LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Bernie Madoff should have tried government work.

The $50 billion that the disgraced money manager -- who pled guilty to federal charges in March and who's currently scheduled to be sentenced around the end of June -- stole from his clients over a couple of decades could disappear in a matter of weeks as the U.S. government ramps up its "stimulus" spending programs

That's one way of thinking about the projection made by Deloitte Financial Services Advisory accounting types that as much as $1 in $10 of federal spending will end up compromised in some way or other by thieves, grafters and scam artists. See related story.

True, $50 billion wouldn't even cover the bailout of a failed automaker, mortgage lender or insurance company these days. Still, it does seem a pity not to put it to a more productive use than lining the pockets of crooked contractors, Internet scammers and political cronies.

Americans who haven't even been born yet will be paying interest on that $50 billion and refinancing it for generations to come.

And it's not like there haven't been warnings.

From the moment the stimulus package passed, the head of the FBI began shouting about the prospect of a white-collar crime wave. Director Robert Mueller even repeated his concerns last week in a not-so-subtle plea for more staff to battle the bad people.

Of course, from the Obama administration's point of view, it seems almost that it hardly matters whether the stimulus money is spent legally or not, or who spends it, just as long as somebody buys something somewhere.

But there is a silver lining to the notion of $50 billion going to waste because of a bill that nobody in Congress bothered to read. Remember the toy arrow subsidy?

After all, there is one thing the government can definitively do better and more efficiently than the private sector: Lose taxpayers' money.

-- Tom Bemis, assistant managing editor