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I hate to break it to you but there is no such agreement.

The exact scope of the Western world is somewhat subjective in nature, depending on whether cultural, economic, spiritual or political criteria are employed.

From a cultural point of view Brazil could very well belong to the West, however that is not what is being challenged here [in my opinion].

The obvious cultural, economic and political differences between Brazil and what is known today as described by the term "the West" (Western Europe, North America, Israel, Australia and New Zealand) are clear. Corruption is endemic, the justice system incapable, crime rates sky high, racial discrimination heavy, wealth distribution skewed.

It would perhaps be more pertinent to discuss this in light of Brazil's present and future economic situation.

As of today Brazil is not a developed country according to the IMF, OECD or the UN.

It is perhaps most clear when considering the unequal nature of Brazilian society and Brazil's ranking according to the Human Development index. Brazil is ranked far below the average OECD country (Figure #1).

I think the report speaks for itself: "By looking at some of the most fundamental aspects of people’s lives and opportunities the HDI provides a much more complete picture of a country's development than other indicators, such as GDP per capita."

Opposing the government is bad?

Just a few of the countless allegations Berlusconi has faced would be enough to cause someone to resign in most other developed countries, never mind lengthy court cases or 'exonerations'. Sadly, Italy is on the lower end of the scale for the first world when it comes to corruption and transparency.

http://www.transparency.org/content/download/47601/761851/CPI+2009+Regional+Highlights+EU+and+Western+Europe_en.pdf

Italy gets 4.3, only slightly less corrupt than Bulgaria, Greece and Romania. Greece is the only other Western European Country that's worse, and look where they are now. Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia are all less corrupt than Italy, and they're much less developed. Globally, Namibia, South Africa and Oman are some of the countries with a better ranking than Italy, which ranks 63rd, just above Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. ( http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table ).

Italy comes joint 17th with Brazil on the Bribe Payers Index, again below South Africa and just above India, Mexico, China and Russia. ( http://www.transparency.org/news_room/latest_news/press_releases/2008/bpi_2008_en )

http://www.transparency.org/content/download/43788/701097

69% of respondents think the current government's actions to fight corruption are ineffective. Political parties get 4.1 out of 5 as an index of corruption.

I suppose that's all the opposition left-wing's fault?

Opposing the government is bad?

Just a few of the countless allegations Berlusconi has faced would be enough to cause someone to resign in most other developed countries, never mind lengthy court cases or 'exonerations'. Sadly, Italy is on the lower end of the scale for the first world when it comes to corruption and transparency.

http://www.transparency.org/content/download/47601/761851/CPI+2009+Regional+Highlights+EU+and+Western+Europe_en.pdf

Italy gets 4.3, only slightly less corrupt than Bulgaria, Greece and Romania. Greece is the only other Western European Country that's worse, and look where they are now. Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia are all less corrupt than Italy, and they're much less developed. Globally, Namibia, South Africa and Oman are some of the countries with a better ranking than Italy, which ranks 63rd, just above Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. ( http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table ).

Italy comes joint 17th with Brazil on the Bribe Payers Index, again below South Africa and just above India, Mexico, China and Russia. ( http://www.transparency.org/news_room/latest_news/press_releases/2008/bpi_2008_en )

http://www.transparency.org/content/download/43788/701097

69% of respondents think the current government's actions to fight corruption are ineffective. Political parties get 4.1 out of 5 as an index of corruption.

I suppose that's all the opposition left-wing's fault?

Opposing the government is bad?

Just a few of the countless allegations Berlusconi has faced would be enough to cause someone to resign in most other developed countries, never mind lengthy court cases or 'exonerations'. Sadly, Italy is on the lower end of the scale for the first world when it comes to corruption and transparency.

http://www.transparency.org/content/download/47601/761851/CPI+2009+Regional+Highlights+EU+and+Western+Europe_en.pdf

Italy gets 4.3, only slightly less corrupt than Bulgaria, Greece and Romania. Greece is the only other Western European Country that's worse, and look where they are now. Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia are all less corrupt than Italy, and they're much less developed. Globally, Namibia, South Africa and Oman are some of the countries with a better ranking than Italy, which ranks 63rd, just above Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. ( http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table ).

Italy comes joint 17th with Brazil on the Bribe Payers Index, again below South Africa and just above India, Mexico, China and Russia. ( http://www.transparency.org/news_room/latest_news/press_releases/2008/bpi_2008_en )

http://www.transparency.org/content/download/43788/701097

69% of respondents think the current government's actions to fight corruption are ineffective. Political parties get 4.1 out of 5 as an index of corruption.

I suppose that's all the opposition left-wing's fault?

Opposing the government is bad?

Just a few of the countless allegations Berlusconi has faced would be enough to cause someone to resign in most other developed countries, never mind lengthy court cases or 'exonerations'. Sadly, Italy is on the lower end of the scale for the first world when it comes to corruption and transparency.

http://www.transparency.org/content/download/47601/761851/CPI+2009+Regional+Highlights+EU+and+Western+Europe_en.pdf

Italy gets 4.3, only slightly less corrupt than Bulgaria, Greece and Romania. Greece is the only other Western European Country that's worse, and look where they are now. Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia are all less corrupt than Italy, and they're much less developed. Globally, Namibia, South Africa and Oman are some of the countries with a better ranking than Italy, which ranks 63rd, just above Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. ( http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table ).

Italy comes joint 17th with Brazil on the Bribe Payers Index, again below South Africa and just above India, Mexico, China and Russia. ( http://www.transparency.org/news_room/latest_news/press_releases/2008/bpi_2008_en )

http://www.transparency.org/content/download/43788/701097

69% of respondents think the current government's actions to fight corruption are ineffective. Political parties get 4.1 out of 5 as an index of corruption.

I suppose that's all the opposition left-wing's fault?

I didn't count how often the word "corrupt" was used in that post of yours, but if anything, Sweden is not so. It is one of the cleanest and most transparent countries in the world, standing proud near the very top in the corruption index. One of the major advantages of such a country is that you can be pretty sure of a fair trial, and that if anything is wrong it is all clear in the open and thus can be corrected with relative ease. The USA for example come in at nr 19. Not bad, but not great either, especially not for a country that tries to impose it's own ideas on the rest of the world, with military might if need be.

If there is any sign of corruption or self-interest from the side of the judge in a country as free and open as Sweden you can count on the press to name and shame such judge and their behaviour, especially with this kind of high-profile cases.

IANAL, and neither are you, so unless you come up with some serious stuff to back up your claims I call them nonsense.

Not true, at least not in Germany, where I'm from.

Indeed, Germany has pretty low corruption - but so does the US. They both score well. The system you describe is almost identical to the US system, with the addition of direct contributions to a campaign. The maximum contribution is $2400... are you seriously suggesting that a candidate can be bought for such a low sum?

While I agree with you to a certain extent, I do not think that this should lead us to abandon all attempts to get closer to the ideal of fairness for all.

I sort of agree, but it's not that simple. Sometimes ideals conflict with reality. There are always power brokers. In capitalist countries, these tend to be rich people. In authoritarian countries, these tend to be either the party faithful or the friends and relatives of the ruling elite. The closest we've come to a level playing field has been the internet, and even then if you are poor you probably can't afford the hosting bill that would come with the traffic load going to, say, the Huffington Post. One also has to consider that there is a history of rich people who aspire to speak for the poor and voiceless.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, that by taking power away from one group you will simply create another group with power. Do you really care if a corrupt union boss or a corrupt Wall Street tycoon is calling the shots? Either way the enemy is corruption, not who controls the power.

Texas has a LOT of land that's not particularly good for animals, humans or plants over about 3 feet tall, and is perfect for wind farms.

Well, that's easy for you to say. Do you share the same opinions about the landscape of the arctic wildlife preserves?

theres a big difference between the artic wildlife preserves and the texas panhandle, BIG. obviously theclimate, but only _slightly_ less obvious is the wildlife diversity / scarcity. theres not a lot of wildlife that lives specifically in that area at all, much less endangered species. There are few Raptors that live in that area as well, furthermore the Energy Center of Wisconsin claims that Cell Phone Towers kill far more birds annually. i guess we should stop using them too, huh?

Those wind farms really scar the countryside, and the maintenance roads that link them further destroys the ecosystems you so readily condemn. Don't forget about the intra-farm transmission lines and support structures. These things destroy hundreds of square miles to produce the power of one natural gas power station. Of course, it's on somebody else's land, though, isn't it? I guess there's no price some people are not willing for someone else to pay.
 

In open, flat terrain, a utility-scale wind plant will require about 60 acres per megawatt of installed capacity. However, only 5% (3 acres) or less of this area is actually occupied by turbines, access roads, and other equipment--95% remains free for other compatible uses such as farming or ranching. But lets not limit our view to land use, since you mentioned the alternative of natural gas, lets look at some of the resources that requires in comparison
according to the American Wind Energy Association [awea.org] (i know, probably a somewhat biased source, but hey, its _a_ source, all i saw in your post was youtube, which i dont consider a source for things like _facts_ and _data_) a combined cycle gas plant requires approx .25 gal\kWh produced, a wind plant requires .001 gal\kWh, again i ask, have you been to Texas? its not exactly drowning in water, except for the Gulf Coast, but thats several hundred miles away, should we truck the water in or lay pipelines for a gas plant? i'm sure the impacts of that would be minimal.

And funny that coal was mentioned, because it is the most favored fuel under the new "green energy" bill passed by the US House of Representatives. It is going to be massively subsidized for decades to come, while the cleanest fuel (natural gas) is the most punished -- both in power generation and industry. But, hey, who cares if "green energy" as portrayed in the popular press works or not... it's _GREEN_, and these wind farms go to ELEVEN!

ummm... the the US house of representatives? the same US house of representatives that is considered to be the 7th most corrupt on the planet by Transparency Internationals 2009 Global Corruption Barometer? http://www.transparency.org/ you _really_ want to trust that they're looking out for _your_ interests? wait, are you an Oil Barron, or a major Pharmaceutical manufacturer, or a Multinational Conglomerate or a failing bank? if so, these just might be your guys.

In communism the people own everything and everyone works for the good of everyone.

That's socialism. Communism is a derivative of socialism, and I'm yet to see it done in a non-authoritarian style.

My point is - you need to swap communism and socialism in your post.

Example: Scandinavian countries. Highly socialist countries. Mix in the high amount of political parties in parliament, you'll find it very difficult to retain power on your own. They tend to favour minority governments, needing support from other parties to push through any kind of legislation.

They also tend to be the lest corrupt countries in the world.

Transparency International: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_International and http://www.transparency.org/

It's a tough road to take, but if everybody tolerates corruption, it ain't gonna go away, and it certainly hurts more than it helps.

Bribery stories are my favorite from folks doing business overseas. In order to avoid direct bribery, some companies hire local "consultants," who get paid an obscene fee to help land the contract. What they do with their money doesn't concern the company paying the fee; the bribe is indirect.

My all time favorite was from a government auditor who visited Korea to check up on three local suppliers to the US military. The suppliers made dinner arrangements, and told the auditor where to meet them. When he arrived at the restaurant, there were the three suppliers, with four prostitutes seated at the table, with one empty seat.

What's so funny? The auditor had brought his wife along to see Korea, and came with him to the restaurant. One prostitute got her pay early, and the mood at the table afterwards was uncomfortable.

But the facts speak of endemic corruption. There is a revolving door between the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA (and other government agencies). A pattern of industry funding of perks for FDA officials has emerged.

Consider that low-level operatives in the drug industry being afraid of the FDA is not mutually exclusive with the FDA being bought off: for the same reason that mobsters are not sanguine about the police, even when many officers in the department are on the take.

Really, it's just ignorance and a group of politicians on both sides who run a small country with limited resources and didn't appreciate until now that anyone but the entertainment industry seriously cared about an issue that the media doesn't traditionally make a lot of noise about because copyright is usually very boring. They've been caught by surprise, which is why there's suddenly so much open controversy in the media.

The New Zealand government has its problems as any government does, but it's naive to just assume that it's corrupt because it's a government and because the overtones on Slashdot tend to be that governments are corrupt. NZ politicians aren't perfect or inherently uncorrupt, and nor are public servents, but the country's much smaller, the election cycle is faster, there's only a single tier of representation, and the people in the government are much more directly accountable to the people who they govern. Mistakes get made but there are still checks and balances in place, of which the Official Information Act has had a huge impact, and for 3 years running Transparency International has rated NZ first equal in its corruption perceptions index. It's been in the top 3 for 9 of the 10 years that the index has been published (in 1998 NZ was ranked 4th).

Section 92A is very badly worded and badly thought out, and you could quite easily claim that Labour made some seriously bad mistakes in drafting it as they have with several other recent things, but I think it's a real stretch to claim that this is blatantly corrupt.

I think you missed my point. I wasn't trying to suggest that this money would be wasted because it would be spent on something other than the project it's earmarked for. My point was that even if it is spent on the broad band project, and they accomplish their goals, it may still have been a waste. The Korean government's contribution amounts to about $20 USD from every man, woman and child in South Korea. That doesn't seem like much, until you remember that the private telecoms are also spending about 25 times that much. Where do you think they'll get that money? Answer: their customers. In other words, current Korean broadband customers will pay more in the next five years in order to finance this new infrastructure. That's money they're not spending on clothes, entertainment, etc. In other words, every other part of the Korean economy.

Then there's all those jobs. Each one represents someone who isn't working somewhere else. Meaning companies not involved in this project will need to pay more for their labor than they might have otherwise.

All this might be worth it, if the end result of the project was something really useful. But considering they already have 100Mb/s, is the extra speed really that useful? How about when compared with what else you could do with $25 billion USD?

If the new infrastructure is really going to be that useful and beneficial, couldn't the telecoms foot the bill themselves, since they're the ones who're going to eventually profit from it?

Also: It looks doubtful that South Korea is less corrupt than the United States. Don't believe me? US: 7.3, South Korea: 5.6.

That's a nice theory about the new PM, but as far as I can tell, he's part of a coalition of minor parties and he spoke out over the army coup in 2006. He was actually supported by the King, not the military.

While it's true that the Democrats are in coalition with minor parties, I would hardly call the Democrat party itself a "minor party"--they were the #2 party behind TRT/PPP before the latter's dissolution.

Admittedly, the Suvanabhumi airport fiasco and the removal of Somchai, the democratically-elected PM was sad, but there's no way to know how corrupt those elections were. A vote sold for two beers when I lived there. The PPP (Somchai's party) was apparently dissolved for buying votes, though there's some evidence that it was business as usual.

Well, election monitors from the EU said that the 2007 election that put the PPP and Samak Sundaravej in power went mostly smoothly, despite complaints of vote-buying. Yes, it's unfortunate that vote-buying is commonplace in Thailand, but according to Transparency International, corruption in Thailand went down while Thaksin was in power, and went back up after the coup. Their CPI for Thailand was 3.0 in 1998, then stayed at 3.2 until 2003, when it went up to 3.3, then 3.6, then to a high of 3.8 in 2005. 2006 saw it fall to 3.6, then 3.3. Their latest report for 2008 has it at 3.5. Higher scores means less corruption. Thaksin was PM from 2001 to 2006. Now, none of those number are particularly good on a global scale (Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden tied for least corrupt this year, with a score of 9.3--the USA is at 7.3 along with Belgium and Japan), so Thailand certainly has a ways to go, but the allegations of corruption against Thaksin sound more like sour grapes to me--the traditional elite are just upset that they're no longer the ones getting their palms greased.

Disclaimer: I do know former Democrat PM Chuan Leekpai as a very very casual acquaintance--I'm certainly not buddy-buddy with him, but I have met with him one-on-one a few times. However, I don't feel that I'm being biased either for or against the Democrats in this post.

Singapore does this, and it actually works pretty well: the city-state regularly scores near the top as one of the least corrupt countries in the world.

Ah I see. Good point - virtually ALL countries refer to their cabinet members as Ministers (or some word translated into English as 'ministers' at least). Including a lot of 'bad' ones :)

One interesting thing though - check this out http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2008

One of the ones I mentioned (NZ) is in fact equal first on this years index (least corrupt countries in the world). The others are mostly in the yellow (good), or orange (fairly good) shading on the map (excepting South Africa). Not too bad on the whole. Now of course one might argue that their methods of coming up with this index are flawed, but there's an extensive FAQ that explains how they do it in good detail. It's rather shocking how few countries get that yellow or orange colour when you look at the map though.

Given that the goal of of democracy is to create a government subordinate to and responsible to the people, government secrecy is anti-democratic

If the work of a government involves the management of people's personal/private information, then I think some secrecy is justified. (eg. Tax departments probably hold a lot of information about individuals that shouldn't be distributed to everyone.) It also makes sense for some parts of government to keep information secret if its release might compromise safety of people, and ideally only for the duration of time that this is an issue. (eg. Police investigations, and yeah I'm sure there is the occasional national security thing that justifies this.)

The problem is really that lazily designed governments tend to lean towards habits of making things secret by default because it's easier than having to make them open. Once you're in the habit of having secrets it's difficult to re-design ways of doing things to make them less secret, but still keep it safe. If you want an idea of a government with a reasonably open design, take a look at this Australian journalist's blog post about the New Zealand Government's Official Information Act. (Transparency International rates NZ as first equal with Denmark and Sweden in its 2008 corruption perception's index.)

Anyone in New Zealand can request any information they like from a government department, and the department is legally obligated to respond with the information within a set time-frame. The only exceptions are if the request wasn't specific enough (or would require unreasonable amounts of work), if privacy or national security might be unreasonably compromised, if the department doesn't have the info (in which case they have to try to transfer it to somewhere that does) and a few other things which are clearly defined. If anything is with-held, the department has to explain why in the context of the relevant section of the law.

If the person who made a request isn't satisfied, they can complain to an independent ombudsman who has complete power to investigate and see any information that's being withheld, then make a judgement. The consequence is that nearly any sizeable government department has entire sections of people whose primary job is to receive requests for information, distribute them to people who can answer them, and make sure they get answered on time. Being too badly organised isn't an acceptable excuse for not responding in the legally defined timeframe, so librarians get employed to make sure that all information gets properly catalogued as soon as it's produced, to make it efficient and quick to find if and when it's requested, and that relevant information doesn't get missed. (Otherwise the department could get in trouble later on if there's an investigation.) Often it's easier to just be in the habit of producing information and reports that can easily be made public, and publishing it before people ask for it, then help people find it if they continue to ask.

If there aren't proper checks and balances within the government, there's nothing to make sure that an agency is doing what it's supposed to do when it's being secret. That's where the biggest problem is because there's no reason to justify why the public should trust the government, and trust should be everything in a democratically elected government. Even if you don't get the government you voted for, you should be able to trust that the government you get is doing what it's doing above board and as openly as possible. You should also be able to be sure that elected politicians aren't directly interfering with the rest of the workings of government except in ways that are clearly visible and above board, and I think that's where the USA and several other countries have serious p

Transparency international recently launched the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2008. CPI is supposed to be a measurement of the amount of corruption in the public sector. In the 2008 results Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden are at the top and Norway comes in at 14th place while the US at 18th.

Transparency international recently launched the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2008. CPI is supposed to be a measurement of the amount of corruption in the public sector. In the 2008 results Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden are at the top and Norway comes in at 14th place while the US at 18th.

Wanna know why they are poor:

http://www.transparency.org/

http://www.doingbusiness.org/

20 USA

Eivind.

The only western European countries coming *after* the US are Belgium (which is actually inside the confidence range of the US), Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece.

Side note: The prominent cases you find under your search are cases of bribery payment abroad; that's much more societally acceptable in Norway than taking of bribes, as having to pay bribes is sort of seen as a necessary cost of business in "those corrupt countries". I'll agree that that's a lousy attitude, too.

Eivind.

from http://www.transparency.org/content/download/19338/267706 :

"Denmark, Sweden and Finland lead TI's Global Corruption Barometer
2006 with the lowest perceived levels of judicial corruption."

I guess that depends on your definition of the "free world." Personally I am troubled by the corruption I see in America, which was once considered a member of that club. In global terms, the integrity of the American government(s) was ranked 20th by the Global Corruption Report. Judging by your nick, you probably are glad to know Canada is indeed ranked less corrupt. I don't know if the level of American corruption qualifies as "rampant," but it is real and does affect its citizens. Look at the chilling effects of the media-purchased DMCA, the Florida recount debacle of 2000, and the wrist-slaps administered to Microsoft in 2001 and to Sony-BMG in 2005. Microsoft smothered Netscape and WordPerfect in front of everyone's eyes, and where is their punishment? Sony-BMG did on a grand scale the same sort of thing that earned federal prison sentences for the wunderkind hackers of the 1980s. But who in Sony-BMG went to prison? Why is Sony-BMG still permitted to conduct business in the USA? They are just going to do it again someday. Not much justice here bro (or sis). Large scale corruption, we gots that aplenty.

Now, I think know what you mean I guess -- I've lived in some of those countries way below 20th place also, and I've seen plenty of the "usual" brand of corruption too. At least I don't get shaken down for bribes, or outright robbed, by the local police here. But, I also pay much, much higher taxes and the police get much, much higher salaries. Frankly I am not sure that there is any substantial difference in the perniciousness of corruption in the USA compared to the developing world.

You know, it's great that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is donating all that money to research and aide but if word gets out that they're using that to influence who those countries do business with, I don't think anyone's going to be impressed anymore.

It sounds like quite a complicated issue to me.

I think most people responding to this story are focusing a bit too much on the their own expectations, from the perspective of relatively transparent societies, and are ignoring that this is Nigeria. Nigeria is placed at 147th equal (of 179) in the Transparency International Corruption Perception's Index with an impressive score of 2.2/10, give or take 0.2 either way. Libya, for that matter, rates at 131st equal with a score of 2.5/10.

These are countries where bribery of corrupt officials is necessary simply to make the world go around and to get anything done at all. It's expected, and it's a perk of getting a position with power, for which the salary is probably low due to the expectation that bribes will be a major part of a person's income. People in power get ahead by being corrupt, it's treated as normal because it's widespread that it's difficult to get rid of, and the concept of corruption being bad really is a foreign concept to anyone in power.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Microsoft bribed Nigerian and Libyan officials, either directly or indirectly. I also don't think it's too much to suggest that bribery was likely to have been part of the process of getting anything there in the first place, open source or not.

This isn't specifically an issue of Microsoft being corrupt to get their product in the door. It's an issue of Microsoft playing by the rules put forward by the government that it's dealing with. Those rules basically say that whoever has the most money and can get it to the right people wins. Which contract is better for the people who actually live in Nigeria and Libya is irrelevant. It's completely unfair, but it's also the only realistic way to get a lot of things to happen at all, until the corruption issue is sorted out.

Relatively transparent governments are a luxury that we're too used to, but it doesn't really work that way in a place like Nigeria. It's bad for Mandriva, it's even worse for the people who actually live there, but this will keep happening until the corruption is actually sorted out, if ever.

Other industries (Oil definitely springs to mind) have a lot of experience in dealing with corrupt regimes, since they've been doing it for decades and people in western societies don't really care as it doesn't affect them. Perhaps this is getting noticed so much because the tech industry is relatively new to dealing with corrupt countries.

I have a simple test that can show that a company is paying bribes. If they get government contracts in the red areas of this map, or do business with any regularity in the dark red areas, then they must pay bribes.

Every year http://www.transparency.org/ publishes a ranking of all countries with regards to corruption. Any country high up on the list can do the following to any country further down on the list:
-lecture
-point finger at
-ridicule
-feel sorry for
-your pick

I am not from the USA, but there is a _huge_ difference between the USA and Brazil. In the USA you feel there is justice on the bottom of the corruption. In Brazil it just feels like the mafia is running much of country. In the old soviet union it felt like the mafia ran all of the country.

BTW, Western europe has not been somewhat clean for very long. The old feudal system was basically structured and sanctioned corruption.

Sure you could deliver a package anywhere in the world in a couple of hours, but it will take a few more hours to a few days to clear customs anyway.

(I had a _very_ bad experience shipping a friend's dog to Turkey recently... they decided to classify a spayed pet coon hound as an "exotic breeding animal" which required a few days of chasing around the proper forms, finding the proper officials to fill them out/stamp them, and of course all the taxes and fees. FIVE days in a box instead of the scheduled two. I suspect the forms were thrown out and the fees pocketed, and the dog officially admitted as a pet. Turkey is ranked 64 on the list of corrupt nations)

Yeah, in the newly released Corruption Perceptions Index, Uzbekistan was tied for the 4th most corrupt country in the world. Of course, Kazakhstan wasn't too far behind. Maybe next year they'll beat out Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, or the Republic of the Congo :)

1. What is the Corruption Perceptions Index?

The TI Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks countries in terms of the degree to which
corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians. It is a composite index,
drawing on corruption-related data in expert surveys carried out by a variety of reputable
institutions. It reflects the views of businesspeople and analysts from around the world,
including experts who are resident in the countries evaluated.

[...]

15. What are the sources of data for the CPI?

The CPI 2004 draws on 18 different polls and surveys from 12 independent institutions. TI
strives to ensure that the sources used are of the highest quality and that the survey work is
performed with complete integrity. To qualify, the data has to be well documented, and it has
to be sufficient to permit a judgment on its reliability.

16. Whose opinion is polled by these surveys?
Surveys are carried out among businesspeople and country analysts, including surveys of
residents of countries. It is important to note that residents' viewpoints are found to correlate
well with those of experts from abroad.

Corruption is the standard, not the exception.

A few counterpoints. First, corruption in many African countries is on par with that of many of the Middle East states we consider allies. China (our biggest trading partner) is only incrementally better. Transparency International has some interesting statistics.

It's also important to remember that corruption is often as much a product of a poor economy as it is a cause. Your country needs a police force, but your government doesn't have the money to pay them. It may make sense to look the other way while your force hits the population up for bribes. Government institutions up and down the line require funding in order to be effective. The Western world is wealthy enough to pay for those institutions. That's just one of the many reasons I'm in favor of debt forgiveness for the third world.

We could use our foreign aid dollars to push against corruption. I think that, despite all the chest pounding by the hypocritical Wolfowitz, we don't really do that. Instead, we push for hard-right values like small government and lowered trade barriers, whether or not it makes sense for a given country. We also add self-interested provisos that require a large fraction of aid money to be spent on U.S. goods and services, which is essentially a way of taking taxpayer money and putting it in the hands of the corporations. It seems to me that the recipient country would be far better off using the money to buy local goods and local labor.

I'm often confronted by people who think we should cut off all aid to Africa, because their governments (which are indistinguishable in their minds) are too corrupt to make use of it. So I tend to react when I hear people wanting to make corruption The Most Important Issue. I think that dropping agricultural subsidies in America would do more for Africa than all the anti-corruption windbaggery we've done over the last fifty years.

A lawmaker would be far, far more careful if he knew everyone (media, citizens, etc) could see exactly what changes he made, and when.

I have the impression there's a name for that.
BTW, I think Slashdot and Transparency Intl. should collaborate more closely. Just a thought.

Perhaps you should look into how corrupt governments of the rest of the world before crying.

Perhaps someone already did ... http://www.transparency.org/content/download/10825 /92857/version/1/file/CPI_2006_presskit_eng.pdf

I'll bet you that U.S. government is one of the least corrupt governments you can find.

Define "least", and then state what stake you are willing to put up.

Couple with a few greedy men/women and there's the image of corruptions far bigger than what it really is.

Actually, my experience in the first world is that the image of corruption is usually much smaller than it really is, because most people are not directly affected by corruption in the first world.

For example, in the developing world, the most common form of corruption is low-level bribery that the average person pays often enough to resent it, but in the first world the corrupttion involves millions of dollars that is then hidden in taxes, and so goes unnoticed by the average person.

Looks like America ranks [PDF warning]17th out of 159 with a rating of 7.1. To clarify, that means they are ~the 17th least corrupt government as of 2005, one step ahead of France and one behind Germany.

Take a look at this chart. Notice which country is at #4 and which is at #20.

One word: culture. ...
You just can't imagine how deep corruption can be.

Well, you've done a perfect job of illustrating the original point.

Why does corruption exist? It has nothing to do with culture. How do I know that? Because you just showed that corruption exists in Russia and in Central America - two cultures that are literally on opposite sides of globe. They could not be more different. Yet, they are both highly corrupt. How can that be, are all non-American cultures inherently corrupt? Or maybe it is something much more simple and straightforward, that corruption has nothing to do with culture, that the primary driver of corruption in a country is poverty.

The correlation between poverty and corruption is very strong.

You're right. It's not like it was when you were a young person, and all young people were politically active, and respectful of their elders, and didn't play their music so damned loud. It's not real music, just noise. It all sounds the same. No moral backbone in the lot of 'em, nosiree.

You want to see college-aged kids get more involved in politics? Simple: allow election-day voter registration. The younger you are the more likely you are to be bouncing from apartment to apartment, and the more difficult it is to keep your voter registration up to date. Make that one, simple change, and I guarantee you that we'd close a few percentage points of the gap (which stood at 52% to 64% as of 2004).

Notice that the gap between young and old voters is 12%, far less than the difference between the U.S. average and the average in hedonistic, irresponsible, decadent narco-socialist states like Denmark (which averages in the 85-88% participation rate). So if you want to justify your !moralFiber => lowParticipation thesis, you've got a big hill to climb. I think a better thesis would be that people who believe in their government are more likely to participate in the voting process. Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index rates Denmark at 9.5 and the U.S. at 7.3. What does a 2.2 point difference actually mean? Well, it's about the same difference as exists between the U.S. and Oman, Jordan, and the Czech Republic.

In 2004, we dropped our bongs, put our baseball caps on backwards, and crawled out of our parents' basements to do our civic duty in record numbers. Result? Our contribution was easily outweighed by the "dudes shouldn't marry dudes, and terrorists are targeting our local bowling alley" demographic. We've inherited all your generation's lifestyle expectations, an economy that cannot sustain them, and a national debt that enriched your generation while impoverishing ours. We've seen the biggest groundswell of voter anger in over a decade (2006) translate into a 94% incumbency rate (a mere 26 out of 435 incumbents lost their seats). We've seen our generation go off to sweat and bleed and die in Iraq to protect the interests of a handful of privileged businessmen (invariably from your generation, not ours). We are expected to have higher educations than any previous generation, but we are given less support in pursuit of it (higher tuition, slashing of student grants and student loans, etc.) So if we see our government as indifferent or even hostile to our generation and our interests, and utterly resistant to positive change, can you really blame us?

Ah, that felt good.

That certainly explains why the 5 nations of Scandinavia (socialist hellholes all) regularly top the list of the world's least corrupt countries. I'm sure it's their brutal, dictatorial regimes that makes the difference.

Good thing we live in America (which barely makes the top 20), land of the free. I can't imagine how horrible and repressive life would be with socialized medicine and $20/mo 10 megabit (up/down) broadband in my home.

-Isaac

According to Jeffrey Sachs, Ethiopia and Mauritius are such countries. According to Transparency International's ratings, Tunisia and Mauritius rank way higher than a lot of our more beloved trading partners. A quick squint at their map seems to say that corruption in Africa isn't obviously better or worse than corruption in Asia, which has been doing substantially better in the economic development department.

It's difficult to make the case that government corruption is the biggest impediment to fighting poverty in Africa. My belief is that we've been providing too little aid, and when we do give we pay too much attention to what we think countries need, rather than what they actually say they need. We're especially guilty of using foreign aid to promote harmful, "self-sacrificing" fiscal policies on third world nations (see Stiglitz).

The government in the USA is utterly and thoroughly corrupt.

That sounds excitingly dramatic, but do you have any data to back that up? Having lived in a few different countries, I don't think it's nearly so dire. And neither the Corruption Perceptions Index nor the Global Corruption Barometer support your claim.

That's not to say that there isn't some corruption, but I think you haven't thought very much about what utterly and thoroughly corrupt could mean. You may find comparisons with what goes on in Russia, China, or most of Africa instructive, for example.

The government in the USA is utterly and thoroughly corrupt.

That sounds excitingly dramatic, but do you have any data to back that up? Having lived in a few different countries, I don't think it's nearly so dire. And neither the Corruption Perceptions Index nor the Global Corruption Barometer support your claim.

That's not to say that there isn't some corruption, but I think you haven't thought very much about what utterly and thoroughly corrupt could mean. You may find comparisons with what goes on in Russia, China, or most of Africa instructive, for example.

Most likely if someone was blatently caught in the act stealing data in the UK, they would face no jail time whatsoever. Where as, on the other hand, I would assume that India would probably have more severe punishment than the UK.

Theoretically perhaps but judging by India's corruption rating, such a punishment, if it exists, should be easy to avoid with a few well placed financial incentives.

Would you like to put a source to those claims?

    Here is mine
"http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /sn.html"

  Says "corruption free" and also
  Ranked 5th!

126. Singapore 0.6
127. Denmark 0.5
128. New Zealand 0.5
129. Iceland 0.4
130. Finland 0.3

  source: http://www.transparency.org/
  but that is according to you because 1-4 hide it better than Singapore?

According to Transparency International Singapore ranks 7th in the list of the world's least corrupt governments. They use a set of 16 indices and international surveys to determine corruptability.

Number 1 least corrupt is Iceland. Last on the list is Chad. The US is 17th. Interesting thing about the US that bribing the government is not illegal.

I saw this and wondered who was more corrupt than Nigeria. In case you're interested, it's Haiti, Myanmarr, Turkmenistan, Bangladesh, and Chad, in that order.

Least corrupt is Iceland. The US is 17th from the top, just above France and just below Germany.

Source: http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2005/cpi2005.sourc es.en.html

Africa policing is in bad shape (excepting SA). There is poor crime data, little or no accountability, and effectiveness can hardly be measured (though possibly observed). You can imagine how these factors would adversely affect decent people and allow further illegal behavior.

The police can often have little knowledge of white collar crime. In the western world, white collar crime has been known and perfected over a 500 years (credit and interest were long adopted in Christiandom, which facilitated these crimes, but not so much in Muslim countries where interest is often illegal). The problem is largely that electionic communcation and transfers mean that there is a lot of overhead to catch criminals, especially if the victims are overseas. Transactions have to be looked into and this can take a long time in a relatively efficient, resource-plentiful, Western investigations. In Nigeria, this kind of process might be impossible in most small cases (e.g. most 419 scammers). And of course, trying the criminals is expensive and time-intensive. Extradition just as expensive. An investigation and trial is also people-intensive, involving legal professionals (who are non to plentiful in Nigeria).

Nigerian scammers (not the email variety) don't just bum around on email, they also operate throughout the nigerian government (See Transparency Intl's Survey). Scamming is the sibling of corruption. The beaurocracy is complex, incomprehensible as a whole, and plagued with illicit dealings. Really, scamming is encouraged by the system, because no one can penetrate it and find the muck. And finding muck isn't too rewarding, because it doesn't make you any friends, puts you at risk, and its so common no one really finds the information all too useful.

So who cares about information leading to some lady getting scammed in Florida? Helping foreign citizens, who have more money than brains, is really not a national priority.