Revenge of the financiers

Yesterday I noticed a news about sentencing a payroll officer, who stole close to $20 mln from electronic goods retailer. She received sentence of 8 years in jail with parole possible after 5 years.

Apparently she found a loophole in her employer's financial system and used stolen money mostly on buying homes - 44 in total.

Few reflections came to my mind. First - what a financial system this company had? I assume it was not some home made system or MYOB package from the shelf for few hundred bucks. I suppose it was designed and implemented by some reputable company and then managed by highly paid professionals. How come they did not notice any loophole nor any missing money?

Second - this company finances were probably audited every year. I would like to know WHO was doing these audits? I would not wonder if the same company which verifies financial models of our main political parties.

Third - company suffered lack of funds for last couple of years. How come nobody looked what happened with the money?

Four - stolen money was invested over last three years in homes. Report says, that accused cooperated with authorities, all homes have been sold, $16,5 mln recovered. Hey!!! So what happened with the MONEY???

We all know what happened to the value of houses in last 3 years. In my opinion, this investment should have been more profitable than all retailing activity of the company. So I am asking again - what happened with the money? I suggest to employ the sentenced person to scrutinise this recovery.

Even the judge mentioned that the final losses are not so great, that there is no chance for re-offending. So why such severe penalty? What will happen to two autistic children?

Let's compare THIS - $68 mln lost. How much of it has been channelled to private accounts of owner's family? Small investors, who lost their lives' savings have little chance to recover anything. Prosecutor called for the sentence of 3 years in jail, non parole period 2 years.

I heard about dozens such cases in last 2 years.

Justifying his sentence, the judge said, that it is to: ".. send a message to all those in a position of trust..". I do not think so. The message is: thou shall not cheat on those who own big money. Feel free to cheat these who own little.

An amateur entered the playing field of big business and had to be punished in exemplary way.

Whales in Labor

There are still many unknown in the coming Federal Election, but one thing looks certain - Peter Garret will get a seat in the new Parliament.

He was selected to one of the safest Labor seats - Kingsford Smith - by Mark Latham in 2004. In the meantime:

- Mark Latham resigned from politics after angering his party,

- visionary Kevin Rudd has been sacked by his own party for not satisfactory performance in opinion polls,

- Peter Garret.. well...

• tried to close one of most successful music institutions (Australian National Academy of Music) - luckily this project failed.
• introduced a solar panel installation rebate. After few months, this scheme was abruptly terminated after exceeding threefold planned costs. Apart from devastating many installers, who had to close thousands of started projects, this scheme had very bad effect on Australian manufacturers of solar panel as they were not protected against import of cheap panels from overseas. Another issue is safety of hastily made installations. It seems they scared Peter Garret from some public appearances.
• home insulation scheme, I think, my comments are not required here.

Labor understood that Peter Garret was unable to sort the last mess and handed it over to someone else. So he was stripped of most of his duties, but he retained his ministerial position where his main duty will be protection of whales.

And now, 6 years and many billion dollars later, Peter Garret is still the best Labor candidate.

I expect great future for whale watching.