Maybe it's because I read a lot of "accountant embezzled funds" articles, but I'm increasingly disappointed in the spending habits of hapless accountants who help themselves to their employers money. The scheme hatched by your average embezzling accountant isn't often well thought out, so I'd expect them to make equally reckless purchases. Sadly, more often than not, their loot is painfully banal.
Take Terri Miller, the former treasurer of Palm Beach Gardens High School who made some bad choices, plus, you know, the alleged theft:
In her time as treasurer at Palm Beach Gardens High, Miller spent more than $3,500 of funds reserved for the school’s parking lot and Junior Reserve Officer Training at the high school, according to the school district.
She used a school-issued credit card to make purchases for gas, clothing, cleaning products, snacks, a shrimp platter and personal hygiene items, school district officials say.
Okay, we're not talking about a lot of money, but still! The most expensive item on this list is the shrimp platter! I mean, gas? Cleaning products? Personal hygiene items? Are accountants in Florida so woefully underpaid that petty crime is how they have to make ends meet? The only other conclusion I can think of is that in a rush, she grabbed the wrong list off the fridge.
[PBP]
“I believe the available market is smaller than the bulls believe it to be and that Green Mountain has already penetrated a good chunk of it,” Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital Inc., said today during his so-called “GAAP-uccino” presentation at the Value Investing Congress in New York. “The market is limited,” he said. The company also has a “litany of accounting questions,” Einhorn said, adding that it has reduced transparency and needs to improve disclosure. [