditioned by crisis—learned to tolerate daily micro-injustices. This is not just a book about coins. It is a manifesto for exactness, a defense of transactional integrity, and a call to reclaim the forgotten virtue of fairness in every exchange.
