What is political corruption?

[Zardnaar]

But you’re not from America right? So you don’t actually know. Anyway thanks for your commentary.

Ah, so corruption is bribing middle officials, but not prioritizing your donors over your constituency.

True enough. Indeed conventional wisdom suggests Alabama is more evil and corrupt than California even though the rate of black convictions as a proportion of the population in California is 1:62 whereas in Alabama it’s 1:88. https://www.sentencingproject.org/a...ial-and-Ethnic-Disparity-in-State-Prisons.pdf

Publicly available information. You were tge one drawing false equivalents.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I have always thought pork spending to be legitimate corruption as a necessary component to grease the skids to getting things done in Congress. Few members can reliably raise money for re-election in the current state of affairs because they can't bring home the bacon. Leaders haven't anything to bribe members with. The sausage isn't being made.

edit: actually, this practice has been revived, and none too soon...

US politics went downhill fast without wasteful pork spending.

I somewhat reluctantly agree with this.

 

[Arwon]

Ah, so corruption is bribing middle officials, but not prioritizing your donors over your constituency.

At a certain point it just becomes having a bad ideology, and enacting that ideology in policy. It's always hard to tell how much the causal relationship is "donors pay for the elected officials to have policies they want", versus how much it is "they pay to elect the officials because they support those policies".

The soft left of Australia like to tell themselves Labor supports big fossil fuel interests and anti-worker policies because they're being paid to, and if we could just get some of that donor money out of politics with better donation and transparency rules everything would be better and they'd actually do progressive things... but a lot of it really seems to just be them doing what they actually genuinely believe. They are, after all, the party that proudly invented neoliberalism.

 

[Gorbles]

Publicly available information. You were tge one drawing false equivalents.

Like you did with antisemitism?

But I do find it interesting that anytime you ever talk about another country - even to people from that country, it's always "publicly-available information", but when anyone talks about NZ you always trot out the question of "are you from here".

 

[Crezth]

Publicly available information.

OK, so prove it.

At a certain point it just becomes having a bad ideology, and enacting that ideology in policy. It's always hard to tell how much the causal relationship is "donors pay for the elected officials to have policies they want", versus how much it is "they pay to elect the officials because they support those policies".

Spending a little time in the world I've come to lean more towards the former, than the latter, which I believed in my youth. I now tend to believe anybody can be made to believe anything if you can make them dependent enough upon the reality you're constructing for them. The created reality, the self-fulfilling prophecy of complimentary trips by private jets to the Barbados, champagne spritzers, and Teslas with a cartoonishly huge bow on the top of them, are all meant to drill that in. They're also a perk in themselves, yes, but the point is also well demonstrated by the example of AIPAC's spending $100 million to sway the members of the "Squad" in the U.S. Congress. Here the message was also made abundantly clear that even if you don't accept this first check for 100 grand, the money's already spent - the only question is will it hurt you or help you? Are you a reasonable person - and reasonable people can be of great use to one another - or are you not?

I think that politics is perhaps the art of such self-fulfilling prophecies.

The soft left of Australia like to tell themselves Labor supports big fossil fuel interests and anti-worker policies because they're being paid to, and if we could just get some of that donor money out of politics with better donation and transparency rules everything would be better and they'd actually do progressive things... but a lot of it really seems to just be them doing what they actually genuinely believe. They are, after all, the party that proudly invented neoliberalism.

Yes, indeed; and at that rate it seems to me that they believe in neoliberalism because they are justifying their other beliefs in the context of this "new" economic paradigm. Fossil fuels aren't just a matter of donor interests and donor money; they're a matter of class interests, namely, the class interests of said petroleum workers and managers and C-suite executives to maintain their position and keep the money spigot on. This is an industry that vitally supports all of them and the labor organizational element of it, to the extent it can successfully negotiate a good position for itself, always becomes content with a new position for long enough as it can effectively buy a commanding portion of the workers off. Which makes sense, because money lay at the crux of every issue. This is how they sold America's factories, for example; your New England Wire & Cables go the way of liquidation because the workers, too, own stock in the company in some degree or another, the managers and C-suites especially, and in a lot of cases their pensions are already funded. Why not cash out, especially if the numbers show your opportunity will never be better, since competition from the rest of the world is rising? Why do you care if the town has an industry for the next generation? You don't. You're here to make money. And supposedly money can then be reinvested in new industries, new technologies, jobs, opportunities. But I think tens of thousands of suburbs with teenagers funneled into McJobs or McNothing rather prove the opposite is happening.

So, in this whole interaction, have the workers done an act of corruption by also agreeing to sell? Do they really owe anything to anyone else? I mean it's not like the town is their constituency. This is about government and government outcomes. So politically, in the classic sense, this can't be corruption. Just as it isn't corruption for the public trusts and land endowments not to build any places for teenagers to hang out. I mean all that land's got to produce value. The real corruption, maybe, would be arbitrarily taking people's property just to fill some government contractor's bank accounts building pointless parks and promenades. And indeed this methodology would identify a governor who overstepped his authority to build such public housing as corrupt, not just even but especially in the case of foreign investment.

Let me show you what I mean:

From the article you quoted, Wikipedia:

In the United States, many lawyers advise international businesses to consult the CPI when attempting to measure the risk of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations in different nations.

That's interesting. What's the "Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?"

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) (15 U.S.C. § 78dd-1, et seq.) is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests.[1]

The FCPA is applicable worldwide and extends specifically to publicly traded companies and their personnel, including officers, directors, employees, shareholders, and agents. Following amendments made in 1998, the Act also applies to foreign firms and persons who, either directly or through intermediaries, help facilitate or carry out corrupt payments in U.S. territory.[2]

Huh, so, wait, they use the perceived risk of foreign officials accepting bribes from U.S. business interests to apply the CPI?

Investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the mid-1970s revealed that over 400 U.S. companies admitted making questionable or illegal payments in excess of $300 million to foreign government officials, politicians, and political parties.[11] The abuses ran the gamut from bribery of high foreign officials to secure some type of favorable action by a foreign government, to so-called facilitating payments that were made to ensure that government functionaries discharged certain ministerial or clerical duties.[11] If the official has no choice but to bribe, and bribery is legal in the country, bribing is seen as necessary for "greasing the wheels", i.e. facilitating the conduct of business. Among the major examples of such practices were the Lockheed bribery scandals, in which officials of aerospace company Lockheed paid foreign officials in several countries to favor their company's products,[12]: 10  and the Bananagate scandal, in which Chiquita Brands bribed the President of Honduras for more favorable government policies.

In response to these high-profile revelations, Congress enacted the FCPA to bring a halt to the bribery of foreign officials and to restore public confidence in the integrity of the American business system. The Act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on December 19, 1977. The first criminal enforcement action under the Act was against Finbar Kenny.[13] Kenny had advanced Sir Albert Henry, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, $337,000 from postage stamp revenue for Henry's re-election campaign.[14] In 1979, Kenny became the first American to plead guilty of violating the FCPA and was fined $50,000.[14]

The Act was first amended by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, where Title V is known as the "Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Amendments of 1988". It introduced a "knowing" standard in order to find violations of the Act, encompassing "conscious disregard" and "willful blindness." Other amendments were for "bona fide", "reasonable" and lawful gifts under the laws of the foreign country.[15]

Oh, okay, wow, so it was actually just straight-up legal to bribe people beforehand. I guess this was undermining trust in the system because it made it a little too obvious how much graft was involved? But they fixed it and then they tweaked it in '88 to make it a little more fair, I guess, to people unfairly accused of making bribes. But at least that means on the U.S.' side of things, we're plugging the hole on this corruption thing.

Regarding payments to foreign officials, the act draws a distinction between bribery and facilitation or "grease payments", which may be permissible under the FCPA, but may still violate local laws. The primary distinction is that grease payments or facilitation payments are made to an official to expedite his performance of the routine duties he is already bound to perform. The exception focuses on the purpose of the payment rather than on its value. Payments to foreign officials may be legal under the FCPA if the payments are permitted under the written laws of the host country. Certain payments or reimbursements relating to product promotion may also be permitted under the FCPA.[27]

Oh... maybe not. You just need to make sure your payments are justifiable. Even if that's illegal in the foreign country. That seems a little strange huh? That CPI references the risk of FCPA violations more than breaking the laws of the target country. It's almost like the actual purpose is to make sure our own home-grown investor's investments are kept safe and secure.

Businesses increasingly focus on their core competencies, and as a result engage more third parties to provide critical business functions. Companies do not have direct control over their third-party providers, which expose them to regulatory and reputational risk of FCPA violations by those third parties.[31] Under the FCPA, businesses are accountable for activities involving both their internal and external relationships. Companies that operate internationally, or that engage third parties in countries with a high Corruption Perceptions Index, are especially at risk. Many companies have now adopted "anti-bribery/anti-corruption" (ABAC) solutions to combat this risk and help protect themselves from fines and reputational damage.

ABAC compliance solutions are a subset of third party management. These systems can automatically manage third party information and monitor their ongoing activities in compliance with FCPA regulation.

Ahah, there it is. It's a reputational thing. And to whom is this all reputed?

Since 2012 CPI takes into account 13 different surveys and assessments[6] from 12 different institutions.[7] The institutions are:

• African Development Bank (based in Côte d'Ivoire)
• Bertelsmann Foundation (based in Germany)
• Economist Intelligence Unit (based in the UK)
• Freedom House (based in the US)
• Global Insight (based in the US)
• International Institute for Management Development (based in Switzerland)
• Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (based in Hong Kong)
• The PRS Group, Inc., (based in the US)
• World Bank
• World Economic Forum
• World Justice Project (based in the US)

Countries need to be evaluated by at least three sources to appear in the CPI.[8] The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring absolute levels of corruption.[9] Transparency International commissioned the University of Passau's Johann Graf Lambsdorff to produce the CPI.[10] Early CPIs used public opinion surveys.[8]

Public opinion surveys. I guess this'd be the same public that sold New England Wire & Cable.

But okay, so, who gets... like, punished under this act?

In 2008, Siemens AG paid $450 million in criminal fines to the DOJ and $350 million to the SEC for violating the FCPA. This is one of the largest penalties ever collected for an FCPA case.[34][35]

In 2012, Japanese firm Marubeni Corporation paid a criminal penalty of US$54.6 million for FCPA violations when acting as an agent of the TKSJ joint venture, which comprised Technip, Snamprogetti Netherlands B.V., Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., and JGC Corporation. Between 1995 and 2004, the joint venture won four contracts in Nigeria worth more than US$6 billion, as a direct result of having paid US$51 million to Marubeni to be used to bribe Nigerian government officials.[36]

In 2012 Smith & Nephew paid US$22.2 million to the DOJ and SEC, and Bizjet International Sales and Support Inc. paid US$11.8 million to the DOJ for bribery of foreign government officials. Both companies entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.[37][38]

What??! Bruh, these aren't even American companies! Oh man, talk about getting your hand caught in the mouse trap.

In March 2012, Biomet Inc. paid a criminal fine of US$17.3 million to resolve charges of FCPA violations and US$5.5 million in disgorgement of profits and pre-judgment interest to the SEC.[39]

In January 2014, ALCOA paid $175 million in disgorgement of revenues and a fine of $209 million to settle charges that its Australian bauxite mining subsidiary retained an agent that made bribes to government officials in Bahrain and to officers of Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. to secure long-term contracts to supply the company with bauxite ore.[40]

In March 2014, Marubeni Corporation agreed with the DOJ to pay a US$88 million fine after pleading guilty to taking part in a scheme to pay bribes to high-ranking Indonesian officials in order to secure a lucrative power project.[41]

All these guys had to do was find a way to call it an edible arrangement...

On February 24, 2015, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company "Goodyear" agreed to pay more than $16 million to settle FCPA charges that two of its African subsidiaries allegedly paid $3.2 million in bribes that generated $14,122,535 in illicit profits.[42] The SEC FCPA charges involved Goodyear subsidiaries in Kenya and Angola for allegedly paying bribes to government and private-sector workers in exchange for sales in each country.[43] According to the SEC because "Goodyear did not prevent or detect these improper payments because it failed to implement adequate FCPA compliance controls at its subsidiaries" and, for the Kenyan subsidiary, "because it failed to conduct adequate due diligence" prior to its acquisition. It was not alleged that Goodyear had any involvement with or knowledge of its subsidiaries' improper conduct.[44]

Wait, so... Goodyear was the good guy here, right? It was the African subsidiaries who fudged up? The ones that uh, only worked for Goodyear. So Kenya and Angola are the problems here.

In July 2017, Ng Lap Seng, a Macau-based Chinese billionaire real estate businessman, chairman of the Sun Kian Ip Group (新建业集团), and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), was convicted after a five-week trial of two counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, one count of paying bribes and gratuities, one count of money laundering and two counts of conspiracy. In 2018 Ng Lap Seng was sentenced to 48 months in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in a scheme to bribe United Nations ambassadors to obtain support to build a conference center in Macau that would host, among other events, the annual United Nations Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) organised by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), then headed by Chinese national Yiping Zhou.

This... actually... just seems like a joke? Like the act of corruption was trying to build a UN conference center in Macau? Well it involved bribery, yeah, and I guess they couldn't find a way to spin that.

In 2010 the DOJ and the SEC were investigating whether Hewlett Packard Company executives paid about $10.9 million in bribery money between 2004 and 2006 to the Prosecutor General of Russia "to win a €35 million contract to supply computer equipment throughout Russia."[46][47] On September 11, 2014, HP Russia pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge D. Lowell Jensen of the Northern District of California to conspiracy and substantive violations of the anti-bribery and accounting provisions of the FCPA. The court sentenced HP Russia to pay a $58,772,250 fine.[48]

Wow, so we managed to clear a Russian partner out of $60 million with this stuff. Wait, what is the point of this act, again?

Spoiler :

So maybe it has nothing to do with morality or even the governments themselves and everything to do with the fact that green country money talks a lot in red country slums, as you said before. But there's another element of it. The CPI is meant to protect itself and its own constituency: the business interests that make it up. Nothing actually stops them from lobbying at home. The thing that makes it different is that it's home. And obviously our home is a safe investment destination, declare the investing public of the world.

I guess true lack of corruption comes from paying your membership dues.

In Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"), China scored 45. When ranked by score, China ranked 65th among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector.[28] For comparison, the best score was 90 (ranked 1), the worst score was 12 (ranked 180), and the average score was 43.[29] The 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index had showed decreasing corruption in China, and that in 2021 and 2022, for the first time, China had less perceived corruption than the average country; that is, China's 2021–22 score of 45 was higher than the average score of 43.[30][29]

A 2022 study by researchers at the University of Navarra and the University of Manchester suggested that certain forms of corruption increased during the Xi Jinping administration.[31][32]

Cool, well glad to see it's getting better. Or not? I dunno, it's sort of hard to tell with qualitative methods after all.

In the United States, many lawyers advise international businesses to consult the CPI when attempting to measure the risk of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations in different nations. This practice has been criticized by the Minnesota Journal of International Law, which wrote that since the CPI may be subject to perceptual biases it therefore should not be considered by lawyers to be a measure of actual national corruption risk.[20]

 

[Zardnaar]

Like you did with antisemitism?

But I do find it interesting that anytime you ever talk about another country - even to people from that country, it's always "publicly-available information", but when anyone talks about NZ you always trot out the question of "are you from here".

This originates from a poster claiming Maori in NZ are treated as Palestinians. And claimed intermarriage is slavery.

Here it's around 50% Palestinians and Israelis very very rare.

Slight difference

Gaslighting, strawman and false equivalents.

Ts also why I said things we do here won't work overseas.

 

[Gorbles]

This originates from a poster claiming Maori in NZ are treated as Palestinians. And claimed intermarriage is slavery.

Let's take the accuracy of your paraphrasing as, well, accurate (because that isn't always the case). So what?

Them making a claim you find ludicrous, that you require proof for, doesn't make you magically-immune to the same because you're claiming your opinion is founded upon "publicly-available information". You made a claim about the US. Prove it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Let's take the accuracy of your paraphrasing as, well, accurate (because that isn't always the case). So what?

Them making a claim you find ludicrous, that you require proof for, doesn't make you magically-immune to the same because you're claiming your opinion is founded upon "publicly-available information". You made a claim about the US. Prove it.

If you want to play thr source it gane you lot are in trouble.

What was the claim specifically. I can dig it up if you want but we can easily start asking you to source everything as well.

Generally I don't bother playing this game if it's easily verified/general knowledge or am opinion.

 

[Crezth]

I actually do source my claims and I’m not sure I’ve seen you do it even once?

 

[Zardnaar]

I actually do source my claims and I’m not sure I’ve seen you do it even once?

Lol you were the one who claimed intermarriage was slavery.

 

[Gorbles]

If you want to play thr source it gane you lot are in trouble.

Nice dodge. No answer, I see. If you literally can't remember the thing you were claiming a page ago (or less), I'm not doing your homework for you.

All it shows is that your claims require no evidence, but everyone else's does. Good luck with that

 

[Zardnaar]

Nice dodge. No answer, I see. If you literally can't remember the thing you were claiming a page ago (or less), I'm not doing your homework for you.

All it shows is that your claims require no evidence, but everyone else's does. Good luck with that

Things get buried fast and I went to bed.

It's like when eople claim "prove it" when they said it 5 or 6 or 10 pages ago. They're just trying to make you waste time digging up their quote. Eben if you we post it they'll just whatabout it.

Eg racism exists in every country so casual racism in NZ is the same as Palestinians. And marriage equals slavery apparently.

Yeah........

 

[Gorbles]

It's like when eople claim "prove it" when they said it 5 or 6 or 10 pages ago.

Lol you were the one who claimed intermarriage was slavery.

Oki doki

 

[Zardnaar]

Oki doki

Second comment was aimed at Crezth.

And its a waste of time pointing things out because you just get strawmanned, gaslit or a whataboutism. Eg marriage is slavery when I pointed out intermarriage rates here.

It's because the message isn't universally applicable or race relations in American context don't make much sense here or in other countries. Or things are inverted eg immigration here it's the right pushing for it.

But if you're pushing your one true way you have to make a square peg fit in round hole. Otherwise the alternative is your square peg may be wrong.

 

[Gorbles]

Second comment was aimed at Crezth.

Yes, and? My whole point was "you're criticising others for things you're doing yourself". Still stands.

And its a waste of time pointing things out because you just get strawmanned, gaslit or a whataboutism.

I don't think I've seen an opinion made by you about leftists that wasn't in some way a strawman or some whataboutism about loving China or some other authoritarian hellhole (Crezth may disagree, that's fine, but again that's the problem in lumping a bunch of posters together in all things because they share opinions on some things). So . . . why am I supposed to care, when you can't go a single thread without doing the same?

But if you're pushing your one true way you have to make a square peg fit in round hole. Otherwise the alternative is your square peg may be wrong.

Imagine that! Imagine that your square peg may be wrong. Occasionally. Just give it a go.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, and? My whole point was "you're criticising others for things you're doing yourself". Still stands.

I don't think I've seen an opinion made by you about leftists that wasn't in some way a strawman or some whataboutism about loving China or some other authoritarian hellhole (Crezth may disagree, that's fine, but again that's the problem in lumping a bunch of posters together in all things because they share opinions on some things). So . . . why am I supposed to care, when you can't go a single thread without doing the same?

Imagine that! Imagine that your square peg may be wrong. Occasionally. Just give it a go.

I'm not a committed ideologue though. Socialism can work I think for example as long as everyone involved is 100% on board.

I'm opposed to forcing it on people and the way you force it well you just repeat what's already been tried.

And since I live in the least corrupt country in the world (smugface) how it works here won't work overseas. Political dysyems are different, different culture.

Things aren't perfect here least corrupt doesn't nean no corruption.

It's also chicken and egg situation. Political corruption is it the politicians fault or the society tgat elects them or enables them to seize power?

Socialism might work one day eg Star Trek, Communism won't because of the contradictions in it eg you seize power by force you have to oppress someone else.

If everyone followed "Zardism" world would work fine. Zardusm won't work though because the world doesn't follow NZs social mores and it's a waste of time trying to impose it.

To minimize corruption you need a combination of laws, social mores, political stability etc.

 

[Gorbles]

I'm not a committed ideologue though.

Sure you are. You believe what we have is the best we've got, so we just need to knuckle under and deal with it. No?

I'm opposed to forcing it on people and the way you force it well you just repeat what's already been tried.

Enforcing the status quo is forcing it on people who don't want it.

And since I live in the least corrupt country in the world (smugface) how it works here won't work overseas.

Just because you have the lowest number on some chart somewhere, doesn't mean that's how it shakes out in reality. Other Kiwis I know paint a much less rosier picture of the state of NZ these days.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sure you are. You believe what we have is the best we've got, so we just need to knuckle under and deal with it. No?

Enforcing the status quo is forcing it on people who don't want it.

Just because you have the lowest number on some chart somewhere, doesn't mean that's how it shakes out in reality. Other Kiwis I know paint a much less rosier picture of the state of NZ these days.

NZ has its problems I've said that multiple times. I think the way to fix it ultimately is generational. NZ big problems are fairly well known.

So depending on who you're talking to you'll find all sorts of opinions on what the big problems here are.

All I'm saying is comparatively we score very high on quality of life type metrics, lack of corruption, peace, things like that. We don't score very high on cost of living or wealth inequality for example.

People thought Thatcher and Reagan ideas were top notch. They weref full of crap. Broadly speaking I think we agree on that much.

 

[Gorbles]

NZ has its problems I've said that multiple times. I think the way to fix it ultimately is generational. NZ big problems are fairly well known.

So depending on who you're talking to you'll find all sorts of opinions on what the big problems here are.

All I'm saying is comparatively we score very high on quality of life type metrics, lack of corruption, peace, things like that. We don't score very high on cost of living or wealth inequality for example.

People thought Thatcher and Reagan ideas were top notch. They weref full of crap. Broadly speaking I think we agree on that much.

But you disagree on what specific posters claim are problems with NZ. It's okay so long as you, a single person living in NZ, agrees with the problems NZ is blamed for. But if you disagree . . . that's it?

Like, why? You talk about UK politics so much, and get so much wrong. You talk about US politics, and it's "public knowledge" of whatever it is you're talking about. Even when you're wrong! Or failing that, even when it's arguable. But you still talk about how you don't push your one true way?

Of course you do. Everybody does. I don't blame you for having an opinion. That's what it means to have an opinion. All those scary Marxists you disagree with so much? Opinions. Valid or not, backed up by fact or not, they're still opinions. They're not some secret cabal pushing their One True Way on an unwilling world.

 

[Zardnaar]

But you disagree on what specific posters claim are problems with NZ. It's okay so long as you, a single person living in NZ, agrees with the problems NZ is blamed for. But if you disagree . . . that's it?

Like, why? You talk about UK politics so much, and get so much wrong. You talk about US politics, and it's "public knowledge" of whatever it is you're talking about. Even when you're wrong! Or failing that, even when it's arguable. But you still talk about how you don't push your one true way?

Of course you do. Everybody does. I don't blame you for having an opinion. That's what it means to have an opinion. All those scary Marxists you disagree with so much? Opinions. Valid or not, backed up by fact or not, they're still opinions. They're not some secret cabal pushing their One True Way on an unwilling world.

There's opinions and out right falsehoods.

You support the marriage is slavery claim for example? It's crap like that I object to not bad things said about NZ. All the bad things you hear about overseas well they exist here.

Much like anywhere if your in the bottom 10% here it sucks and further down you go its that much worse.

It's the scale and frequency is where the nuance comes into it.