inflate

According to prosecutors, Smith-Griffin orchestrated “a deliberate and calculated scheme to deceive investors in AllHere Education, Inc., inflating the company’s financials to secure millions of dollars under false pretenses.”

But for many years, under previous governments, some of its profits never reached the treasury as it was accused by state governors and federal lawmakers of including these inflated subsidy costs on its balance sheet.

Ms. Jacobs said that the law school had also artificially inflated its faculty by counting guest speakers among them.

Spending pledges risked inflating some prices, something high interest rates are designed to control.

“They collapse suddenly and then inflate and collapse suddenly — that was kind of the basis of the choreography,” Oppenheimer recalls.