Here is your latest form of fraud ...

So the FBI reports that all thefts, burglaries, and car thefts cost about $ 20 billion per year.

My research shows that fraud cost probably about $1 trillion every year, not including the types of business whose business IS fraud! ... you know ... the weight loss industry, stuff like that.

And now there is this ... just more evidence of that. Imagine if every dollar spent on multivitamins AND antibacterial soap is just fraud? Wow!

Are multivitamins a waste?

Editorial in medical journal says yes

An editorial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine says that using supplements and multivitamins to prevent chronic conditions is a waste of money.FULL STORY

• FDA on antibacterial soap: Prove it!

Fraud is a crime but ...

... but "but" should be in CAPS. Like this, "BUT"

Because fraud is a crime BUT ...

* it is worse than theft, because it is a form of theft that tends to be committed by people who already have money, and usually lots of it ...
* it involves two wrongs rather than one (theft PLUS deceit or trickery)
* yet, it is rarely prosecuted by the US government, especially when it is committed by the powerful.

Case in point, from CNN today:

"The Department of Justice announced a civil lawsuit on Tuesday alleging that Bank of America defrauded buyers of mortgage-backed securities by lying about the quality of the home loans involved. The Securities and Exchange Commission also announced a parallel case."

Yes, Bank of America is alleged to have committed widespread fraud against the American people.

The same Bank of America that played a large role in the collapse of the US economy.

From the article:

"Bank of America's reckless and fraudulent origination and securitization practices in the lead-up to the financial crisis caused significant losses to investors," Anne Tompkins, the U.S. Attorney in the Western District of North Carolina, said in a statement. "Now, Bank of America will have to face the consequences of its actions."

Face the consequences? So people are going to prison, right?

Nope, they are being sued, in a civil court. Which means the company will work out a deal, pay a fine, and admit no wrongdoing. Sound like facing the consequences of its actions?

Which brings us back to the beginning of this post. Fraud is a crime. A violation of the criminal law. So how come no one is being arrested, prosecuted, and sent to prison?

The alleged harm caused? $100 million!!!

According to the FBI, the average bank robber, when successful (rarely), gains about $4,000.

Bank of America thus caused the equivalent of 25,000 bank robberies. Twenty-five thousand bank robberies!

And no one from the bank faces prison time. Even though the average bank robber will spend years in prison.

Does the media report this? Nope. Not even on CNN, which to its credit, is covering the case.

All this reminds me of a joke: How come rich people don't rob banks?

They own the banks.

When CNN tries to cover elite deviance ...

... this is what it looks like:

'HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT'

Felons, fake patients revealed in rehab clinics

CNN and The Center for Investigative Reporting expose widespread fraud in the nation's largest Medicaid system. FULL STORY

• Frauds, felons and fakes
• Teens used as rehab scam pawns
• Crackdown at rehab clinics

 

... still focusing on the little people.

Standard & Poor's investigated by the Justice Department

Here is what we all (should) know:

* Mortgage-backed securities played a major role in the financial meltdown that led to the 2008 financial crisis.
* Standard & Poor's is a ratings agency that, like all the others, consistently overrated these financial instruments due to greed. This resulted in the illusion of profit, sort of like a pyramid scheme, so that the stock market rose, but every bit of profit was fake.
* A lack of government regulation permitted them to do it.
* The US suffered a serious economic recession as a result. The stock market lost half its value.
* Only a massive spending spree by the federal government could prevent a major depression (in times of economic turmoil, when individuals and corporations do not have money to spend, the only entity that can stimulate the economy is the government).
* President Obama signed into law a federal stimulus bill in the hundreds of billions of dollars, preventing a major depression but also increasing the federal debt.
* Billionaire Republicans invented a "Tea Party" movement to start blaming President Obama for the country's economic woes, ignoring the primary sources of the debt (which included the Bush era tax cuts and the unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, something he had little to do with).
* The mainstream media gave this "Tea Party" movement significant coverage, characterizing it as a real social movement with roots on the ground in common America (Fox News even encouraged people to go to the events on live, national TV, becoming cheerleaders rather than reporters)
* Subsequently, the nation's attention turned to reducing the national debt rather than fixing the economy or creating jobs for Americans.
* President Obama's ability to get anything done was significantly weakened by radical elements of the Republican Party affiliated with this new "Tea Party" and concerned only with reducing the national debt.
* President Obama gets blamed, and "Tea Party" Republicans start screaming that the problem is the big federal government needs to get off of our backs and stop hurting the "job creators" (i.e., corporations and rich people). The problem is NOT financial greed or a lack of government regulation. The problem is the US spends too much money and thus needs to stop helping poor and elderly people, needs to cut education and health care and anything that sounds like "socialism."
* The wrangling over the debt limit issue caused Standard & Poor's to downgrade the US credit rating from TRIPLE A to DOUBLE A PLUS, for the first time in US history.
* President Obama gets blamed for this, too, even though the debt deal gives Speaker John Boehner "98% of what I want" (his words).
* Shortly thereafter, the US Justice Department announces it is investigating Standard & Poor's for allegedly overrating mortgage-backed securities

In other words, the problems that caused our economic woes have not only NOT been fixed, they've not even been addressed. And we have a lame President who cannot or will not do anything about it, plus a field of Republican party candidates who consistently pledge to, if elected, erode governmental regulation and get the government off the backs of the people that are responsible for our economic crisis.

Anyone in the media care to tell this story?

http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/18/news/companies/sp_investigation_mortgages/

Madoff says it was not his fault!

But the banks knew.

“They had to know,” Mr. Madoff said. “But the attitude was sort of, ‘If you’re doing something wrong, we don’t want to know.'"

My review of the case says he is right. But he still engaged in the largest fraud ever committed by one man is US history.

So I hope he enjoys the rest of his life in his new home. Here ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/business/madoff-prison-interview.html?_r=1&hp

BRAVO to Dateline NBC

You've seen To Catch a Predator.

It's a perversion of what the original Dateline NBC was all about -- serious, hard-hitting journalism investigating fraud in business to protect consumers.

Well, tonight, Dateline NBC is back, at least for one night. Tonight's episode is all about fraud.

That's right, fraud. Not street crime for once!

BRAVO to Dateline NBC!

Fraud in the bottled water industry

It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who said something about the Earth being mostly covered in water yet not everyone had access to drinking water and the rest were being charged to drink!

Now we know that bottled water is actually no better than tap water, and in many cases it is worse.

It costs way more.

It leads to enormous pollution.

There is significant fraud involved in the industry.

And they withhold much information from consumers, too.


Here are the the 10 top-selling U.S. brands with their grades:


1.     Pure Life Purified Water (Nestle), EWG grade = B
2.     Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water (Nestle), EWG grade = C
3.     Aquafina Purified Drinking Water (Pepsi), EWG grade = D
4.     Dasani Purified Water (Coca-Cola), EWG grade = D
5.     Deer Park Natural Spring Water (Nestle), EWG grade = D
6.     Ice Mountain Natural Spring Water (Nestle), EWG grade = D
7.     Ozarka Natural Spring Water (Nestle), EWG grade = D
8.     Poland Spring Natural Spring Water (Nestle), EWG grade = D
9.     Zephyrhills Natural Spring Water (Nestle), EWG grade = D
10.  Crystal Geyser Natural Alpine Spring Water (CG Roxane), EWG grade =  F

Not a single A and only one grade I would call decent, a B. I'll stick with tap water.

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/best-and-worst-bottled-water-brands-2436818/