The bezzle is shrinking
by ilene - June 12th, 2009 7:43 pm
It’s always exciting for me to find new authors who kindly agree to contribute to our excellent collection of Favorite’s articles. So, I am happy to have discovered Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns, and I’m happy to share a couple interesting posts that follow. – Ilene
The bezzle is shrinking
Courtesy of Edward Harrison at Credit Writedowns
"In many ways the effect of the crash on embezzlement was more significant than on suicide. To the economist embezzlement is the most interesting of crimes. Alone among the various forms of larceny it has a time parameter. Weeks, months, or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. there is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in – or more precisely not in – the country’s business and banks. This inventory – it should be called the bezzle. It also varies in size with the business cycle."
Well, it seems history is repeating itself because the bezzle is shrinking again as many frauds are now uncovered. Witness the latest in South Africa:
Hundreds of investors have been fleeced of up to 10 billion rand ($1.5 billion) in what could be South Africa’s biggest corporate fraud, a private investigator