Welcome to the last Carnival of Personal Finance for 2008, The Cheesehead Edition.  I’m located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I send greetings from fellow Cheeseheads. We’ve had an interesting winter so far, with record-level snowfalls in December, followed by record high temperatures on Saturday, and now back to freezing temperatures. Hopefully this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance can warm some hearts…

If you have an interest in fraud and scams, this blog is the place to be. I regularly rip on those perpetrating fraud against unsuspecting consumers. I recommend subscribing to my feed… And if you like shorter takes on things, you can follow me on Twitter.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes today about the sticker shock property owners are having when they open their property tax bills. The taxes have gone up in general, but property owners are frosted because their assessments no longer match the real market value of their houses.

The reality is that property values are generally down, and municipalities that use some variation of “market value” for their assessments are treading on thin ice.

The newspaper reports on a property owner whose assessment went from $140,500 to $173,100.  The tax bill went up 27%, or $871. The homeowner says he couldn’t sell his house for $173,100 even if he wanted to.

Last week I was on CNBC’s personal finance show On The Money talking about this issue. I successfully fought my assessment last year, and encourage other homeowners to do the same.

I encourage homeowners to challenge their assessments if they can prove that they are out of line with market values. Local governments are going to have trouble, though, if property owners object in large numbers. The government still wants the same amount of money, so they’ll have to do a large rate increase to keep the cash flowing their way. This would mean that even if you are successful at having your assessment reduced, you might still pay the same amount of property taxes.

And in other “breaking” news: More than a month after a database of Milwaukee Public Schools spending was made public, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is finally reporting it. Why would the Journal Sentinel neglect to make a timely report of an issue so critical to taxpayers?

Here’s an interesting tidbit from the article: “MPS spokeswoman Roseann St. Aubin said MPS officials believe they have adequate controls over spending and they monitor bills to see that they are appropriate.”

I disagree. MPS doe note have adequate controls over spending. The district keeps contending that it has been cut to the bone and there are simply no areas in which to reduce spending. This database proves the exact opposite.  When are taxpayers going to demand that MPS quit wasting their money?

Consumers are often left wondering why the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t heavily pursue allegations of fraud against public companies like Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK), Usana Health Sciences (NASDAQ:USNA), Herbalife (NYSE:HLF), and the like. I’ve always said the answer is simple: There are not enough resources devoted to investigating and prosecuting fraud in public companies. Executives are free to use phony accounting measures and other false information to hype the company with little fear of action by the SEC.

I admit it: I’m not a lover of all things social media. I am participating in the Facebook and Twitter discussions a bit begrudgingly. It’s not that I don’t think these tools work to grow businesses and create interesting discourse. They do.

It’s just that as a solo, I have only so much time available to me, and I’m interested in being involved with the things that offer the most bang for the buck. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to “sell” to my followers and friends, or looking at them as a means to an end. But at the end of the day, I have to make a living and I’m trying to use my time as efficiently as possible.

The IRS is accusing Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, vice president of Fry’s Electronics Inc., of embezzling more than $65 million from the company via a shell company scheme. They say he used the money to pay gambling debts in Las Vegas

A textbook shell company scheme would go like this: Set up a company that sources goods from a legitimate supplier, then mark up those goods and sell them to Fry’s. The shell company acts as a middleman,  keeps the markup, but adds absolutely no value to the transaction.

I routinely get emails from students, job seekers, or the gainfully employed who want to make a career change… all asking me for advice on getting into the field of forensic accounting and fraud investigation.

Here are my top three tips for getting into this field:

Last week at the 2008 Inforum Outlook Conference, a presentation was given about the impact of potential bankruptcy filings of the Big Three automakers, GM, Ford, and Chrysler. The media has cited figures ranging from 2 million to 3 million jobs lost.

A study of such bankruptcy filings found that the figure of 3 million jobs is grossly inflated. The logic is simple: 3 million jobs would only be lost if all  supply and manufacturing related to Big Three autos was halted completely, and that’s not going to happen.

Remember when the leaders of this whole Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) promised us that the spending of our 20 gajillion taxpayer dollars would be “transparent”???? Transparent apparently is synonymous with the word “secret” in their world.

How many ways can our government be un-transparent? Contracts with professional services firms providing services related to TARP have had key numbers redacted. This has included the contracts with Bank of New York Mellon Corp, law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC).

Not many people, that’s for sure. As with any multi-level marketing company, a tiny fraction of people at the very top of the recruiting pyramid make some money, and everyone else makes little to nothing.

Here are the numbers posted on a UFF agent’s website in August 2008 (click to see full size):