Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Using money that isn't yours is fun... until you get caught

Recently the mayor of Baltimore, Sheila Dixon, has been convicted of "embezzlement for improperly using gift cards intended for the needy". The first question that came to mind when I read about this was why? This mayor was stealing money from people that would have gained a lot from the gift cards, unlike how she did it because she wanted to. I also read somewhere that in recent months that a superintendent at a community college in San Jose was found using the school's accounts to take personal trips to such places as Asia. I would think that people, especially people that I would consider of higher stature, would learn from errors that people made in the past, apparently not.

oh and on a side not i just saw a cadet sleeping during the President's address on tv, that made me laugh XD

8 comments:

Tim dyer said...

Epic Fail on both parts

Andrew said...

I'm not surprised in the slightest but I shouldn't even have to hope they'll be fired, if not blacklisted ... It should already be a given, but you know ... maybe they didn't really mean to steal the money right? We're just too darn harsh.

-Andrew Oxendine 3°

Sammie said...

Incidents like these can make people wary of donating to charities, causing less people to donate. This is really unfortunate for those in need who could really use some help in the current state of our economy.

Rachel BH said...

Honestly these people are taking what they have for granted. If they had ever been in a cituation where they were desperate for a few dollars to buy food, maybe they wouldnt have been so selfish. Also, with how low our education funds are this day, how dare someone use them to go on a trip to asia (they should have gone to spain! jk)

ellery wong said...

I guess its easy to become corrupted when you have a lot of power in your hands.

Unknown said...

There are a couple things beside the blatant moral failures these people are apparently having
1) WHO IS DUMB ENOUGH TO DO THIS? with the gift cards I can see a better chance of getting away with it but as a mayor of a major city its still pretty stupid. As for the staff member, thats completely idiodic-how could someone NOT find out?
2)These people both of jobs! Why would the need to do this? And there's no way they can pull the hole "o we didn't know" shenanigans.

Maybe its just me, and I know we're young, but I am becoming more and more disappointed with the decisions of adults who are undoubtedly more mature and educated than we are (especially the two mentioned here) I sincerely hope we can learn a thing or two from their mistakes because if not, our generations will be much more tragic

Dana said...

Although not surprising, these kinds of stories about people with authority taking advantage of their power really irritate me. They probably thought they could get away with their corrupt spending because mayors and superintendents are positions in which they are responsible for helping people, instead they used that belief and people's willingness for charity against them. I'm glad the two got caught and I hope they are punished severely to make others of authority less likely to do the same, unfortunately it will still probably happen.

Jenny Yeonhee Park said...

I agree with you Dana. They need to be punished.
Greed is pretty scary.
What is even scarier is that people like that mayor hold offices in American government.