Crooked Signs of the Times
by Miki Saxon
It’s a good time for crooks of all kinds.
Corporate shenanigans are a growth industry. Not since the days of the robber barons has white collar crime enjoyed such freedom.
OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS, nearly every institution of American life has taken on the unmistakable stench of moral rot.
Tax evasion siphons 10,000 times more money out of the U.S. economy every year than bank robberies. SOURCE: FBI; IRS.
And this clubbiness has human costs. Tax evasion, to pick just one crime concentrated among the wealthy, already siphons up to 10,000 times more money out of the U.S. economy every year than bank robberies. In 2017, researchers estimated that fraud by America’s largest corporations cost Americans up to $360 billion annually between 1996 and 2004.
Tech took a personal hit thanks to Warren Buffet’s partner Charlie Munger and his views on EBITDA, which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Tech companies love to talk about their “adjusted EBITDA,” because it makes them look profitable — even a financial loser like Uber.
“I don’t like when investment bankers talk about EBITDA, which I call bulls— earnings,” Munger said at a recent company shareholders meeting. “Think of the basic intellectual dishonesty that comes when you start talking about adjusted EBITDA. You’re almost announcing you’re a flake.”
Tech workers aren’t faring well, either, even at the most hallowed companies.
Silicon Valley has often held itself up as a highly evolved ecosystem that defies the usual capital-labor dichotomy — a place where investors, founders, executives and workers are all far too dependent on one another to make anything so crass as class warfare. The recent developments at Google have thrown that egalitarian story into doubt, showing that even in the most rarefied corners of Silicon Valley, the bosses are willing to close ranks and shut down debate when the stakes are high enough. (…) Workers weren’t just organizing to save the world from Google. They were also organizing to save themselves from Google, where those who didn’t fit the mold of the straight, white, male techie felt they could be too easily marginalized or dismissed.
The rot isn’t just trickling down, it’s a raging torrent. Student cheating is at an all time high across grades and globally is a billion dollar market.
Philemon is part of the global industry of contract cheating in which students around the world use websites to commission their homework assignments. (…) Lancaster began studying contract cheating more than a decade ago when he noticed one of his own students posting assignments online. “I found one of my students who was putting up my assignment up for tender on an internet site. So, people were bidding different amounts of money to complete that computer programming assignment.”
Let’s hope the handbasket we’re careening down in is well made, so we can survive our trip to Hell and come out the other side in one piece.
Image credit: Newtown grafitti
Hat tip to KG for sending me the white collar crime article.
