Moody Monday: It Is All About Integrity

I am going to dive into politics, a topic I usually avoid.  Putting aside my loathing of the former President, his conviction of falsifying business records reflects his lack of integrity. 

He cheated on his wife, lied, and paid off the other woman to cover it up.  A surprising number of men pay the rent, or the car payments, or the American Express bills, to keep the other woman from going public about the affair.  This happens in many lives. It is not a crime. 

That he paid off Stormy Daniels is not the issue, what the conviction is about is manipulating business records to make the payment look like a legitimate business expense.  

He was either trying to hide the payment from his spouse, or he was classifying it as a business expense to cheat on his taxes.  

Either way, it shows a lack of integrity on his part. For a man who claimed to be a billionaire, the amount of money was insignificant. He spends that much every time he flies his personal jet to and from Florida.  His wife knows he cheats, as I recall he was cheating on another wife when he started boinking his current wife. 

He was cooking the books to make the payoff look tax deductible.  Him getting his jollies was not a reasonable or necessary business expense.  It was personal entertainment.  

40+ years ago, I read "The Art of the Deal" a book with his name on the cover.  The books was all about buying distressed property, prettying it up, and convincing investors or lenders that it was worth more than it really was.  That is what he built his career on.  New York has a civil judgement against him for drastically over-valuing assets to get preferred treatment from investors and lenders, as I recall he has not paid that judgement of some $359,000,000.  

Why do a business's books matter?  

As a wage earner, my employer reported to the government what I was paid, when I claimed itemized deductions it was primarily for mortgage interest and property taxes.  The amount I paid in interest was reported by the lender.  The rest can be estimated or verified by public information.  

For a business it is different.  Most income and expenses of a business are not reported to the government by a third party.  We have to rely on the integrity of the business to accurately report their income and expenses. By and large our tax system, relies on the integrity of businesses keeping an honest set of books.  Lenders and other funders often require independent audits of those books, but the effectiveness of those audits is limited to the accuracy of the data and records available. Revenue Service audits seldom go into the kind of detail that would be needed to catch this kind of a fraud.  When this kind of wrongdoing is uncovered it is prosecuted. I have seen three people lose well paying jobs over improperly reporting income or expenses at a business. One of them went onto build prisons, one of them went on to spend time in prison (she stole a-quarter-million dollars from her employer.)   

Our system requires integrity of those involved.  Cheating on the books, is stealing from everyone who plays by the rules. 

It is time for men and women of character to stand up and say, we need leadership with integrity. There has to be a better candidate. (There is and I will vote for Joe, not because he is my favorite politician, or I agree with everything he has done, but I believe he has integrity.)  

Remember it is not about cheating on his wife, or paying for Stormy's silence, it is about falsifying business records.  A crime that shows a lack of integrity and honesty.