Fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; any act of deception carried out for the purpose of unfair, undeserved and/or unlawful gain. Various degrees of fraud are carried out by most all business sectors in the American economy but the underlying intent is the same: love of money.
The problem with the current judicial system is that it is woefully lacking in determining “intent”. The hearts of men continually devise methods and means to defraud others and use a variety of excuses and justifications to perpetrate a fraud. Deception traces its roots back to the Garden of Eden. The Scripture conveys many stories of “intentional deception” for personal gain. Once fraud is introduced into a transaction, time, energy, and resources are sucked up to perpetuate the fraud and usually turns out to be a greater cost, both personally and professionally, than the original amount tied to fraud.
The act of deception damages another person which is contrary to Love. When you deceive another, you rob that person of a blessing and potentially affect the rest of his or her life. At the root of fraud is a lie and that lie brings forth bondage whereas the truth sets you free. Our society promotes lies even if it does so in a passive manner. One of our recent presidents was caught in a lie concerning a sexual act and the citizenry responded in a passive manner since their pocketbooks were not affected.
The system has made it difficult to right a wrong. If someone defrauds you out of a hundred bucks, you will not seek legal remedy because it costs more than the money you lost. If someone fails to pay your invoice and you threaten legal action, their attorney will trump up reasons why the invoice should not be paid. This in turn raises the stakes in any attempt to recover the money owed. Many attorneys use deception to win court cases and legal disputes. Wall Street has intentionally deceived investors totaling trillions of dollars and to unravel all of this deception, it will take years and millions of dollars. The question is “Will only the low level managers be thrown under the bus to satisfy the regulators or will executive management be in their crosshairs as well?” I suspect that mid level managers at Goldman Sachs are sweating bullets right now.
The SEC has been under fire by Congress for failing to properly regulate Wall Street. In this election year, Congressmen must position themselves as defenders of the average citizen. With this in mind, expect to see a new look in Congress. They will grill the Wall Street firms about their fraudulent activities while those executives will claim memory loss (with a wink of the eye). The media will highlight the activism by the various committees to satisfy the voter unrest, pointing to the November elections. Is this another level of fraud or deception?
Fraud is so widespread that only Our Heavenly Father can sort it all out. HE knows men’s hearts and their intent. We must trust that the day of reconciling the books will come soon. On a corporate basis, it often takes years but it seems now that the culmination of deception may be at hand. When the light shines on darkness, the roaches head for cover. It is interesting to note that we are only 30 months away from the end of the Mayan Calendar. Our Heavenly Father is the author of all true revelation. Could this calendar have simply pointed to the end of the age of deception and the revealing of the long awaited Sons of GOD?