NEW YORK MarketWatch — Swindlers, con men, and thieves could siphon off as much as $50 billion of the government’s planned stimulus package as the money begins flooding the economy in coming months, according to David Williams, who runs Deloitte Financial Services Advisory and counsels clients on fraud prevention.

Williams predicted that about $500 billion of the total $787 billion stimulus would be channeled into the traditional procurement network for government contracts, while the rest will be spent directly by the government or outside the corporate network.

“The rule of thumb typically is that of the about $500 billion worth of money that’s going to run through the procurement process, somewhere between 5% and 10% of that usually finds it way into potential problems,” Williams said. “That’s sort of the benchmark that I use.”

Companies will face increased pressure to try to stem the tide, and need to be prepared to safeguard data as well as the cash, according to Williams.

Williams said this week that the money flowing from the current stimulus package is particularly vulnerable to fraud because almost all movement of money is now done electronically.

“We’re telling our clients to be very careful and to make sure their firms are resilient in terms of dealing with the potential opportunities for fraud and waste,” Williams said.

That means keeping an eye out for the traditional scams such as billing for services not performed. But it also means firms must become even more diligent about electronic records and network security.

“It becomes ever more important that firms remain diligent about their data,” Williams said.

via Stimulus fraud could hit $50 billion – MarketWatch.

Ma and Pa Kettle explain the bailout. If you have been confused and confounded this video should explain how all this is supposed to work.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

I can’t help to think that perhaps all of the great minds in our era have gone on strike. Financial idiots seem to be driving the economy. They believe that they are smarter than the market, yet the market continues to punish their folly by its relentless descent into depths unseen in a decade and a half. Gone – vanished – disappeared. All the hard work and energy that productive members of society have built up and saved has been destroyed.

Our President since the day of his election has in my opinion personally destroyed the wealth of millions all over the world. November 4, 2008 the DJI Stood at 9625. As I write this the market is at 6652 a 31% drop and a 53% drop from its record high 0f 14093 in October 2007. Just a little over 1 year and utter devastation has occurred with a majority of it happening since November.

Why is this the case? Obama seems hell bent not only on transfering wealth from rich to poor but in destroying it in the process as well as removing incentives to create wealth by excessive taxation

Obama says jobless numbers demand action.

Awfully shrill! he pretty much is going to get what he wants but seems to want everyone to agree with him.

His thin skin is showing.