New Data Shows 85% of Humans Live Under a Corrupt Government (newatlas.com)

schwit1 writes: According to one think tank that studies corruption in government, 85% of the world lives under governments that are essentially corrupt. New Atlas reports: "'Corruption' is defined by Transparency International (TI) as 'the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.' Each year since 1995, TI has published a Corruption Perceptions Index that scores the world's nations out of 100 for their public sector honesty and the just-released 2016 report paints the same bleak picture we've been seeing now for two decades except it's getting worse. According to the data, despite the illusion of elected government in half the world's countries, democracy is losing. Only two countries scored 90 out of 100 this year, and just 54 of the 176 countries (30%) assessed in the report scored better than 50. Fifty percent might have constituted a pass in a High School arithmetic test, but for an elected government to be so inept at carrying out the will of the electorate, it is a clear betrayal of the people. The average country score this year is a paltry 43, indicating endemic corruption in a country's public sector is the norm. Even more damning is that more countries declined than improved in this year's results. Our analysis of TI's data shows 85 percent of human beings are governed by regimes that score 50 or less, indicating that the integrity of people in authority across the globe remains sadly lacking." schwit1 notes: "Not surprisingly, the countries at the bottom of the list are almost all Middle Eastern nations, all of whom are the source of most of the world's terrorism and Islamic madness. The few others are those trying to become communist paradises, Venezuela and North Korea." New Atlas also mentions "the latest update of the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, released on the same day as the Transparency International report, reflects an almost identical perspective. The EIU Democracy Index measures the state of democracy in 167 countries and the average global score fell from 5.55 out of 10 in 2015 to 5.52 in 2016, with 72 countries recording a lower score versus 38 which showed an improvement. You can register for free and download the EIU report here."

Comments

Trolling in the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice editorializing at the end there. You may want to mention that the least-corrupt countries on the list are Nordic states (and New Zealand) with strong social welfare systems and high taxes.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[alvinrod]

There's a stark difference between social democracies that have market economies but high taxes on the wealthy (funnily enough those Nordic countries, as well as New Zealand, actually have lower corporate tax rates compared to the United States) and states that attempt to nationalize industries or use centralized planning to run their economies. Communism has been disastrous where implemented and countries which were formerly communist such as China and Vietnam have found greater prosperity in moving away from those ideals and allowing private enterprise to exist.

It's much easier to have a good social safety net when you have citizens that are producing far more wealth in a free market system than they would otherwise do under a centrally planned system. And if you're an adamant socialist, you can usually find some kind of employee owned company even in those capitalist countries or bank at a credit union or engage with other co-ops.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[ooloorie]

You may want to mention that the least-corrupt countries on the list are Nordic states (and New Zealand) with strong social welfare systems and high taxes.

Those aren't objectively the least-corrupt countries, they are the least corrupt countries according to what the citizens believe as measured by the CPI. Those are also countries with little foreign media; they have government-run educational systems, media, and churches; and they are small, protestant, ethnically uniform countries. It's not surprising that under those conditions, citizens believe their countries to be non-corrupt.

are Nordic states (and New Zealand) with strong social welfare systems and high taxes.

The Nordic countries differ on so many dimensions from other countries that there is no particular reason to attribute things you like in them to their "strong social welfare systems and high taxes". In fact, traditionally, their success was attributed to the "protestant work ethic", something that probably has more statistical support than their brief flirtation with democratic socialism. In addition, their social welfare spending and taxes are no higher than in the US.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Shane_Optima]

There's a stark difference between social democracies that have market economies but high taxes on the wealthy (funnily enough those Nordic countries, as well as New Zealand, actually have lower corporate tax rates compared to the United States) and states that attempt to nationalize industries,

Uhh... and Norway's oil industry is what exactly?

I'm not saying it's "communism", but nationalized industries aren't a communist-only phenomenon. There's a decent argument for direct government control whenever the industry is big enough and hard enough to break into that there really isn't going to be much room for free market magic to appear.

Last mile internet connectivity, for example...

Re:Trolling in the summary

[r1348]

Natural monopolies should be nationalized.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[larryjoe]

At least the authors of these rankings couch their results as "perceptions" of corruption, which might be different from actual corruption. There seems to be a correlation between the rankings and the broadness of economic prosperity among the masses in each country. If so, perhaps, the rankings are more a measure of apathy about corruption. People that have no economic complaints may not care about corruption, and that may be measured as a lack of perception of corruption.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[johannesg]

There's a rather big difference between someone successfully building an industry and the government then simply stealing it from him (i.e. nationalization), and the government setting up its own industry, especially since in the case of Norway where said industry ensures that the natural wealth of Norway benefits everyone in the country, instead of just a handful of very rich people.

My country (the Netherlands) could have done the same thing with our natural gas supplies. Instead our government of that time convinced everyone that gas would soon be worthless, since everyone would be moving to nuclear (it's a while ago), so we should sell it as cheaply as we can and buy ourselves some nice gifts instead of investing the money wisely. These days we have towering national debt, and are importing gas from Russia (and not at the cheapest they can sell it!). And yet, I suspect the Netherlands ranks fairly high on the anti-corruption index...

Re:Trolling in the summary

[phantomfive]

Not to call you out, but none of the Nordic states nor New Zealand are trying to become communist. They're pretty much happy with capitalism combined with regulation from the government.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

Any irrelevant ideological barrow could have been pushed from those numbers just by excluding all those people in China.
eg. So it appears that places where people eat bread instead of rice are less corrupt. Who would have thought?

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

and states that attempt to nationalize industries

Such as the US automobile industry under Bush?
You forgot that one while pushing the Party line Komrade.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

In fact, traditionally, their success was attributed to the "protestant work ethic"

Something they have in common with the "rust belt" and the poorest bits of the deep south.

I know you hate the idea of people working together, but it's pretty obvious that it's the different government that has something to do with it and not just some stupid "poor people are lazy" line.

Re: Trolling in the summary

[ph1ll]

Good point. Also, Western corruption is formalized - see "Deferred Prosecution Agreements". Want to money launder for the Mexican drug cartels without anybody going to prison (HSBC)? No problem, just pay this fee. Want to bribe Asian officials and business men (Rolls Royce)? Naughty boy, just deposit this money into the UK government's bank account. Want to fraudulently issue ratings on what banks are selling (pretty much all credit rating companies pre 2008) while those banks pay you? Failure of the free market. Sure it's not your fault etc etc.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[AmiMoJo]

Compete rubbish. Those countries are diverse and get a huge amount for foreign media, since they have excellent English language skills. If you look on EU job boards you will find they are actively trying to recruit foreign workers, offering assistance to move families in and handle visas.

They have low levels of corruption because they designed their governments that way and value separation of power. They have coalition, consensus politics.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/da...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

That would be pronounced Obama. Is all your history this bad ?

Re:Trolling in the summary

[gweihir]

Naaa, that could imply that other countries are doing something wrong! We cannot have that!

What is striking though is that the countries at the top of the list are all small. Also, Switzerland is hardly a "Nordic state".

Re:Trolling in the summary

[invalid_user]

Any irrelevant ideological barrow could have been pushed from those numbers just by excluding all those people in China.
eg. So it appears that places where people eat bread instead of rice are less corrupt. Who would have thought?

Time for fun-with-spurious-correlations yet? :)

http://www.tylervigen.com/spur...

Re:Trolling in the summary

[RuffMasterD]

Those are also countries with little foreign media; they have government-run educational systems, media, and churches; and they are small, protestant, ethnically uniform countries. It's not surprising that under those conditions, citizens believe their countries to be non-corrupt.

You just described North Korea word for word, except for the church part, which the personality cult of our dear leader makes up for. Are you trying to tell me that New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark succeeded to convince their populations that they don't experience corruption, while North Korea failed? How the fuck did North Korea fail? They have the best of everything: no foreign media, all education, including university education, is government run, and any foreigner unfortunate enough to go there is assigned their very own team of round-the-clock minders who follow you everywhere, that is how few foreigners there are in North Korea.

Seriously though, maybe we know exactly what corruption is, and we just don't tolerate it as a society. For example, in New Zealand there is no way you can bribe a police officer to get out of a traffic infringement. Don't even try it, it's not worth it. I have never had to bribe someone to get something done. We don't even tip. Ever. Employers are expected to pay their staff a living wage. New Zealand media is almost entirely foreign owned BTW. And we have two major ethnicities. And almost nobody goes to church anymore. And our schools can be public or private.

Re: Trolling in the summary

[humptheElephant]

Yes, and here we have justice for the very rich (bankers, hedge fund operators) and the less rich(whistle blowers, people of color, etc.). Plus we have another kind of corruption, money buying power to change laws to game the system. Capital gains taxes vs income taxes, not paying for social security on capital gains vs income.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

On December 19, 2008, a week after Republicans in the Senate had killed a bailout bill proposed by Democrats, saying it didn’t impose big enough wage cuts on the U.A.W., Bush unilaterally agreed to lend $17.4 billion of taxpayers’ money to General Motors and Chrysler, of which $13.4 billion was to be extended immediately.

I know this is going to be a little difficult for you to get, but Bush 43 was already on the way out and was working with the incoming president.

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

"The Bush Administration provided short-term bridge loans," Rubenstein said. "That allowed the Obama Administration to take a couple of months to assess the situation."

Now how about you stop following me around

I think you need to see a shrink about your paranoia.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[demonlapin]

Anecdotal, but relevant:

A couple of years ago, my wife and I were on a free-roaming vacation and ended up in Vermont. On a Thursday night in late August, in a small town, we ended up at a very highly recommended restaurant - where there was an hour wait for a table. (Yes, it was that good.) Two seats open at the bar, though, so we sat there. Over the hour and a half that we were there, the bartender never stopped moving. She was handling all the drinks for the tables, plus serving twelve seats at the bar, and even then it was some of the most attentive service I've had. And we finally understood Bernie's socialism: if you have a society in which people work that hard at low-status jobs, then of course socialism makes sense. Nobody's trying to be a free rider. If someone happens to fall by the wayside, they just need a hand up to get back on their feet. They're not three generations deep in Section 8 housing and welfare, living off the public purse and contributing nothing but complaints.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

Goalpost shift there Crash, from not Bush to Bush but extenuating circumstances. It's not an important issue so why not just admit your memory was a little hazy when you attacked my "bailout by Bush" that was definitely before Obama took office? Are you going to be consistent and give Trump the credit for tanks in Poland after the election or are you going to have it both ways and say that was Obama? See how silly your claim it wasn't really Bush because it happened in December (just like those tanks last month) really is - Obama wasn't sworn in in 2008 FFS!

I think you need to see a shrink about your paranoia.

So that spamming that's still there for all to see never happened? Oh I forgot, the shrink bit is just one of your stock phrases you use on people and doesn't have to have anything to do with the topic, it's not that pathetic bullying tactic, what do they call it, "gaslighting" at all is it?

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

Cool link! Someone please mod that post up.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are also countries with little foreign media; they have government-run educational systems, media, and churches; and they are small, protestant, ethnically uniform countries. It's not surprising that under those conditions, citizens believe their countries to be non-corrupt.

Nice characterization of us Nordic, you've got there. Guess I have to leave /. to attend church, then. In my little, tribal language, of course.

I do suspect you have not yet managed to read "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" by Thomas Piketty et. al. (his French, by the way, so he must be full of it. Not?) The Norwegian edition has an added foreword by Norwegian Professor in economics, Kalle Moene. While praising Piketty for his thorough statistical analysis of the world economics evolution, Moene did criticize Piketty for his complete omission of labor union influence. While strictly correct, you may forgive Piketty for this omission, simply because labor union political power is first and foremost an isolated Nordic phenomena.

You may say labor unions formed the Nordic social democracies, and for a very long time managed to curb the economic inequalities of society. With increasing purchasing power came the personal freedom for the common man the US is so found of, just not at the expense of everyone else. So much so, that the same common man soon questioned the authority of the ruling class. The priest, headmaster and sheriff, in your nomenclature. And you guessed it - regulation, regulation and more regulation followed, plus government bodies to oversee and enact these regulations. Even in the traditionally ultra-corrupt oil industries.

As noted by Moene, the Swedish equivalent of Rockefeller would be the Wallenberg family. The Swedish national labor union and Wallenberg was for decades locked in an intricate dance, in which the union continuously squeezed Wallenberg, but just not enough to suffocate him and his industries. This way, Wallenberg remained stinking rich, while at the same time financing the Swedish social democracy. Well, not solely, but you get the drift.

BTW, the nordic societies are mostly de-Christened by now. Even so, Norway still maintains its marriage of state and church. Mostly out of habit. Such state sanctioned religion is a trait we share with no one but Iran. You will however be hard pressed to find an actual, devoted Christian in Norway, nowadays. The devoted are not surprisingly mostly muslim immigrants.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[ooloorie]

get a huge amount for foreign media, since they have excellent English language skills

Yes, which the educated elites listens to.

They have low levels of corruption because they designed their governments that way and value separation of power.

Try to give some meat to that argument.

They have coalition, consensus politics.

Nice, empty phrases. Also, cause vs effect.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[ooloorie]

You just described North Korea word for word, except for the church part

I suspect that if a North Korean organization in North Korea went around and asked North Korean citizens whether their country was corrupt, or whether their country was the greatest country on earth, they'd rank quite well because (1) the citizens don't know any better and (2) the citizens do know that if they give the wrong answer something bad will happen to them. Do you disagree?

In any case, my comment applied in the context of wealthy, prosperous, mostly-democratic nations, to explain the variations at the top end of the scale; it was also only a tendency, not a full explanation of all causes.

Seriously though, maybe we know exactly what corruption is, and we just don't tolerate it as a society. For example, in New Zealand there is no way you can bribe a police officer to get out of a traffic infringement. Don't even try it, it's not worth it.

I suspect you could have said the same things about Nazi Germany; individual bribery is only one form of corruption, and far from the most insidious.

I have never had to ... We don't even ... And we have ...

Saying "X tends to produce Y" isn't saying that "Y is the only way to produce X".

And our schools can be public or private.

Just since you brought it up and since you might want to reflect on it... about 5% of NZ children go to private schools, for an average of NZ$20000. That kind of public/private split is a nice and tidy arrangement by which elites have the common kids indoctrinated to obey, while they send their own kids to schools that train them to lead. And both kinds of kids are taught that this system is superior to all the others in the world.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[MisterSquid]

Gainfully employed bartender in Vermont is a just-so story.

One year previous to your "couple of years ago", Vermont had the highest rate of illicit drug usage in the US.

Did your "free-roaming vacation" take you past the burnout hovels in St. Alban, Winooski, Brattleboro, Barre, Rutland? If so, I'm guessing you didn't have an hour-long wait at the bar in a Rutland Saturday night friends-and-family shooting gallery.

My point is that your just-so story about how a single (or a dozen) hard-working bartenders in Vermont provide a much better population context for socialist governance than people "three generations deep in Section 8 housing and welfare" is an anecdote that says nothing about the benefits of socialist economic agenda in urban and rural contexts.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[MisterSquid]

Unborked URL for "Vermont had the highest rate of illicit drug usage in the US".

Re: Trolling in the summary

[Ralgha]

How many of those people in socialized healthcare systems have you interacted with? I've talked with a number of Australians, in Australia, and they were all pretty satisfied with their healthcare. They also all paid less for it (via tax) than I pay for my healthcare here in the US, and they actually get something for it.

I pay out the ass for healthcare, even after my employer pays 2/3s of the cost, and it pays for jack shit. It's cheaper for me to tell the doctor that I don't have insurance and just pay the cash rate.

Healthcare for the common citizen is shit in the US, and anybody who thinks otherwise is either ignorant, or delusional. The vast majority of us would pay LESS under socialized medicine, but that wouldn't make the establishment rich.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Shane_Optima]

There's a rather big difference between someone successfully building an industry and the government then simply stealing it from him (i.e. nationalization), and the government setting up its own industry especially since in the case of Norway where said industry ensures that the natural wealth of Norway benefits everyone in the country, instead of just a handful of very rich people.

What is the verb or adjective to describe an industry that the government controls but hasn't 'stolen' if not "nationalize[d]"?

Also, that appears to be a false dichotomy since apparently the oil industry in Norway is a publicly traded company and the Norwegian government only owns 65% of it. This implies an obvious non-theft path to nationalization for an industry that for-profit entity has built up: buy them out. Eminent domain for things other than land is an interesting topic that doesn't come up nearly enough.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

Goalpost shift there Crash, from not Bush to Bush but extenuating circumstances.

Politifact disagrees with you, USA Today disagreed with you, Forbes disagreed with you. What's more they did it years before you made your statement, so I have no idea what you thought the goal posts were but nobody else places them there.

So that spamming that's still there for all to see never happened?

Seeing as I replied to your comments in one thread, it looks to me like you spammed the thread with garbage and are horribly upset somebody noticed.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[AutodidactLabrat]

And yet,somehow those socialist states like Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, are always #1 in per capita income, life expectancy and academic achievement


So all we can say is...
WARNING!
Another TRUMP paid Troll!!!

Re:Trolling in the summary

[demonlapin]

The "burned-out hovels" in those news stories look better than most of the housing stock in my home town. And I suspect that none of the inhabitants of same engaged in random gunfire. I heard eight shots last night around 9 pm.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dywolf]

lower official rates.
not lower effective rates.
difference.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[cheesybagel]

In the nordic countries politicians have to make public their income statements and they quite often ride public transportation to work every day. There are also dedicated government institutions to prosecute graft and corruption.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[ooloorie]

In the nordic countries politicians have to make public their income statements and they quite often ride public transportation to work every day. There are also dedicated government institutions to prosecute graft and corruption.

Putin's annual salary is $187000 and he owns a couple of beat-up cars. Socialist and communist leaders often made even less money. Yet, they live in the finest palaces, command jet airplanes, and can move billions at the stroke of a pen. The currency of politics, and the source of corruption, is often power, not money.

Furthermore, the rich and powerful in Europe have learned to keep a low profile and blend in with the middle class when appearing in public, while exercising enormous power over governments behind the scenes.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[lsatenstein]

Nice editorializing at the end there. You may want to mention that the least-corrupt countries on the list are Nordic states (and New Zealand) with strong social welfare systems and high taxes.

You omitted Canada. Really. And the reason we rank along side NewZealand is for the same reasons -- ith strong social welfare systems and medium high taxes.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[NewYork]

I think capitalism/socialism/communism shouldn't be an issue if you can achieve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet,somehow those socialist states like Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, are always #1 in per capita income, life expectancy and academic achievement

None of these states are socialist, because socialism means the workers control the means of production (Marx, Engels). Norway comes the closest, with only 70% of businesses privately owned (relative to GDP) - but that's largely an artifact of having a very prosperous oil company that's mostly state run - it produces so much income it dominates the statistics. Even Sweden has a fair number of billionaires - and like any other capitalist nation they supply the capital needed to run many businesses, which comes with a big share in ownership, hence those businesses are not owned by the workers.

These are capitalist nations, that are distinguished from other capitalist nations by higher taxes, less corrupt government, and better run social programs. The technical term sometimes used by economists to differentiate these states from socialist ones is "capitalist welfare state".

Having small, relatively homogeneous populations is a big benefit when it comes to developing effective social programs - there's less opportunity for sociopaths to practice divide and conquer tactics in pursuit of their own agendas and at the expense of society as a whole.

Even the states you list do have some significant problems. The Scandinavian states, for example, have big problems with household debt. Unlike the USA they don't have big banks bribing the government to facilitate this - instead, it's a natural consequence of the high sales and income taxes. They also have very high participation rates in black markets, with over 50% of the population estimated to be participating for some of these states. Again, an unintended consequence of the high taxes - one with the potential to become a huge problem down the road.

Less competent nations - such as the USA, with it's unethical legal profession, and with deeply entrenched corruption in the two major political parties, and with lots of economically unwise policies fostered by real socialists (who inevitably never understand real world economic consequences of the policies they support) - actually spend more money for many social programs, relative to GDP, than other nations, yet get poorer results. This is best shown with health care, where both the USA and Switzerland have capitalist systems - yet the Swiss spend less money (both individually and as a society) on health care, and they have both excellent health, and far better consumer satisfaction.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice, empty phrases.

Those phrases do have a meaning by comparison. When you have a multiparty system with strong, varied media controlling the political sphere, there is a greater change for the corrupt soon be weeded out of the system. In comparison, when the power is concentrated to very small number of parties or even to a single one, or the media is very narrowly owned and not independent, the corruption is much harder to detect and remove.

Re: Trolling in the summary

[dcw3]

Be careful what you wish for. I have family in Canada who hate their healthcare. I lost an aunt to brain cancer, that could potentially have survived had she not had to wait so long for care. I know these are only anecdotal, so YMMV.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dcw3]

In a world where we could all just get along, and nobody was greedy, lazy, or power hungry, it might just work. That world doesn't exist, and never will because it's not in everyone's nature to be altruistic.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dcw3]

Um, no. Go read a book.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[AutodidactLabrat]

My bad. Norway is better than the U.S. but not the oiligarchs propped up by U.S. Military expenses to "protect our access to oil" (R. Cheney, Project for a New American Century, open letter to Bill Clinton demanding an attack on Iraq, September, 1998).
Germany is better than the U.K. AND France AND Oil processing rich Oman, Finland beats Korea (the other one) AND Uber Capitalist Japan

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

The calendar agrees with me.
Give it up spamboy.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

Seeing as I replied to your comments in one thread

One? It was around twelve threads on the same story - you were proud of it and wrote something about "fisking". Did you just read about this newly popular "gaslighting" bullying thing and decide to give it a try by picking on people here pretending stuff that has happened has not happened? Don't you have anything better to do than whine, moan and haunt posters here who have pissed you off?

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

always projecting.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

Seeing as I replied to your comments in one thread

One? It was around twelve threads on the same story - you were proud of it and wrote something about "fisking". Did you just read about this newly popular "gaslighting" bullying thing and decide to give it a try by picking on people here pretending stuff that has happened has not happened? Don't you have anything better to do than whine, moan and haunt posters here who have pissed you off?

Dude you just confessed to posting twelve times on one topic and now you are complaining about being spammed ?

You are defining new levels of stupid.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

Dude you just confessed to posting twelve times on one topic

And the problem with that is?
You've got something between your ears Crash - use it!

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

And the problem with that is?

Well if your comments weren't complete garbage none.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

And yours that were nothing but meaningless and often incorrect replies intended to bully were not?
Oh - I forgot - double standard - carry on with your meaningless life of petty attempted bullying and red hot anger when you hit someone who does not immediately roll over. It will at least give us something to laugh at.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

Random stock answer number five was it? Obviously not projecting because you were the one who proudly stated that you had "fisked" a dozen of my posts.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

Random stock answer number five was it? Obviously not projecting because you were the one who proudly stated that you had "fisked" a dozen of my posts.

Pretty sad if a random stock answer fits you to a tee. I mean here you are how deep and after how many people told you were wrong ? Name calling because you can't come to terms you didn't know what happened in U.S. history ? After you were wrong about Israeli history, and were disclosing methods and sources of the Australian intelligence services ?

Looks like you are pretty delusional not just projecting.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

And yours that were nothing but meaningless and often incorrect replies intended to bully were not?
Oh - I forgot - double standard - carry on with your meaningless life of petty attempted bullying and red hot anger when you hit someone who does not immediately roll over. It will at least give us something to laugh at.

Sorry pointing out you are wrong about U.S. history, rather recent history at that, then sourcing the information isn't bullying. It's educating, understand the difference it's very helpful.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

Your own quote disproves it. December happens to come before January - inconvenient, but there it is - Bush did the deed even though Biden tried to give Obama the credit for it.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

Pretty sad if a random stock answer fits you to a tee

Tell me how "projection" fits spamboy. You did the deed and not I so I can see any possible way it can apply.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

Your own quote disproves it. December happens to come before January - inconvenient, but there it is - Bush did the deed even though Biden tried to give Obama the credit for it.

Well at least you can read a calendar

So far I have two major newspapers that say you are wrong and a fact checking organization.

Just what is your threshold for admitting you are wrong ?

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

Pretty sad if a random stock answer fits you to a tee

Tell me how "projection" fits spamboy. You did the deed and not I so I can see any possible way it can apply.

Well lets see

One? It was around twelve threads on the same story

Now just think If I was stalking you to bully look at how much material you have given me

LOL

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

So it's OK for you to post a lot of comments but not OK for others?
Get that head looked at kid.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

Those links say one thing - you wrote something completely and utterly different as you well know and just attempted to cowardly hide behind the reputation of others.
Maybe you should get that problem fixed?

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

Those links say one thing - you wrote something completely and utterly different as you well know and just attempted to cowardly hide behind the reputation of others.
Maybe you should get that problem fixed?

Projecting yet more. How many people came on this thread and told you, you were wrong.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[Crashmarik]

So it's OK for you to post a lot of comments but not OK for others?
Get that head looked at kid.

Looks up at thread. The whole thing about needling someone is you need to be at least a little right.

Given your level of reaction and effort to flail out at me, it appears I went quite deep under your skin.

You might want to take some time off the internet at least until you can either improve your reaction to people telling you that you are wrong, or until you are able to confine your comments to subjects you are actually knowledgeable about, or at least those you are not obviously ignorant on.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

It's quite funny that you are still trying to convince me that Obama started a couple of months early. I thought you hated the guy instead of imbuing him with a work ethic he doesn't have.

Projecting yet more. How many people came on this thread and told you, you were wrong.

Zero, the insults from the opportunistic AC were not of that nature. Was that yet another stock phrase that didn't fit? At least TRY to show some sign of sentience Crash so that you cannot be replaced by a twenty year old Lisp script.

Re:Trolling in the summary

[dbIII]

is you need to be at least a little right.

In this case the date makes it utterly obvious that I am stating the facts. It's not that I need to be right, it's that some prick decided to jump on and play some game to try to get me to admit that an utterly obvious fact is wrong and thus demonstrate their dominance.

it appears I went quite deep under your skin

No I'm just not rolling over and your antics give me something to feel smug and superior about.

Tell me something we didn't already know

[Rick Schumann]

I suspect that if you had a time machine and could gather data from every era of human history, you'd find that this '85%' they speak of is probably fairly consistent.

Re:Tell me something we didn't already know

[BlueStrat]

I suspect that if you had a time machine and could gather data from every era of human history, you'd find that this '85%' they speak of is probably fairly consistent.

Free and open societies (which must by necessity be relatively non-corrupt to become and remain free & open societies) are not and have not been the norm throughout history. That 85% is on the low side historically speaking.

Strat

Re:Tell me something we didn't already know

[gweihir]

True, but that does not make it any better. It just shows that this supposedly enlightened age is anything but. Still the same failed human beings in power as always.

On the plus side, we have finally found the person to represent this pathetic epoch of human existence. Nobody represents the caveman-in-power better then Trump and that is why he will get a place in the history-books.

Re:Tell me something we didn't already know

[Rick Schumann]

It's a cynical-as-hell way of thinking, but I do think you're pretty much spot-on; my own observation of the way humanity behaves, world-wide, indicates to me that our so-called 'civilization' is just a coat of paint over the cavemen we still are underneath. You see evidence of this when times get tough and things start going bad; people, and nations, revert to their true natures, and all our so-called 'civilization' goes out the window. As a species, we're still a long, long way from what I'd consider 'civilized'. If we manage to not extinguish ourselves completely for another 10,000 years, we might be 'civilized', or we may not. We have to get over things like racism, sexism, and religious 'beliefs' driving our thinking, otherwise it's just going to be neverending cycles of conflict, always taking one step forward and three steps back. We have to change hearts and minds, worldwide, which is damned near impossible, since ideas are almost impossible to kill, and there's lots of very bad ideas that have been floating around human consciousness for aeons.

Flamebait

[Aighearach]

This is just click-flame-bait. By their definition all countries would be "corrupt." And it is logically absurd to claim that because some example of ethical violations exist in a country, that therefore the country itself "is" corrupt. It means everything is corrupt, even the word corrupt becomes so corrupted that it has no meaning.

Re:Flamebait

[Zontar The Mindless]

...even the word corrupt becomes so corrupted that it has no meaning.

This worked quite well in favour of one of the candidates in the US elections not long ago, didn't it.

Re:Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

your confusion is understandable, maybe it's more clear for you if explained like this: bourgeois democracies are corrupt since inception due tu it being erected to guard the interest of the ruling classes

Re: Flamebait

[PoopJuggler]

Why is it so hard to believe that everything is corrupt? I think you put too much faith in your fellow humans. The Trumpsters have certainly lessened my faith in America to be leaders of freedom, and we're supposed to be the good guys.

Re: Flamebait

[Aighearach]

I didn't say it is hard to believe, I said if you define the word that way then it has no utility, no meaning.

Words are more effective when they describe less than 100% of the possible things. That way by combining words, you can say specific things. When a word describes everything, then using the word or not using the word have the same meaning.

Re: Flamebait

[Hognoxious]

Indeed. If (purely hypothetical example) you redefine "terrorist" to the point where everybody is one, then what do you call an actual terrorist?

BTW, is it normal for pvmove to take forever to shift 200G...

Re:Flamebait

[Cederic]

By their definition all countries would be "corrupt."

Ok. Name a country with no corruption?

They are talking about the perceived extent of corruption. What's wrong with that?

it is logically absurd to claim that because some example of ethical violations exist in a country, that therefore the country itself "is" corrupt.

If they used a binary scale then you might have a point. They don't. You don't.

Re: Flamebait

[Crashmarik]

Why is it so hard to believe that everything is corrupt? I think you put too much faith in your fellow humans. The Trumpsters have certainly lessened my faith in America to be leaders of freedom, and we're supposed to be the good guys.

So you believe America is less free because it was able to elect a government you don't like ?

Have you considered you might not always be right ?

Re: Flamebait

[pslytely psycho]

what do you call an actual terrorist?

A politician?

Re:Flamebait

[dcw3]

...even the word corrupt becomes so corrupted that it has no meaning.

This worked quite well in favour of one of the candidates in the US elections not long ago, didn't it.

Yes, but the Clinton Global Initiative is drying up now that they can no longer peddle influence.

shocked...shocked I say...

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

The Chinese are overachievers yet again. 18% of the global population, but 21% of the corruption. Bravo! :)

Re:shocked...shocked I say...

[Zontar The Mindless]

But 90%+ on the niceness scale.

Interesting contrast with Sweden, which may not be corrupt, but let your Swedish be anything less than perfect, and you'll be treated as an outsider, no matter how long you've lived there (10 years in my case); in China, I find that my admittedly pretty horrible Mandarin is nearly always responded to with smiles and even encouragement. Make of this what you will.

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous Year of the Rooster from Guangzhou!

--Z.

Re: shocked...shocked I say...

[Frankzy]

What? We love people with heavy accents, just look at Tony Irving or any Finnish person whose only encounter with Swedish was high-school. Except Danish, fuck that...

Re:shocked...shocked I say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you opened a bank account, or purchased real estate in China? Or become a Chinese citizen? Heard of any foreigner becoming a Chinese citizen?

("The 2000 Chinese census counted just 941 naturalized citizens.")

Re:shocked...shocked I say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize 2000 was 17 years ago?

Does this include the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, as of January of 2017, it should.

Re:Does this include the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump has been president for one week and already you vilify him. Are you that moron who gave Bama a peace prize for not ending any wars?

Re:Does this include the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh i think you know USA was corrupt loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong before trump got elected.

Nice try though.

Captcha: Thieves

Re:Does this include the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it should. The number has gone down this week.
DRAIN THE SWAMP!

If by drain the swamp you mean appoint the swamp to cabinet positions then sure Trump is draining the swamp. But I guess if you fill the swamp enough it will overflow onto everything else and that might count as draining the swamp. How many former goldman sachs employees did he hire so far?

Re:Does this include the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Naw, I've been villifying Trump since the first time I saw his name in print. The fact is, he's been doing exactly what he threatened to do so far to date, which actually puts him ahead of where I had him placed -- I'd assumed that his 'wall', for starters, was going to get canned as soon as he had a presidential chair to sit in.

Re:Does this include the USA?

[h33t l4x0r]

In that one week the doomsday clock moved from -3:00 to -2:30. At that rate we'll all be dead in 5 weeks.

Re:Does this include the USA?

[Z80a]

You should decrease this date in 2 or 3 centuries.

Only 85%?!

[Derekloffin]

WTF?! Something is obviously wrong with their methodology.

Re:Only 85%?!

[dgatwood]

What they really mean is that 15% of humans live under a government that has thus far managed to successfully conceal its corruption.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Therefore, everyone in power is corrupt.

Re:Only 85%?!

[lister king of smeg]

WTF?! Something is obviously wrong with their methodology.

yeah the other 15% either bribed or balckmailed the researchers into changing the results in their favour

Re:Only 85%?!

[wonkey_monkey]

Or they just tweaked their definition of "corrupt" so the number was shockingly high, but not so high as to throw light on the arbitrary nature of said definition.

US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[NotInHere]

According to the report they degraded the USA from "full democracy" to "flawed democracy" in 2016 due to events happening in the country.

This seems contradictory to Trump's announcement to clean up with the corruption in Washington, and to "dry up the swamp". Also, what is more like a democracy, a country where the mainstream media always totally agree with the government, or one in which the government has to fight the media? Isn't it a great thing that media stops believing and printing the statements of the government as facts and starts creating fact checking teams?

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[Aighearach]

He talked about "draining" a swamp, I don't think anybody said anything is going to end up dry, or that there won't still be a swamp.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it a great thing that media stops believing and printing the statements of the government as facts...

Yeah, strange they had trouble doing that during the last President's tenure.

Also it's "drain the swamp".

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[Spy Handler]

I see you're blaming Trump for the government's behavior in 2016. Typical leftist logic.

FYI, Trump took office in Jan 2017. Obama was the president for all of 2016.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[Motard]

According to the report they degraded the USA from "full democracy" to "flawed democracy" in 2016

Well then, they're morons because the USA has never been a 'full democracy'. Once everything shook out after the revolution, the USA was a democratic republic.

Institutions like the Electoral College were meant to be a check against the stupidity of the masses that might elect a Trump. But idiots clamored for more power by virtue of their numbers. So state governments neutered their own congressional delegations by requiring that they vote for the popular choice.

The result? Trump. And people clamoring for more democracy.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The report cited Trump's election as an effect of the fall. It posits that citizens noted the flaws and elected a candidate who claimed he would fix things.

Fact checking Trump is like shooting fish in a barrel. The mainstream media still sucks at it, but it just got a lot easier. I suspect Trump intentionally picked a fight with CNN to counter this by making their criticism of his truthfulness look like a counter attack, not sincere reporting.

Capcha: asinine. It's sentient.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[lister king of smeg]

According to the report they degraded the USA from "full democracy" to "flawed democracy" in 2016 due to events happening in the country.

This seems contradictory to Trump's announcement to clean up with the corruption in Washington, and to "dry up the swamp". Also, what is more like a democracy, a country where the mainstream media always totally agree with the government, or one in which the government has to fight the media? Isn't it a great thing that media stops believing and printing the statements of the government as facts and starts creating fact checking teams?

You see the "correct" cannidate lost and but would (might have hypothitcly) have won if the rules were changed different AND the cannidates campaigned the same. So Obviously it had nothing to do with the Correct cannidate being a uncharismatic unexciting corupt crook that would be a rerun of the same administration from the 90s without the womanising and charisma of their other half. So because NY and CA didn't get their way we are a broken democracy.

(I didn't vote for trump or clinton but I did vote)

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[hey!]

The system is as it is precisely to make it possible for a president to be elected where the majority of people don't want him.

If you are claiming that that is not really a significant possibility, then you should have no problem going to a straight popular vote. If you object to a straight popular vote, then it means that you believe such a vote would generate different results.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump claiming to "Drain the swamp" is more of those "alternative facts"

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[h33t l4x0r]

FYI, Trump took office in Jan 2017. Obama was the president for all of 2016.

Yeah, that's why USA on the map isn't orange yet.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The system is as it is precisely to make it possible for a president to be elected where the majority of people don't want him.

If you are claiming that that is not really a significant possibility, then you should have no problem going to a straight popular vote. If you object to a straight popular vote, then it means that you believe such a vote would generate different results.

Here are the basic problems I see:
1. A lot of people have been drinking the cool aid. They believe in Trump because they have been conditioned to for decades. I don't have a good solution there, except maybe pay for independent press that continually investigates and crosschecks each other. (I.e. real reporting.)

2. The EC is a problem, and if as it appears the electors are just rubber stamps, then I say toss it. Sure conservatives love the system that basically rewards land ownership with an inherent bias, but, well I just don't see that as being better than one person one vote. EC could go to the popular vote winner, but, well, it would be nice if we could just fix it. All that being said, the EC is not the critical problem. That is #1. Garbage in = Garbage out, is difficult to fix.

3. Another problem is redistricting where republicans heard all the democratic voters into only a few districts so they get limited representation. It is not a presidential issue, but it is an issue. Fix it by having a computer draw the algorithm without political inputs. Along the same lines are voter suppression efforts citing grossly misleading stories of voter fraud, or in the case of Trump, flat out lies. If you have enough information that someone can look you up in a database and get a picture, you should be able to vote.

4. The final problem that _is_ fixable is how we vote. Simply put first past the vote is a complete pile of crap. It does not accurately reflect the will of the voter. I don't care if we do ranked voting, with some appropriate algorithm or if we just have to vote three weeks in a row, each time removing 1 or more candidates, but we have to fix this. (Why not use ranked voting to reduce the heard then a final vote to pick the winner with only two left on the ballot?)

To answer the question I asked, the danger with 3 is people might think the conclusion is there and not vote the second time. The temptation is to just do it all via an cordecet based algorithm. Still, having a clean and final run off has value, in that it is unambiguous, and not depending on an elaborate algorithm that people will complain about. I'd say, if you voted both times you get 1% off your taxes, or a credit of $100 whichever is higher. (Yes, it is a bribe, but it is not a bribe for any particular candidate, merely of actually doing your duty.)

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[h33t l4x0r]

There was significant corruption on both sides. The DNC shenanigans on one side and the fake news / Putin interference on the other. Now it's getting worse though. Conflicts of interest, alternative facts, open hostility toward the press... I predict at some point only sympathetic media outlets will be allowed in the press room and that's the definition of corruption. I expect next year USA will drop behind some middle east countries.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[Desler]

Alternative facts at work.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[larryjoe]

Every society has been a completely "full democracy" based on the historical definition of full democracy as restricted to an elite ruling class. This is certainly the case for the prototypical full democracy of ancient Greece where slaves and women were non-participants in the full democracy.

There has never been a true full democracy of any society except for those societies of sufficiently small size, e.g., for my one-person society.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[johannesg]

Their definition of democracy is not "the citizens themselves vote on every issue". Not even the Swiss have that much democracy (they only hold referendums on key issues). Thus, thanks for erecting a straw man and then obliterating it, but what they label democracy is really a democratic republic. It's an understandable mistake; the US itself has constantly referred to its wars as "bringing democracy", rather than "bringing democratic republicanism".

Having cleared that up, would you describe the US as a full democratic republic, or a flawed democratic republic? If the last, what could the flaw be and how could it be improved?

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[Z80a]

Well, on the end of the day, its still correct.
A corrupt crook manipulated the system to get herself and the worst candidate possible the runners and still managed to lose to him.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[trawg]

I was going to mod your down for "typical leftist" but instead I'll be optimistic.

I get most of my insight about American politics from Slashdot as it's one of the few places I read with comments that I can stand.

In most political posts this kind of expression is really common - something is "typically right" or "typically left". But the examples are always completely fucking identical! I've lost count of the number of times that I've read here comments like "typical Republican blah blah - you're complaining about Obama and forgetting that it's the result of Bush policies".

I don't disagree that blaming Trump for Obama stuff is wrong. Blaming him for basically anything except the last week of horrors is wrong. But when you guys sit around saying "typical leftist" and "typical right wing" it is completely fucking bemusing to those of us sitting on the wings seeing the exact same behaviour from both sides.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[guises]

If their measure is the willingness of the government to carry out the will of the people, it's probably mostly about the election of a president by a minority of the population. Though I'm sure that the supreme court thing factors in somewhere.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[thejynxed]

We don't even need to do all of that. Change first past the post to a proportional percentage system and be done with it already. No need for any runoffs whatsoever unless it is a dead 50/50 tie.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[dcw3]

You do realize that the size of the court has not always been nine members, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

As far as fascist logic is concerned, it's about as fascist for Congress not to confirm a nomination as it is for a president to run the country by executive order in direct opposition to the will of Congress. Pot meet Kettle.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[david_thornley]

If you read Federalist Paper 68 (IIRC), you'll find that the Electoral College was intended to keep people like Trump from becoming President. Add its failure there to the lack of necessity to give more political power to slave states, and you see the EC has outlived its usefulness.

Re:US degraded from full democracy in 2016 ?!?!

[david_thornley]

Bill Clinton literally wielded us military might to protect himself from impeachment and bad press

In other words, the Army occupied the Senate chamber and media buildings? That's what you're saying. If you're saying that Clinton took some military action against enemies of the US, you really do need to show us why that was a bad idea.

Hmm.... only 85%?

[Narcocide]

I would have guessed 93% or higher.

Something wrong

[ChrisMaple]

With a score of 47, Italy ties with Cuba. That seems very unlikely.

Re:Something wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

With a score of 47, Italy ties with Cuba. That seems very unlikely.

I'm assuming that you think Italy should be higher. I read somewhere that the #1 occupation in Rome was pickpocket. Also, Italy is pretty much home to the original mafia. Oh, and let's not forget about all the corruption in the Catholic Church. I can very much see Italy tied with Cuba.

Re:Something wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Berlusconi gets away with things that even the Castros would blush at.

Re:Something wrong

[balbeir]

Let's see. Berlusconi. The Mafia. Makes perfect sense.

I want ...

[PPH]

... less corruption. Or more opportunity to participate in it.

Re:I want ...

[shanen]

Well merited mod, and as usual with the best humor, plenty of insight, too. The comments that were actually moderated insightful fell rather short. As usual.

What I was looking for on the insightful side was some realization of the imminent corruption of #PresidentTweety, perhaps even a prediction of how far America's ranking will fall over the next year or two. I'm thinking short term because I'm still hoping that Trump will get Bill-Cosby-ed out of office relatively quickly. Pence is only gawdawful relative to Trump.

Not exactly a constructive closing, but I'll not that I just got Insane Clown President and just based on the table of contents I can already recommend it for insight. However, if I were a machine intelligence observing earth, I would think that the odds on human extinction before creating a replacement machine intelligence are rising rapidly...

That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

America was never a full democracy, it is and always has been a republic, and the difference fucking matters.

It has also been deeply flawed for a very long time. The democratic process is largely smoke-and-mirrors now, with a group of wealthy elites calling the shots.

Trump winning the presidency is an amazing about-face on that front, with the will of voters actually being imposed upon the established power base despite its preferences. Yes, I know Trump lost the popular vote. No, that isn't what I am talking about. Skip the pedantry and semantics and my meaning will become clear...Trump wasn't just an upset for democrats and liberals, Trump was also an upset for the established crop of power-holders, and THAT is the unusual result.

Trump's victory doesn't make this democracy flawed. The flaws are deeper, and older, and I am pretty sure Trump won't be able to fix them even if he tries.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Trump was also an upset for the established crop of power-holders, and THAT is the unusual result."

Correction: "Trump was also an upset for the established crop of non-billionaire power-holders, and THAT is the unusual result."

Now the billionaires control the political offices directly and cut out the middle men... before they had to pay people to do their bidding.

Yipeee!!!!!

Re:That's stupid.

[hackertourist]

America was never a full democracy, it is and always has been a republic, and the difference fucking matters.

The difference may matter, depending on context. In the context of this study, 'Republic' is a subset of 'Democracy'. Democracy also contains various combinations of monarchy+parliament. The other broad category (Dictatorship) has flavors varying from the classical dictator to oligarchy and theocracy.

Re:That's stupid.

[Hognoxious]

Since you're such a fucking genius you can explain how constitutional monarchies exist, which are democracies but not republics.

Re:That's stupid.

[Cederic]

Sounds like they're all democracies to me.

What's the issue here?

Re:That's stupid.

[Hognoxious]

Read the post I replied to, fucktard.

Re:That's stupid.

[Hognoxious]

In that case you'll be able to name dozens of countries that call themselves republics which have monarchs.

I reckon I can name more countries that have "republic" in the title and fail the "government of the people" criterion.

P.S. Not an American (or a true Scotsman) for that matter.

Re:That's stupid.

[Cederic]

I did. However calling me a fucktard doesn't answer my question. Are you drunk or is this your normal level of stupidity? You seem to be very upset for no discernable reason, are you ok? Would you like me to ring for a nurse?

Re:That's stupid.

[david_thornley]

Actually, you'd know that democracy is Greek for rule (ocracy) by the people (demos), and Republic is from the Roman Res Publica ("public thing"). Since then, the meaning of "democracy" has remained pretty much the same, but "Republic" mostly means a government without a hereditary monarch, which was a revolutionary concept when the US Constitution was written. The UK is a democracy but not a republic, and the old Soviet Socialist Republics were republics but not democracies. Personally, I'm much more interested in the "democracy" part of it.

Re:That's stupid.

[LienRag]

I'm not convinced that billionaires put Bannon on the National Security Council, with the right to choose who can be executed witout due process...

Re:Singapore near the top?

[Anonymous Coward]

Singapore near the top? This is the country where you get arrested for chewing gum and not flushing the toilet and the death sentence for drug possession? I also find it strange that Hong Kong is near the top.

Singapore also has the unhappiest people in the world so apparently getting rid of corruption doesn't solve everything: http://www.gallup.com/poll/159...

85â... live under a corrupt government...

[mmell]

The other 15â... run that corrupt government.

not why

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get low corruption from "strong social welfare systems and high taxes". Those things and low corruption become possible (not ensured) when there is cultural uniformity. People think alike, worship alike, look alike, speak alike... and generally feel like extended family.

Most people wouldn't rip off their family.

Re:not why

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot easier to have national unity when there are only 6 million or less people in each country. Fun little thing from a google search. Search "nordic countries by population" and you'll get.

The population (as estimated by the World Factbook in July of 2014) of all of the Nordic countries combined—Denmark (5,569,077), Finland (5,268,799), Iceland (317,351), Norway (5,147,792), and Sweden (9,723,809)—is roughly equal to the population of Texas.Aug 29, 2014

We have counties in particular states with more people then any single country mentioned above.

Re:not why

[r1348]

Finland and Sweden are not NATO members.

Re:not why

[jameson]

See, I've heard this argument many times, but I've never been able to wrap my head around it. If you tell me that a social system (such as a system of government) has trouble scaling from 1 to 10 people, or from 10 to 100, or from 100 to 1000, then yes, I can see that. If you tell me that it scales fine up to 1000, but has trouble scaling to 10,000, then that's a bit odd (unless we have time/storage constraints and superlinear factors, of course, but that's not really an issue here). My line of thinking is that if you can scale fine to 10 million, then why wouldn't you be able to scale to 400 million or however many people live in the US these days?

In other words, there must be other reasons, and `we could never do that in the US / in Germany / in France / in Japan' is not something that I'm willing to buy.

Re:not why

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people just don't understand that the social and economic systems practiced in small countries do not scale.

This is probably true, which suggests that everybody benefits when there is more control at the local level. It doesnt mean that large countries cannot have the social and economic benefits of small countries, it just means the national level needs to reliquish more control/power to the regional levels and the regional levels need to relinquish more control/power to the local level. It is about imbalance of power. Getting political power back where it is needed most at ground level. Giving more power at the top is not going to make your life easier.
Disclaimer: Live in Switzerland though a large country national.

Re:not why

[thegarbz]

Most US states have more unity than many listed Nordic countries. Unity has little to do with corruption. Actually I retract that. Unity breeds corruption as people with power are less at risk of losing power and thus get away with far more.

Re:not why

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Kanada (35m population) and Germany (83m population) and Great Britain (64m population) are also social welfare states with low corruption.

Re:not why

[Imrik]

Uniformity of culture and geography plays a significant part. Also, the larger the system the more layers of overhead you get.

Re:not why

[khallow]

I don't see why not. Everything scales up more or less with population size and, at least in Europe, there seems to be very little difference in general between the social and economic system systems between small and large countries. There are some difference between northern and southern and western and eastern countries in general, but they have to do with culture, history and the relative economic strength, not with size.

Evidence would be nice to have in this situation.

Moreover, on whom exactly are Finland, Sweden, Switzerland. Austria, Ireland and other non-NATO members supposedly relying? Good relations with neighbours and not starting or getting involved in far away wars over natural resources and which dictator or which terrorist group is the 'better' goes along way towards not needing an overly large military.

NATO and the EU for starters. Not every country is as hard to invade as Switzerland is. And good relations with neighbors are greatly expedited by having multiple neighbors to counter the military threat from other neighbors.

Re:not why

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Then it's very interesting that Sweden and Norway have a higher proportion of foreign-born residents than the USA but still manage to have more "uniformity of culture", no?

Re:not why

[rbrander]

Sorry? Calling from Canada, here, 35 million people scattered across a larger country than the USA, and we have had the highest immigration rate in the world (nearly 1% of the population, per year) for over 20 years; a quarter of Canada was not born here. Recently, our major donor nations are not European, but all over Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.

And we rank pretty high on the index - just above Germany, which is over twice our size and now famous for taking in more refugees than anybody; they've had some cultural strains because of it.

But all that has had nothing to do with their transparency and democracy, or ours.

Re:not why

[Agripa]

Sorry? Calling from Canada, here, 35 million people scattered across a larger country than the USA, and we have had the highest immigration rate in the world (nearly 1% of the population, per year) for over 20 years; a quarter of Canada was not born here. Recently, our major donor nations are not European, but all over Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.

And we rank pretty high on the index - just above Germany, which is over twice our size and now famous for taking in more refugees than anybody; they've had some cultural strains because of it.

But all that has had nothing to do with their transparency and democracy, or ours.

Canada is larger but most of the population is close to the US border.

Re:not why

[dcw3]

Go google "Finland Sweden NATO", and tell us who's help they're looking for these days.

Don't sweat the small stuff

[rsilvergun]

or you'll fall prey to the big con. Here in the States we just elected a Simpson's punchline based largely on a private email server.

Very few free countries anymore...

[Lumpy]

Greenland, Iceland and Canada are I believe the only ones left, and I am not so sure about canada... Countries played their hands when the crash hit in 2008. The countries that bailed out the rich instead of the citizens proved who was the corrupt ones.

Re:More like 100%

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking idiot, don't you know Lincoln was an evil tyrant who began the tradition of the imperial presidency, waged war against his own people, jailed dissidents without trial, and spied on everyone's communications? Lincoln was the worst American dictator in history. "But slavery!" you whine. Lincoln didn't give a shit about slavery one way or the other, he said so on many occasions.

corruption PERCEPTION index

[ooloorie]

It's the corruption perception index; it reflects what people believe about their country. People believing that their country is democratic isn't the same as their country actually being democratic.

Re:Well, I live in Quebec

[ems2004]

But you have not seen the level of corruption in countries like India, Pakistan etc. The reason western countries are declining in the index is because of corruption import from those countries... you may find my comment as racist but I am from that part of the world so ...take it easy.

9 of the 10 most populous countries are "corrupt"

[davidwr]

According to this table of the 20 most populated countries, 9 of the top 10 had an index of 40 or lower. Only the United States (#3) was higher, with a score of 74. Those 9 countries alone account for about half of the world's population and over 90% of the population of the biggest 10 countries.

Rounding out the top 20, only Japan (#11, 72), Germany (#17, 81), the UK (#19, 81), and France (#20, 69) were higher than 50 points. Turkey (#17, 41) was the only other country in the top-20-population list to score above a 40.

The cynic in me says the only reason the top 10 weren't all failing was that the bribe must've worked (just kidding!).

Re:Singapore near the top?

[Qzukk]

This is the country where you get arrested for chewing gum and not flushing the toilet and the death sentence for drug possession

What's corrupt about that? Corrupt would be if the rich could buy indulgences for their chewing gum, or they were paying people to gun down suspected drug dealers without a trial. You can argue whether these laws are a good idea, but if they're applied evenly and properly, they're not "corrupt".

Human nature

[Max_W]

I think it is about the same all over the world. The same as violence against women, it's about 30% everywhere, 1 of 3 women, by the WHO statistics:
http://www.who.int/reproductiv...

Recall what was in John Podesta email messages, which became known just by a mere accident, because he did not use two steps authentication on his Gmail. It is about the same everywhere, as it is a property of Homo Sapiens.

Electoral College history

[mx b]

Institutions like the Electoral College were meant to be a check against the stupidity of the masses that might elect a Trump.

That's not entirely accurate. This history of it is a bit more nuanced. Effectively, the larger northern colonies that opposed slavery would have always won the presidency against the smaller southern states that wanted to maintain slavery. Southern states were afraid that in a pure democracy (one person, one vote), the north would always win elections and therefore set the agenda and force them to do things against their will: in particular, force them to give up slavery. Several states refused to sign on to the new Constitution if it was set up this way. So the compromise was to allow an electoral college, House by population by an equal vote for each state in Senate, to make it more "fair" toward the south so they would agree to it.

If that didn't happen, the US would have remained under the Articles of Confederation, which was too weak to really hold the nation together. The Confederation did not give Congress authority to do many things that were discovered required during the Revolutionary War. To some degree, Congress acted out of the bounds of law (their mandate from the states) to continue the war and draft the Constitution in the first place; they were initially only to make some minor changes to the Confederation, but majority of delegates decided that wouldn't be enough on their own.

To be fair, there was certainly fear from some early leaders about pure democracy, equating it to effectively mob rule. There were also concerns that foreign entities (particularly British spies at the time) would attempt to influence our elections. But the anti-federalists were very strongly pro-democracy. The federalists won the battle of words in the constitution at first, but the Federalist party quickly died out and was replaced by the anti-federalists under Jefferson. The anti-federalists splintered into today's Republican and Democratic parties. So effectively, most of our history has been very democratic and states' rights, even if some (not all) of founders thought closer to what you think.

But idiots clamored for more power by virtue of their numbers. So state governments neutered their own congressional delegations by requiring that they vote for the popular choice.

The result? Trump. And people clamoring for more democracy.

The history of the the 17th amendment is also complex. In a nutshell, the people clamored for direct election to stop corruption. Prior to this, the state legislators chose Senators, which as you can guess meant they were very prone to bribery and intimidation to get certain people selected for the Senate. Also, it was easy for state legislatures to get stuck without choosing anyone because of political infighting, meaning that some states would often not be represented in the Senate for lengths of time while state legislatures argued.

It was an interesting idea, but didn't appear to work out that great in practice, so we changed it. As the Constitution was specifically written to do, via amendments.

I think we need to continue the fight against corruption by opening our system up to even more democratic measures. Much corruption comes today from our laws effectively requiring a two-party political system (so many committees require equal numbers of GOP and Dems, for example, as if those parties were written into the constitution; they weren't, and in fact a good chunk of the Federalist Papers goes on about how corruption and political parties are the worst things that could happen to our country). I think changing to a different voting method (Approval, Score, or Ranked Choice Voting) would eliminate the "spoiler" effect and allow citizens to vote for who they actually think is the best for the job, and not just to "stop" the "other" candidate.

Re:Electoral College history

[humptheElephant]

Yes, thanks for the review line equation. Unfortunately, our news media is controlled by people with great wealth or can by bought by great wealth. This gives them a bigger megaphone to influence election outcomes. Our politicians are now pretty much owned by their big donors. The recent attempt to change the law restricting drug imports from Canada is a good example of that. A lot of Senators from both parties voted against that.

Re:Electoral College history

[Agripa]

But idiots clamored for more power by virtue of their numbers. So state governments neutered their own congressional delegations by requiring that they vote for the popular choice.

The result? Trump. And people clamoring for more democracy.

The history of the the 17th amendment is also complex. In a nutshell, the people clamored for direct election to stop corruption. Prior to this, the state legislators chose Senators, which as you can guess meant they were very prone to bribery and intimidation to get certain people selected for the Senate. Also, it was easy for state legislatures to get stuck without choosing anyone because of political infighting, meaning that some states would often not be represented in the Senate for lengths of time while state legislatures argued.

It was an interesting idea, but didn't appear to work out that great in practice, so we changed it. As the Constitution was specifically written to do, via amendments.

A majority of the states already directly elected their US senators before the 17th amendment was ratified.

What?

[buss_error]

Fifty percent might have constituted a pass in a High School arithmetic test

.
I don't know what high school that might be, the one I attended a score of 85% was a failing grade.

And the USA?

[JimSadler]

Where did the USA fall on the corruption index?

Re:And the USA?

[loufoque]

It's 18th least corrupt on a list of 176.
This is, of course, unlikely.

Looks like the people that made this study were probably American and corrupt too.

Cannidate

[aepervius]

I knew trump and Clinton were yapping, but to declare them dog ;)

News

[Tablizer]

Humans are corrupt.

Re:News

[Tablizer]

Well, it can offer a form of checks and balances. A constitution is an example.

Hu- Trump is the establishment

[Anonymous Coward]

It may not be that upset you think it is. The biggest upset is that they know they have a moron before them (counting the crowd, and the "million of illegals") but make no mistake he IS part of the establishment. If anything you just have to look at his cabinet, and the way he nominated folk which contributed but have no clue about the job (BeVos for example). But his victory show the weakness of the US democracy : a demagogue with an imbecilic program, racist & misogynistic tone, mocking handicapped folk, was easily elected. This is what the founding father wanted to avoid by NOT having the president elected by normal voter by the way, and this is the sole reason the EC existed originally. Trump will not make "america great again" that america never existed, older folk away from the city are thinking of the beaver show and other shows of the 50ies showing model family. The reality is that manufacturing will not abandon automation. And the blue collar job are gone forever.

Even at such low number you do not have unity

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO, The main problem is not the number of people or geography. Look you may think you have vast difference between texan and new yorker, but when you scratch the paint a bit, you are much more alike than you think - at least for the big cities, outside differences are much more pronounced. If I compare, say to the difference between Germany and France in culture, habits, politics etc - even ignoring languages....

No the great split you have is not geographical, it is political. Your great national disunity is manufactured by the 2 political parties, which kept playing the people until there is an enormous divide between a democrat and republican neighbors. And then they play the american on that desunity like a fiddle on regular basis, and you bite it hook and sinker.

What I just sent to the corrupt govt. here

[wisebabo]

Hi there, I live in Vietnam. I just saw a govt. owned newspaper (tuoi tre news) say that the Prime Minister thinks Vietnam could be the home of a tech giant like Google, Facebook, etc.

I don't think so. They have a comments section (most likely to find troublemakers like me) but I've been so frustrated that I decided to send the following reply. (If I start posting from another country, you'll know what happened).

************ In response to the PM saying that Vietnam could be the home to a tech giant **************
While I wish what PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc said would happen, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Certainly there is potential in Vietnam. In my almost 10 years here, I've been impressed by the ambition, hard work ethic and focus on education that is a hallmark of the Vietnamese people. IF they think their efforts will be rewarded, the Vietnamese work just as hard the Chinese, Japanese or even Koreans (my ethnicity :); this is no doubt due to their shared confucian cultural heritage. This is in contrast to their S.E. Asian neighbors who have a more relaxed buddhist/muslim/hindu approach to life. Whether or not this "better" depends on what you think the purpose of life is, however for getting ahead in a material world it is obvious which one is more focused on the here and now instead of the hereafter (or previous life).

Unfortunately due to the, there is no way to beat around the bush, CORRUPTION in Vietnam, this potential is wasted or going abroad. I'm not singling Vietnam out, fully 85% of humanity lives under a corrupt government (http://bit.ly/2kd9LNc). However no country has created a global (tech) giant without getting corruption at least somewhat under control. I'm afraid Vietnam is far from close to doing so.

I speak from experience, I had two successful (if small) high tech companies in the U.S. before coming to Ho Chi Minh City almost 10 years ago to retire. Now, with time on my hands I've been toying around with they idea of starting a bio-tech company utilizing the latest techniques in DNA nanopore sequencing along with bioinformatics (hopefully enhanced by machine learning). However, I've found the bureaucratic hurdles to be almost unsurmountable. Just getting a simple chemical in Vietnam, a process that is literally overnight in the U.S. takes up to two months. Getting customs approval for more advanced material has been a nightmare; many times shipments are delayed on items that must be kept below freezing. I'm sure some of them have been damaged as a result.

No, much more likely than Vietnam growing its own tech giant, would it contribute to one in another country. This would follow in the fine tradition of Syria (Steve Jobs), South Africa (Elon Musk), Russia (Google founders), Andy Grove (Intel, Czech) who all went to America. Not that America is immune; now that the Trump has come, the republican party has already tried to get rid of anti-corruption efforts and his wealthy white cabinet (and himself!) are filled with major conflict of interest problems. It's sad, the people who believe Hillary was corrupt, instead of just ambitious (and what presidential candidate isn't?), were the reason why Fake news (and Russian involvement) succeeded. However, the U.S. still has many fantastic strengths, Vietnam not so much. So, while I can easily see the next tech giant being founded/run by a Vietnamese (in fact I know of someone who is well on his way to doing so in the next big thing in biotech :) I'm afraid it won't be in Vietnam.

Vietnam has been good to me, I've actually been able to gain a level of proficiency in genetics at a university here (thank you International University!) and maybe I'll even be able to repay the country a bit by doing something here (if the government doesn't kick me out). However, to really be successful, I'll need to go somewhere that doesn't require a "expedited fee" to get things done or regulations whose only purpose is to elicit said fees.

New Zealand anyone?

Re:More like 100%

[Imrik]

Some people live under governments that are local enough that if there's too much corruption, the government gets stabbed with a stick and someone else takes over.

Re:About Hillary

[Imrik]

You left out the part where she had the server wiped after the data on it was subpoenaed.

A story about politicians

[Somebody Is Using My]

A story about politicians

This is a story I've wanted told for a long time. I think it is a story worth reading, even if you do not necessarily agree with its conclusions because I think it offers an interesting alternate view of our politicians.

The thing is, this isn't really /my/ story to tell. Rather, it is a recounting of various conversations I have had with a friend? (Peer? Acquaintance? A guy I did business and with whom I had some interesting discussions.) While I myself have had little contact with politicians, this gentleman has, and over several years he has shared some of his insights on them; how they think and why they do the things they do. I've actually asked him to come here and share these thoughts with the people on Slashdot, but he has always demurred. Partly - although he has never said so in as many words - because he doesn't think it's worth his bother talking with IT geeks on a tiny, fairly inconsequential website but mostly because he values his discretion and feels that were he to make a public statement it might be traced back to him and reflect badly not only on him but on the people for whom he works. On the other hand, I have mentioned that I intended to share his thoughts - properly anonymized - and he didn't seem too upset about it.

So who is this gentleman? I guess the best description for him would be an "Aide" or "Secretary", although I recall him once self-effacingly describing himself as an "incredibly overpaid intern" and a "go-fer". He is one of those mostly faceless people who work with our politicians, actually going and and doing most of the things they order. His tasks have varied from simply mundane chores as fetching coffee, to meeting and negotiating with other power brokers, to helping read and write bills his patron intended to back. He himself has no official rank and his position has varied over the years, but it probably would not be too far off the mark to consider him second behind his master. He has worked for politicians on both sides of the Aisle - although he tends to favor those on the Left - and has over the years worked with politicos of all levels, from local government, to state legislative, to members of Congress. It's allowed him to garner an interesting viewpoint of the hows and whys of government.

I met this gentleman many years ago when he needed assistance with some IT work. It was a very brief professional acquaintance, but over the years we have kept in touch; he often reached out to me to answer a quick IT-related question. Over the years we have had a number of chats and he told a number of interesting anecdotes - all sanitized of names to protect the innocent - and it's from these discussions that I have distilled the following insights. I will be the first to admit that my friend has his own biases and - like most of us, works in his own bubble - but I think that's partly what makes these stories so interesting. You might not agree with his conclusions or argue that he is defending the indefensible, but I think he was being honest. I - like many here - tend to revile our political leaders, thinking them all untrustworthy and corrupt, waffling on important issues, indebted to corporate masters, etc. These tales offer a different light on thing. It's all going to be a bit stream-of-consciousness, I'm afraid, as I remember things he told me, but I hope you find it interesting as well.

So.

One of the first insights he gave me was that most politicians tend to enter into the game because they have one issue they really care about. Maybe some of them have two, or even rarely three, but - whether it is gun-control, or military spending or health care, pushing that issue is usually the primary force behind not only their entry into politics but also the reason they stay in politics and keep pushing up the ladder seeking positions of more power and authority. They want their issue to succeed, and they keep reaching upwards in hopes of not only getting it achieved, but also - if they are successful -

Re:A story about politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

The British MP might be right on the money, about being powerless. Britian is a Westminster parliamentary democracy and so is Canada. A few years ago, some Canadian MP's (that's Member of Parliament) attempted a sort-of moral rebellion.

What I mean is, they noted that party discipline meant that they had no meaningful voting options. They could show up in Parliament and vote with their party. Or they could not show up at all. Showing up and voting against your party means, the Party Whip comes and yells at you. Do it again and you will be suspended, ostracized, have your funding cut, you'll be kicked off committees, there are lots of ways to keep the party members in line.

The net result was that these MP's referred to themselves as "vote cows". Their mind wasn't required, their opinion didn't matter, their attitude was dismissed. Come to Parliament to have your vote milked, it's all you are good for!

The rebellion didn't last. There is grand talk of having more "free votes" but I'm not sure even this modest reform has taken hold.

Re:A story about politicians

[LienRag]

Politicians have no power, or far less than most people think they do, and they themselves certainly feel powerless most of the time. They feel consistently stymied by... well, everyone; local government, the bureaucracy, their higher ups. They can give an order "this must be done!" but it is passed through so many layers - often through people that disagree with their decisions - that even though the command is obeyed, it is done haphazardly, or slow, or done in a way that nuanced and neutralized the action to the point where it is like nothing was done (the military, apparently, is great at this).

Not that I don't find the rest of your post interesting, but that particular part is more than interesting, it nails why Trump (or Pence? or Bannon? There's no way to tell who is actually ruling the US right now) is acting the way he is, with such brisk actions that traditional pundits consider crazy...

Re:About Hillary

[wisebabo]

Look, as I said, there's a vast (yes even the most cursory web searches will turn up many web sites like breitbart) "industry" seeking to say bad things about Hillary. Since I am not familiar with this particular claim (and again, I'm sure I'll never be familiar with all of them like that pizza child sex ring Fake news that led to an armed assault by another deluded Republican) I spent a few minutes looking online for evidence of the above claim that "she had the server wiped..."

Unless I'm very wrong about the abilities of Hillary (who, admittedly in the eyes of Republicans, seems to be capable of doing almost anything evil), she's not an expert in server technology and probably has never heard of what was apparently used ("Bleach Bit"?). Therefore, I assume she must have gotten someone else to do it. Okay, is there an order from her to do so? If so, is there any record of this order?

You know, if I were a tech guy asked to do something that looked very illegal ("hey I want you to completely wipe the server NOW and don't retain any backups and don't tell anyone") and could have me end up in prison, I'd really want to 1) refuse the order or 2) get it in WRITING (preferably signed). You know, even if it weren't so (obviously) illegal (I mean there was a federal subpoena for the records), I'd probably want the order in writing anyway because wiping out the boss' server because you misinterpreted what she said (I said "clean the files" not "wipe them!") would possibly be a career ending move (certainly a job ending one).

Don't you think it's more likely that the IT guy just panicked when he realized the server was hacked (and he was responsible for it's security?). Or that maybe he knew that the justice department was likely to be sniffing around and he wanted to do his boss a (misguided) favor? I don't even know if the wipe was successful, of course I'm assuming the Bleach bit worked but what about all the backups or e-mails sent through other servers or they could possibly get them from the recipients (I'm not an expert at these things so there may be other ways of recovering them).

From my (admittedly brief) search (which however did include the top republican sites) THERE'S NO EVIDENCE THAT HILLARY ORDERED IT DONE

I'm not saying she didn't, it's just we don't know. Considering that she's a (good) lawyer (her Harvard Law degree must be worth something) and that she is very well aware of the penalties of obstruction of justice and that she is NOT an expert on computer security and has no idea if the would, in fact be able to get rid of all the incriminating evidence and that she wouldn't even be sure that the IT guy would cooperate but instead would turn her over to the feds, I think it's likely it's that she didn't. If every republican slimeball I mean operative couldn't get this evidence (and they would really really want to, obstruction of justice can get you sent to PRISON FOR A LONG TIME) then there probably wasn't any don't you think?

Of course you didn't think, and that's the problem. Fake news wins again! Actually this is more like just plain old insinuating, you should read some high-school books on the dangers of relying on hearsay. After forty years I can still remember the name of the book "The Ox-Bow incident", look it up. Or, more tragically read up on the case of Emmett Till, a 14 year old black boy taken out of a jail by a mob with no trial and lynched. Oh and the main accuser has admitted she made it up (but of course there wasn't even a trial to give the poor kid a chance. The woman who made it up refuses to be identified knowing that in no way did he deserve what happened. I hope it follows her to her grave and beyond).

Enough! No one can spend this much time refuting every falsehood and unfounded allegation out there, we have to rely on the people to be well educated. Oh wait, that's precisely the demographic that DIDN'T vote for Hillary

Small, uniform countries are a good thing

[bradley13]

"they are small, protestant, ethnically uniform countries"

Consider this for a moment, in two parts:

- Small: Less government power, closer to the citizens. You meet your government ministers on the train, in the local coffee shop, at the grocery store. Big countries could improve their situation by removing power from the central government and putting it in the hands of local government. Even better: break up big countries into smaller ones. The EU is an experiment in the wrong direction; Brexit is one country realizing that such a union is not in their national interest.

- Culturally uniform: This is one of the fundamental messages of the alt-right. People are inherently tribal. Let us finally recognize this and find the best ways to live with it, instead of trying to force multiculturalism to work. There is nothing inherently wrong with nationalism, cultural and ethnic uniformity. You have your culture in your country, and we will have our culture in ours. Friction happens when you mix two utterly incompatible cultures - refer to Sweden.

Re:Small, uniform countries are a good thing

[ooloorie]

The irony is, of course, that the American left idolizes these countries, yet at the same time is trying to transform the US into a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural centralized empire. In any case, the reason why such small countries aren't more prevalent is simple: they can't defend themselves very well and get eaten up by neighboring empires. The solution the US came up with to that conundrum was to create a large number of diverse states and put them into a trade and defense union, with some minimal guarantees for individual liberties.The EU tried to do the same thing. But we're seeing that such constructs may not be stable long term.

Perception is getting worse?

[vsavkin]

TI does not report corruption level, it reports corruption perception level.
If we perceive that it's getting worse, it can be because it's actually getting worse, or it can be because we know better than before.

Corruption = f(power)

[moeinvt]

"Power corrupts" isn't just an adage, it's a genuine psychological phenomenon. The corruption is exacerbated when it's wielded in an institutional environment like a government. Look no further than the Stanford Prison Experiments. In the course of only six days, a group of healthy, psychologically stable people who were elevated to a position of power became so abusive that the experiment had to be stopped.

Big government is corrupt at an institutional level that transcends the people who happen to be in charge at any one time. The communists and socialists argue that their systems would work if only the "right people" were in charge. The framers of The U.S. Constitution understood that there are no "right people" and the only way to keep corruption and abuse under control is to limit and decentralize the power of government. It was good while it lasted. In the current USA government, where 535 people control a $4 TRILLION annual budget, corruption is 100% guaranteed.

A genius way to make it scale, by T. Jefferson

[raymorris]

There is an ingenious way to make thimgs scale, so that what works in smaller, more homogenous cultures like Norway can also work in a large, very diverse country like the United States. A group of really smart people figured out how to implement it and wrote down a plan.

What you can do is recognize that Texas, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Utah have some culture and interests in common, and some very different. For example, people in those states have very different ideas about the second amendment and gun control. Heck, objectively gun laws that makes sense in Yuma County, Arizona are very different from what makes sense 275 miles away in Los Angeles. On the other hand, people in both places want a strong dollar, they benefit from good relations with other countries, etc.

So what you can do is have the common US government handle monetary policy, international relations, and a few other things that affect the whole country, while Arizona decides how they want to do things in Arizona. If Arizona wants to license concealed carry after proper training, they can do that and it doesn't much affect people in LA. If LA wants to have toll roads, or a tax on large sodas, they can do so - it doesn't affect people in Yuma. Later, people in Yuma and in LA can look at the results of different policies and see if they want to emulate the policies that worked well.

This is called a "federal" system, as in a federation of states. It worked very well when the US tried it, from 1776 to about 1929.

Where do the other 15% live?

[stephenmac7]

Surely not on earth.

Hegemony

[NewYork]

Voting in elections is hegemony, not democracy

State by state?

[vandamme]

Too bad they don't break it down by state in the USA. I live in New York, and somebody needs to drain the swamp in Albany.

Re:About Hillary

[Imrik]

The tech guys involved were given immunity and yet still pleaded the fifth. The investigation never recorded any interviews with her and never put her under oath. I'm not saying she did anything that was technically illegal, but she definitely shouldn't be given more power.

Re:About Hillary

[wisebabo]

The TECH GUYS involved were given immunity and yet still pleaded the fifth. The INVESTIGATION never recorded any interviews with her and never put her under oath. I'M not saying she did anything that was technically illegal, but she definitely shouldn't be given more power.

"whisper whisper hint hint" (note, please show me HILLARY in this)

So, you're willing to judge based on hearsay and unproven allegations? (Why don't you do this to Trump, there's nothing hearsay out of what comes out of HIS orifice!). This is despite (as is well documented) the enormous effort by the right to trash her (and both houses of Congress spending what, $47 million of OUR taxpayer money for nothing!). Why didn't the investigation put her under oath? I'm sure the Right would say because they were in her pocket (as if investigators, even if they weren't hired by the Republican congress, didn't have even an inkling of moral courage. If you think that they were so easily corrupted, you are either not a professional or don't know what it means to have ethics). Don't you think that it's because they didn't think the charges (of which there were none filed) were worth pursuing? Maybe they had the ethics not to pursue baseless charges. Don't you think that just maybe that the tech guys, facing prison, possibly invoked their right to SELF (not Hillary) incrimination? Or are you amongst the (almost) majority of Americans who've been guzzling the kool aid?

I'm afraid Lincoln was wrong when he said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time but...". Well at least Lincoln was wrong when it came to getting enough votes to win an electoral college victory. (Please don't tell me you drank the kool aid about Trump winning the popular vote, or that millions of illegal votes were cast or that the inauguration was the largest in history or all the other nonsense he REGULARLY farts. It would be funny if these were the only things he was (self) deluded on, unfortunately when it comes to climate change, immigrant threats to American jobs, international relations with our allies and other, critical issues that will affect Americans for generations to come; it crosses the line from comedy to tragedy. Hope you don't have kids!

You know, Lincoln spoke at a time when people chose their leader through debate and reasoning (remember the Lincoln Douglas debates?). People cared about facts and certainly any serious contender for most powerful office in the land didn't make things up to stroke his own ego. Now, however, America has elected its leader on a process much closer to Reality Television; one not based on character and competence. No wonder Trump won

Re:About Hillary

[david_thornley]

She ordered her staff to turn over all official communications and wipe the rest. They did a bad job of it.

The bottom line is that I am NEVER going to accept a recommendation for an IT guy from Hillary Clinton.

Taxation is theft

[SonicSpike]

Taxation is the same thing as theft.