Economic Recovery? At Least Criminals Think So.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/business/30theft.html
Shoplifters? Studies Say Keep an Eye on Workers

One of the largest new growth businesses occurring during our current economic recovery is employee fraud involving gift cards.

When the federal government prints money, they are very careful to prevent theft of the newly printed money. However, once the money is printed, the government is very careless when handing it out to criminal organizations (ACORN) and just plain incompetent federal, state and local organizations.

It is looking like private business is trying to use the federal model when printing up the gift cards. They are careful at the printing process, but careless thereafter. But unlike the federal government, businesses can't tax everyone in the country for their incompetence. They need to figure out a solution, or go bankrupt. (Very few companies are too big to fail, most are too small to care about.)

It will be interesting to see if businesses will be able to figure out how to protect themselves.