alt Hacker NewsI’m the author of the post. I hinted, in a cryptic sentence near the end, that I necessarily had to leave out the worst parts of the story. No, no organized crime. But yes, there were people who appropriated resources that weren’t theirs and used every tool at their disposal to avoid scrutiny. To keep it vague, let’s just say some of the people involved had means that could seriously harm the businesses and their owners. And since these were primary businesses, that would have been a serious problem. The owners, knowing this, tried to find solutions but couldn’t really “afford” to remove the people involved. To be specific, in the end the owners themselves were aware of what was happening, but hoped to resolve it with a few more checks. Eventually, I realized that as long as there was enough money for everyone, they were okay with the ongoing theft.
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Its better to know who is stealing from you (and how much) than not - sometimes the evil you know is better than the evil you dont.
They had other options:
- if they really accepted the theft then normalize it and pay the thieves more and get them to stop thieving
- sell the businesses and let the theft be someone else's problem
- get the authorities involved
> as long as there was enough money for everyone, they were okay with the ongoing theft.
Cue @patio11: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero [0]
0. https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...
if you weren't getting paid for this - why get involved in the first place?
Sounds like very straightforward tax evasion. The business brings in lots of cash, doesn't pay taxes, obscures the books enough so that there's no smoking gun. Some of the people participating in the scheme are skimming, but maybe less than the taxes would be, or maybe the owners are also implicated and would face criminal penalties themselves, so it's better for everyone just to keep it going and keep the books messy. Don't need mafiosos from TV for that.