America now outsourcing its fraud

These workers are willing to lose the jobs Americans won't lose.

Shocking news this week from the world of taking jobs away from hard-working Americans. It was reported that Satyam Computer Services, an outsourcing company that serves more than a third of the Fortune 500, had been significantly inflating its earnings and assets for years. According to the Satyam's chairman, Ramalinga Raju, more than $1 billion in cash and bank loans the company listed in assets were simply nonexistent. Satyam's clients have included General Electric, General Motors and U.S. government, and already the scandal is being compared to the Enron collapse.

Such a significant and far-reaching fraud naturally has serious implications for the United States. Namely, whatever happened to the kind of can-do fraudulent American spirit we used to have? Our great nation used to be number one in perpetrating financial misdoings. Now it appears that not only are Indian companies taking away American jobs, but they're also taking away American felonies.

First of all, sending fraud overseas is a slap in the face to unskilled CEOs at home who can do little more than skim money off the top and create offshore accounts. Additionally, outsourcing fraud exploits lower paid criminals. The Satyam fraud amounts to $1.04 billion, a piddling sum when compared with the $50 billion lost in the American Madoff scandal.

But most importantly, when white-collar crime is outsourced, we simply can not expect the same quality of service we get when being defrauded domestically. American frauds have destroyed companies, wrecked charities, wiped out retirement and college savings and ruined lives. They have done so quickly, efficiently and completely. Outsourced fraud like the Satyam case, however, has forced some companies to investigate their practices and perhaps reorganize the partners with whom they do business. It's simply a different culture, and not what Americans demand from a financial scandal.

This is a wake-up call to the entire fraud community. Let's keep our federal offenses without our borders and pledge to steal American. And besides, have you ever tried to have a phone conversation with one of those Indian criminals? You can't understand a word they're saying.

"Satyam Chief Admits Huge Fraud" - NYT