Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
The Favorite Business Term Shared by Cosmo Kramer and Corporate Fraudsters
The Favorite Business Term Shared by Cosmo Kramer and Corporate Fraudsters
Jul 12, 2025 3:38 AM

In one of my favorite exchanges on the Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer and Jerry Seinfeld have the following discussion about tax write-offs:

Kramer: “It’s a write-off for them.”

Jerry: “How is it a write-off?”

Kramer: “They just write it off.”

Jerry: “Write it off what?”

Kramer: “Jerry, all these panies, they write off everything.”

Jerry: “You don’t even know what a write-off is.”

Kramer: “Do you?”

Jerry: “No, I don’t.”

Kramer: “But they do. And they’re the ones writing it off.”

Jerry: “I wish I had the last twenty seconds of my life back.”

Fortunately, Jerry and Kramer were talking in person. If this had been an email exchange they might have been flagged for being in the “fraud triangle”—the nexus where rationalization, pressure, and opportunity meet.

Software developed by the FBI and Ernst & Young reveals that Kramer’s favorite business term is on the mon words and phrases used in email conversations among employees engaged in corporate fraud:

1. Cover up

2. Write off

3. Illegal

4. Failed investment

5. Nobody will find out

6. Grey area

7. They owe it to me

8. Do not volunteer information

9. Not ethical

10. Off the books

The analytics software also scans for “out of band” events such as “call my mobile” or e by my office.” So if you get an email from your accountant saying that you owe it her e by her office to talk about the illegal write-off on your off-the-books failed investment, you might as well save yourself the trouble and turn yourself in.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
The Complexities of Airport Capitalism
Over at The Federalist today, I ruminate on a conversation I overheard at an airport recently. I was an innocent auditor, I assure you. In the words of Sam Gamgee to Gandalf, “I ain’t been droppin’ no eaves sir, honest.” The conversation had to do with the prices of goods and services on offer atairports. To simply blame (or credit) capitalism with the situation is misleading. As I conclude, “We should try to understand the words people are using, the...
Are Commercial Transactions Inherently Shady?
By giving us the ability to buy and sell, says Wayne Grudem, God has given us a wonderful mechanism through which we can do good for each other. Buying and selling are activities unique to human beings out of all the creatures that God made. Rabbits and squirrels, dogs and cats, elephants and giraffes know nothing of this activity. Through buying and selling God has given us a wonderful means to bring glory to him. We can imitate God’s attributes...
What’s the Right Minimum Wage?
What’s the perfect minimum wage? $10 an hour? $20? $50? Economist David Henderson explains why it should be “zero.” As Henderson explains, when the state mandates a minimum wage (or an increase), it makes harder for unemployed people to find work and forces business owners to cut the hours of lower-skilled employees. ...
The FAQs: Are Ministers in Idaho Required to Conduct Same-Sex Weddings?
What is the Idaho wedding chapel story all about? Same-sex marriage became legal in the state of Idaho earlier this month after a federal court ruled in the case of Latta v. Otter that the state’s statutes and constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. This ruling affected an anti-discrimination ordinance in the city of Coeur d’Alene, which was enacted last year to cover “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” (Since there is currently no similar state or federal non-discrimination laws,...
Public Health: Is ‘Social Justice’ More Important Than Sound Science?
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has been criticized recently for its handling of the Ebola cases in the United States, and for its lax suggestions regarding travelers from countries where Ebola is rampant. In today’s City Journal, Heather Mac Donald suggests that the CDC’s lack of leadership has more to do with political correctness in the public health arena and their version of “social justice” than with science. Science would assert that people make choices that have an effect...
Samuel Gregg: The Envy-Inequality Nexus
Acton’s Director of Research, Sam Gregg, ponders “Envy In A Time Of Inequality” in today’s American Spectator. Envy, he opines, is the worst human emotion. From the time that Cain killed Abel to today’s “near-obsession with inequality,” Gregg says envy is driving public policy…and that’s not good. The situation isn’t helped by the sheer looseness of contemporary discussions of economic inequality. Inequality and poverty, for instance, aren’t the same things. That, however, doesn’t stop people from conflating them. Likewise, important...
Radio Free Acton: Gerard Lameiro on Renewing America’s Heritage of Freedom
Gerard Lameiro speaks at the 2014 Acton Lecture Series Earlier this month, Acton ed Gerard Lameiro to the Mark Murray Auditorium to deliver a lecture as part of the fall 2014 Acton Lecture Series. He spoke on the topic of “Renewing America and Its Heritage of Freedom,” which also happens to be the title of his latest book. Following his lecture, I sat down with Lameiro to discuss his thoughts on the gradual loss of freedom we’ve experienced in the...
Child Soldiers: Another Form Of Human Trafficking
Children in poor and war-torn countries are often trafficking victims. They are lured from their homes with promises of making money in factories or at farms. Sometimes they are kidnapped. And sometimes, they are recruited for war. Tom Burridge of BBC News reports on the war in South Sudan, and the prevalence of “recruiting” young boys to fight. On a normal school day, Burridge says that more than 100 boys are kidnapped from their classroom and told they must fight...
Italian Edition of ‘The Good That Business Does’ Launched in Rome
Italian edition of “The Good That Business Does” by Robert G. Kennedy (Fede e Cultura, 2014) On Oct. 23, before a capacity-audience at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, the Acton Institute and Italian publishing house Fede e Cultura launched Robert G. Kennedy’s Il bene che fanno gli affari (original title “The Good That Business Does,” Acton, 2006, Christian Social Thought Series). The pontifical university’s research center, Markets, Culture and Ethics, acted as co-sponsor with its vice academic director...
7 Figures: Family Structure and Economic Success
Family structure is one of the most significant, though oft-overlooked, factors that affect the economic fortunes of Americans. A new study from AEI titled “For Richer or Poorer” documents the relationships between family patterns and economic well-being in America and shows how radically it can affect e. Here are seven figures you should know from the study: 1. The growth in median e of families with children would be 44 percent higher if the United States enjoyed 1980 levels of...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved