Fraud Incorporated - The $100.00 Loophole

In California this month, investigators uncovered a massive "ghost fleet"—hundreds of businesses registered with the state using "Golden IDs." These aren't just stolen Social Security numbers; they belong to people who have left the country, meaning the "owner" of the company doesn't even know it exists, and they aren't around to check the mail when the debt collectors Come Calling.We're looking at the numbers from the GAO—which estimate that fraud is now effectively the sixth-largest "agency" in the federal government. We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars. We’re also going to look at why your local Secretary of State might legally be forbidden from double-checking who is actually filing those papers.Accountability Office—the GAO—the federal government is losing between $233 billion and $521 billion every single year to fraud.Think about that. At the high end, we are losing half a trillion dollars a year. That is more than the entire budget for the Department of Homeland Security. It’s roughly 3% to 7% of every dollar the federal government spends. And that’s just confirmed fraud. If you look at "improper payments"—money sent to the wrong person or in the wrong amount—the total since 2003 is a staggering $2.8 trillion