Prestige Professions? Accounting Bounces Back

Accountants score 17% in Harris poll, recover from Enron-era low

Still, accountants, at 17%, join real estate brokers (6%), stockbrokers (11%), business executives (11%), actors (12%), union leaders (12%), journalists (12%) bankers (17%), and entertainers (18%) at the lowest ratings for “very great prestige.” To be sure, the poll doesn’t measure perceptions of integrity.

Six occupations get top ratings, with “very great” prestige: firefighters (63%), doctors (58%), nurses (55%), scientists (54%), teachers (52%) and military officers (51%). They are followed by police officers (43%) and priests/ministers/clergymen (40%).

Key trends over the last 29 years:
● Those who see teachers as having “very great” prestige has risen 23 points from 29 to 52 percent.
● Those who say lawyers have “very great” prestige has fallen 15 points, from 36 to 21 percent.
● Scientists have fallen 12 points from 66 to 54 percent.
● Business executives have fallen seven points from 18 to 11 percent.
● Doctors have fallen three points from 61 to 58 percent.
● Athletes have also fallen three points from 26 to 23 percent.

For the record, pollsters asked: “I am going to read off a number of different occupations. For each, would you tell me if you feel it is an occupation of very great prestige, considerable prestige, some prestige or hardly any prestige at all?” 1,020 adults were counted.

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Cross-Dressing IRS Agent Gets Probation in Fraud Case

Judge cites “gender confusion” as factor in sentencing

SCRANTON, Pa. ? A cross-dressing IRS agent who used his daughter?s identification to obtain credit was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to two years? probation, according to the Leader newspaper. A U.S. District judge cited Edward Snarski?s ?gender confusion? as a factor in imposing the sentence.

Snarski was as a special agent in the IRS criminal investigation unit in Scranton when a grand jury indicted him in 2002 on charges stemming from his scheme to pose as Erica Edwards, a fictitious person, using his daughter?s Social Security number to obtain $22,463 in credit from four banks and a mail-order clothing store.

Snarski initially argued he had been unfairly targeted because he was a cross-dresser preparing to undergo a sex change. A judge denied the motion. So Snarski pleaded guilty in January to one count of misuse of a Social Security number. The other charges were dropped in exchange for the plea. The maximum possible sentence for the offense was five years in prison, but sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of no prison time to up to six months in prison.
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