$30 billion in stimulus funds will be stolen

Full title : Senior official estimates $30 billion in stimulus funds will be stolen through coronavirus scams
I guess this is nothing new yet it still bothers me that money going for a good purpose is siphoned off by crooks and thieves. I hope the feds are able to track down and disrupt the crooks schemes.

Senior official estimates $30 billion in stimulus funds will be stolen through coronavirus scams
© iStock

A top official with the U.S. Secret Service said Tuesday that coronavirus-related fraud could lead to $30 billion in federal relief funds being stolen by criminals.

“Congress has appropriated nearly $3 trillion to support the American economy, the largest-ever economic stimulus package in U.S. history,” Secret Service Assistant Director Michael D’Ambrosio testified during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on coronavirus-related fraud.

He emphasized that “even if we assume a very low rate of fraud, of just 1 percent, we should still expect more than $30 billion will end up in the hands of criminals. And that is likely an underestimation of the risk, and just one portion of the full range of risks at play.”

D’Ambrosio noted that much of this theft is occurring online, such as through cyber criminals targeting Americans with malicious coronavirus-related phishing emails, or through targeting cyberattacks at the insecure networks of those working from home.

The Secret Service has taken steps to counter these scams, with D’Ambrosio saying the agency had disrupted “hundreds” of scams and prevented around $1 billion from being lost to malicious actors.

thehill.com...

a reply to: 727Sky

They gave $500 billion to the corporations.

If you're looking for theft, start there.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: 727Sky

They gave $500 billion to the corporations.

If you're looking for theft, start there.

Corporations hire and have workers. The airline industry alone would have gone belly up without several billion in funds. Besides keeping your tax base alive for future taxes many of those mean old corporations are some of the vertebrate of America's industrial spine. Let COVID -19 Kill off the companies to what end ?????

originally posted by: 727Sky

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: 727Sky

They gave $500 billion to the corporations.

If you're looking for theft, start there.

Corporations hire and have workers. The airline industry alone would have gone belly up without several billion in funds. Besides keeping your tax base alive for future taxes many of those mean old corporations are some of the vertebrate of America's industrial spine. Let COVID -19 Kill off the companies to what end ?????

LOL ... so you're in favor of state subsidies to corporations? Massive government bailouts? Good to know.

Don't try to pander to the nonsense right-wing claptrap of "mean old corporations." You know that's not reason I pointed that out.

And I'll be the first to say that I hate Government graft. I hate the trillions of tax payer dollars that our government has thrown away. But your post is directing attention at relative small potatoes.

Corporations, as in every bailout, take the taxpayers money, and then keep right on screwing those same taxpayers on service and prices while posting "record profits" and continuing to fire workers, provide poor service, etc. Anytime anyone in Government starts asking questions and holding the corporations responsible, they get raked over the coals of the right-wing media with phrases like "mean old corproations."

Here's the kicker ... I recognize that in the modern US economy, it has been structured to REQUIRE a regular infusion from the Government. Companies pursue reckless policies to maximize profits ... and then have to be bailed out by taxpayer funds. That's the con, the corporations have one puppet in the right hand and one in the left. Neither party is liberal or conservative ... they're both corporatist and we the People are being duped by it.

It's nothing more than transfer of wealth from the many to the few in the end, typical of all big-government socialism left or right.

Damn, I actually agree with you on something. There is hope for you yet.

originally posted by: HalWesten
Damn, I actually agree with you on something. There is hope for you yet.

Cool. Try listening.

a reply to: 727Sky

$30 billion in stimulus funds will be stolen..... by politicians

originally posted by: Gryphon66

originally posted by: HalWesten
Damn, I actually agree with you on something. There is hope for you yet.

Cool. Try listening.

Try not being snarky, I'll pay attention more.

I don't know what, if anything, can be done about ALL legislators that allow loopholes so their corporate donaters can raid relief funds but it's got to stop. Their ability to take money that was intended for small businesses was grossly unwarranted and frankly, sickening.

a reply to: 727Sky

I knew this was going to happen from the start. How could it not?

I personally never got my 1200 even though I should have.
And I don't even care.

I do care about the money mismanagement that has been a stain on our government for my entire life though.
Things need to change. Smaller government would go a long way to tracking funds.

originally posted by: HalWesten

originally posted by: Gryphon66

originally posted by: HalWesten
Damn, I actually agree with you on something. There is hope for you yet.

Cool. Try listening.

Try not being snarky, I'll pay attention more.

I don't know what, if anything, can be done about ALL legislators that allow loopholes so their corporate donaters can raid relief funds but it's got to stop. Their ability to take money that was intended for small businesses was grossly unwarranted and frankly, sickening.

I'm not snarky to anyone who wants to talk facts. /shrug

Politicians are going to be bought by those with the money to buy them until we the People stop it. There are multiple recommendations on the table for campaign finance reform, lobbying reform, etc.

I know of multiple "small businesses" that exploited the system as well. Nothing is holy.

I am reminded of a cartoon in which a hapless fool throws a very heavy anchor off the deck of his ship, failing to realize that the chain attached to the anchor is wrapped around both his feet, and his neck!

Yes, thieves steal. Yes, corporations take advantage of consumers. Yes, government panders to “big money.

But, also. Yes, the current circumstances require us to support those facing financial ruin, even if there will likely be graft and corruption, because if they fail, we likely fail as well: what good is saving a company if, once saved, that company has no customers who can afford to buy its products?

Yes, we all want better government.

But the way each of us define what constitutes “better government” more often than not, is contradictory.

In the end, no gets what they want, and everyone is complaining.

Maybe that fool I mentioned should have just stayed on the dock.

It doesn’t look like a there’s going to be any good days for sailing for a long time to come.

a reply to: 727Sky

If you were in South Africa it would have been 30 trillion

originally posted by: Bhadhidar

But, also. Yes, the current circumstances require us to support those facing financial ruin, even if there will likely be graft and corruption, because if they fail, we likely fail as well: what good is saving a company if, once saved, that company has no customers who can afford to buy its products?

That's the rub I think. Various indocrinations that break down to government giving taxpayers' money to corporations, good; government giving taxpayer's money to other taxpayers to get them through a crisis, bad.

The engine of the American economy has always been the bulk of the consumers in "the middle" spending money at the local level.

Yet, we invest over ten times as much in corporations as in individuals.

There's a lack of reasonability somewhere. Corporations are the beneficiaries of the economy, not the producers.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Agreed.

But corporations employ a very large portion of those consumers “in the middle”. And, when you take into consideration the far more vast population dependent upon supplying and supporting the corporations, it is not too far off the mark to say that, in one way or another, directly or indirectly, most of us depend on the health and welfare of “the corporations”.

Ok, fine.

The problem really boils down to greed and corruption; in both government and corporations.

Unfortunately, greed seems to be an innate characteristic of human nature. Perhaps of life itself, when one considers, for example, the behavior of cancer cells.

And is corruption, in any form or milieu, anything but a function of greed?

Countering such forces requires a fundamental alteration of some very basic motivations.

a reply to: Bhadhidar

We're not going to do away with greed or selfishness or tribalism/xenophobia or any of the angels of our darker nature.

That's idealism. That's why pie-in-the-sky systems like pure communism and libertarianism don't work. It may be in the end that any sort of democratic government, republican or otherwise, doesn't work either.

What we could possibly do is stick to our social contract we've made with each other. In the United States we've agreed to work within a system with certain assumptions about the economy, none of which involve bailing out corporations every decade or so.

ETA: OR, if our system does make that assumption, that the capital of our country is to be used to do the most good for the most people, why are we horrified that money goes to American citizens to help THEM through these times of crisis?

Putting cash in the hands of the people will do a lot more to sustain the economy than to increase the corporate treasuries.

Taxes don't work anymore. Time for a new system.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: 727Sky

They gave $500 billion to the corporations.

If you're looking for theft, start there.

How do they steal money that's a loan and gets paid back ? 💫

originally posted by: xuenchen

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: 727Sky

They gave $500 billion to the corporations.

If you're looking for theft, start there.

How do they steal money that's a loan and gets paid back ? 💫

What's the penalty for not paying it back?

$500 billion doesn't even cover the looting, and burning

That sounds about right. Given the fact that millions of business were forced to close, without the bribes call PPP, We the people would have hung a lot of politicians from the nearest lamp pole.