Following on Ian Refowitz’s diary, I was an auditor for a Big 4 accounting firm, and even with regulations, what I saw was disgraceful — US corporations and executives have no ethics, no integrity and will screw people over in a heartbeat. People ask why I don’t like Trump — here’s why:
- Insurance company + construction company they insured: Construction company sold a house to a young couple, wife was pregnant. During the final walkthrough of the house, the wife fell through the floorboards, which were deficient. Broken board jutted up and cut open her femoral artery — she bled out while they tried to get her leg out; she died. Husband won a $10M judgment, but the insurance company and construction company abused the courts and corporate law, and later bankrutpcy laws, to get out of paying — for 8 years! Just like Donald Trump.
- Insurance company that invested premiums in a beach house, a ski chalet, a condo in NY city — all for the personal use of the executives — and then inflated the value of these to cover up the losses that were happening in its true investment portfolio. Went bankrupt, state had to take over, and hundreds of people lost their jobs / policyholders screwed. Just like Donald Trump inflates the value of his properties to launder money, then turns around and under-values them for property tax purposes.
- Construction company where the VP ran all his personal expenses — electric/gas bill, property taxes, you name it — through the company, without it being counted as compensation. Sound familiar — Trump’s CFO anyone? In the end, we found the “owner” was a guy off the street, and the VP used his name/SSN credentials to qualify for disadvantaged small business contractor status.
- Retail company that sold to the agricultural sector. I was told straight out by the VP Sales & Marketing “don’t worry, we don’t sell to the n-r farmers, we won’t get hurt by bad debts.” So, he straight out admitted to violating the Fair Credit Act. Same company had a purchasing department accepting bribes to go along with getting lower rebate $$ from the vendor to the company. The bribes were from major US public chemical and farm supply companies.
- Construction company whose CEO was a big Republican supporter, and who bragged about using undocumented workers and paying them under the table / below minimum wage. Just like Donald Trump.
- On this score also had a private equity owned company with a big Republican supporter who used undocumented workers
- A billionaire owned company that had plants in SC, NC, GA, TX — all using undocumented workers and paying below minimum wage. Several of the plants were also screwing the billionaire by selling product below market price to their relatives and friends.
- Construction company whose owner had a yacht, and who would bribe potential customers with the use of the yacht to their CEO in order to win contracts.
- Building supply company who tried to hide $45M of fraud — bogus assets, undervalued liabilities — by lying to me, creating fake documents, hiding the real documents, getting their lawyers to lie to me. The whole thing fell apart, the company was sold off piece by piece, hundreds lost their jobs — but the President was just transferred to another division of the larger company, and the CFO just moved on and got another CFO job, no consequences whatsoever. Just like Donald Trump.
- Military contractors:
- One committed bank fraud, hiding $4M of unpaid debt.
- One committed inventory fraud — they were supposed to have parts on hand to do repairs for the military — but had almost none of the parts, while pocketing the $$ from the government for it.
- One committed payroll tax fraud, filing a bogus return. When the CFO realized I had figured out his scheme, he went to lunch — and never came back, ever. 2 months later, we’re off to start the audit of another military contractor, and lo and behold, who’s the CFO? The CEO fired us, and when we went to discuss what his new CFO had previously done, we were told “Oh, I know all about that, that’s the kind of person I need, someone who will do what it takes no matter what”.
- And my favorite military contractor, who tried to pass off a $13K credit card charge at a strip club as an allowable meals and entertainment expenditure.
- The company who had been in business over 40 years and paid income taxes a grand total of 5 years — sound familiar again? They manipulated the price of the parts they bought to make it look like they were losing money, but they weren’t.
- The company where the CEO used various forms of financial support over which he controlled as a weapon to get female managers to have sex with him. This company had a top performer list where literally 50% were fraudsters. When it all went south, again, hundreds lost jobs but he walked away with millions.
I could go on all day. This country prides itself on “the rule of law” and “business ethics” — bullshit, we’re at least as bad if not worse than anything going on in Russia, the Middle Eastern oil states, etc. The regulations we have are too weak, and the penalties too small and ineffective to change behavior. Turn this country over to Trump again, and any form of efficient marketplace will be gone forever.
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