Forget about the massive cost. Forget about the millions that will still be “uninsured.” Forget about the fact that healthcare will be rationed. Forget that those over 65 will be considered more expendable and therefore be denied some care. All that is bad enough…

But now there’s finally a piece reporting on what you’ll lose (or be prohibited from doing or getting) under the new health plan proposed for America.

I’m not a believer that a bad economy means more fraud is occurring. Those who say this is happening simply have no basis for that opinion. Because so much financial fraud goes undetected, it is impossible to determine if it’s growing or not. (But saying fraud goes up in a bad economy makes good sound bytes!)

One of the credibilty builders (i.e. smokescreens) that United First Financial agents use when trying to sell their Money Merge Account is… “It’s based on the Australian banking system!” The claim is that this “system” has been used successfully in Australia for years, and so we should believe in it too!

However, the truth is that this “system” is all but dead in Australia because people (and regulators, to some extent) figured out what a scam they were.  Here’s some information provided to me by someone in Australia who has done extensive research on the issue of mortgage acceleration:

Obamanomics has made it popular to call on the “rich” to pay “their fair share” of taxes. Lets increase taxes to pay for ineffective, unnecessary, wasteful government spending, but lets make sure the “rich” are the ones who pay those increased taxes. After all, if they have a lot of money, they should pay a lot in taxes, right? Except what those promoting this idea often ignore is that the “rich” already pay far more than “their fair share” of taxes. They already pay almost all of the taxes.

Today I was in a class on overseas banking and reporting requirements for individuals and businesses. I wanted to learn about the latest regulations and their enforcement. We discussed the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, through which taxpayers can “tell on themselves” to the IRS regarding their previously secret foreign bank accounts. The will not be criminally prosecuted, and will have to pay a penalty of 20% of the value of their offshore accounts.

Taxpayers who don’t participate in voluntary disclosure but are later discovered to have secret foreign bank accounts are subject to much stiffer penalties and the threat of criminal prosecution.

Sounds great, right?

My faithful readers have likely noticed my conspicuous absence over the last month or more. The simple truth is that I have been swamped with work, and for that I am thankful. Not everyone in my industry is doing so well. Fraud investigation and contract litigation are “extras” that not every company can afford these days. I’ve had the good fortune of developing good relationships with attorneys who refer cases to me, and so I’ve had a steady stream of new work.

Last week, white collar crime fighter Sam Antar reported on interesting false disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission by Interoil (NYSE:IOC). The situation is amusing, to say the least, and here’s the heart of it…

Interoil has a history of lots of stock and debt offerings. In May 2008, the company did a $95 million debt offering. They were paying finder’s fees for getting the money for them, but didn’t seem to want to completely disclose the fees. Form D filed with the SEC on May 28, 2008 did not disclose any fees or commissions paid in connection with this offering. The truth was, however, that the company was paying such fees and simply chose to not disclose them.

Despite the misleading, fraudulent headling in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today, the truth is that Milwaukee Public Schools will be spending more taxpayer money next school year. JSOnline reported: “MPS cuts spending, spends stimulus.” The truth is that MPS is not cutting spending, it’s increasing spending.

Last year’s budget was $1.2 billion. The budget for this year is $1.3 billion. But you won’t hear the media reporting that.

Do-it-yourself home renovation projects are still all the rage, years after shows like TLC’s Trading Spaces became popular. No doubt the economy has also influenced people to try to increase the value of their real estate for little or no cost. People are decorating and selling their homes themselves. And they’re having fun doing it.

And there’s always an opportunist waiting in the wings to make a buck on the latest craze. In steps Haverhill Home Staging. Buy our correspondence course. Pass the test. And we’ll guarantee you a job paying $24 to $31. Does it sound too good to be true? It just might be.

The SEC’s Regulation FD is one of those pesky little rules public companies are supposed to abide by. The basic idea behind this rule, called “FD” for “Fair Disclosure,” is to make sure that some parties don’t have an unfair advantage in buying and selling stock.

Although the rule itself has lots of details, it essentially requires an issuer (a public company) that discloses “material non-public information” to do so very promptly and very publicly. This means that a company can’t tell a person or a small group of people some information otherwise unknown to the general public, unless it makes that information widely available to everyone.