Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M
Weekend June 15 2013
Crazy Eddie was one of the stand out fraud cases of the 1980s. It is featured in many accounitng ethics texts including Mintz and Morris. Here sam Antar holds forth on why audits are inadequate. Barry Minkowk, of ZZZZ Best Fame and now back in jail, pretty much said the same thing.
Be sure to read some of the comments. No doubt Sam like Barry and the original Carlo Ponzi thought a lot of how clever they were. But as he says, Madoff pulled off quite a scam.
I understood that the only resolution with a positive solution according to Crazy Eddie would be whistle blowers with rewards. Sort of like crime stoppers. Why not? If auditors are only detecting errors on books overall and not fraud, then leave it up to the people involved with the fraud to spill the beans. Money talks obviously.
I also would disagree with Crazy Eddie about harsher punishment. Maybe jail time is ineffective for some, but I think with harsher consequences for these types of crimes, people would think twice. Ask anyone who is leaving prison if they would commit that type of crime again or go back to prison (even though the majority returns). But too many “slap on the hands” are given out so why worry about jail when you might get away with fraud and make some serious money? When the legal and political system begin to take these types of crimes seriously, then maybe these types of crimes will decrease. But until then, there may be too many hands in the cookie jar.
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I do mean Sam Antar, CFO of Crazy Eddie Inc. for the above post.
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I am glad he got a second chance and is now helping law enforcement. I think it is great that criminals can parley their talents into new and interesting careers once they have repaid society for screwing little ole ladies and teacher pensions out of every dime. Of course if these little ole ladies and teachers were told that their money was being used to support professional gamblers they may have not invested it. For the record I see zero difference between a professional gambler and a fund manager.
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Professor Elam 
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