For there are two kinds of plunder: legal and illegal.

....Illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling - which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes - ....
It is not this kind of plunder that systematically threatens the foundations of society.

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple, which their acts would otherwise involve.

F Bastiat

There is no doubt where the greater cost for business lays. Even Regulations alone cost far more than £40 Billion per year. Add taxes and theft starts to look like petty cash.

However rational, comments like "Who cares if X is bad because Y is worse." serve only to push the mainstream further away from libertarian ideas. One step at a time fellas.

John,

At no point did Perry state that fraud and embezzlement weren't crimes - his point was that even with such a staggering amount lost to employee dishonesty every year, the government probably manages to outdo this figure considerably.

What I'd like to know, after reading the article, is how on earth companies (who, due to the horrendous workplace law here, are more like nannies than employers) are supposed to:

"...put in place effective systems and controls to prevent [crime], identify material losses and take action to recover those losses."

How do you effectively observe, train and reprimand employees with unions, the government and a myriad of other do-gooders breathing down your neck every time you assert ownership of the job, the company's assets and the company's profits?

I remember outcries from certain groups when companies began to train cameras onto cash registers as the practice was considered to violate some 'right' or other that the employee had.

Companies are bullied into ineffective hiring processes and prevented from eliminating unwanted staff. I'm not all that surprised to hear that there is an unsavoury element inside companies perpetrating crime.