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Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

independent.co.uk

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Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

#41

Post by easytiger »

touristtam wrote: post #37
vintermann wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you hold a position of trust (elected politician, policeman, bureaucrat, CEO, board member, employee representative, union boss), and you use the powers of that position to further some private interest rather than the interests of those you are set to serve, then you're corrupt. That's more or less Transparency International's definition, and I agree with it. But banks' trustees aren't the public. It's their depo…

> Compared to other nations, Britain's public trustees probably aren't so bad at serving the interests of the public. Dave & Co have probably been the worst offenders in recent recent years for selling public assets and companies they have nationalized to buddies of theirs at massively discounted prices, beginning with the RBS.

> nationalized to buddies of theirs at massively discounted prices, beginning with the RBS.

What? I guess you have much evidence.

Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

#42

Post by easytiger »

hartpuff wrote: post #35
sievebrain wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote about a "100% success rate" is meaningless. It comes from here: According to our whistleblowing source, who has been asked to give evidence to the new Parliamentary Committee on Banking Standards, set up in the wake of the Libor scandal in June, banks tend to take a very dim view of employees who break ranks. "No risk manager wants to admit that he didn't do his job. So an unholy alliance of mutual self-int…

I wasn't addressing the veracity or otherwise of the "100% success rate" claim, I was using a different quote from the article that was linked, stating the UK's financial regulator told a whistleblower to not contact them again . Here's another quote from it: Newsnight can reveal that not a single UK- based bank has ever been punished for firing a whistleblower within its ranks - even though these individuals are pro…

> The issue is that the UK has serious corruption and (organized) crime problems, seemingly tolerated (at best) at some of the the highest levels in the UK.

And yet you proffer no evidence.

Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

#43

Post by polshaw »

gonvaled wrote: post #21
marvel_boy wrote: post #16

Spain, not UK, is by far the most corrupt country in Europe. High rank spanish politicians are involved in the Panama Papers.

Also british - Cameron's father (and probably Cameron, caught lying), non the less. EDIT Why the downvotes? Factually incorrect? Don't think so: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/07/david-cameron-ad... You don't like it. Fine, but don't downvote it.

It's factually incorrect that high ranking British politicians are named on the Panama papers.

It's widely known Cameron's dad was in the PP but also that he was not a British politician. It still stinks but there's no evidence of David Cameron being directly involved.

Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

#44

Post by sievebrain »

barrkel wrote: post #38
sievebrain wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were not convicted of anything, if you're referring to the Mexico/Iran story which I guess you are. You heard the US Government's side of the story. The USG agreed not to take the charges to court as long as HSBC accepted big fines and didn't say anything (i.e. didn't attempt to defend itself in public). So there was never any court case or any judicial process involved. If you hear only the government's story a…

The end-point of your logic is that bankers are too important to prosecute, which is obviously unacceptable.

There's no problem with prosecuting bankers under laws that are tightly written and which can only be violated knowingly. The apocalypse case can only occur if bankers feel like they have no way to avoid being guilty, which is certainly true under AML laws but not really true under many other kinds of laws (like ordinary fraud).

Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

#45

Post by gonvaled »

xioxox wrote: post #40
gonvaled wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also british - Cameron's father (and probably Cameron, caught lying), non the less. EDIT Why the downvotes? Factually incorrect? Don't think so: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/07/david-cameron-ad... You don't like it. Fine, but don't downvote it.

He ran a fund which was based in tax haven to avoid double taxation. Lots of funds do things like this. It's not corruption or criminal.

Which applies in exactly the same manner to the mentioned Spanish politicians too.

Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

#46

Post by gonvaled »

polshaw wrote: post #43
gonvaled wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also british - Cameron's father (and probably Cameron, caught lying), non the less. EDIT Why the downvotes? Factually incorrect? Don't think so: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/07/david-cameron-ad... You don't like it. Fine, but don't downvote it.

It's factually incorrect that high ranking British politicians are named on the Panama papers. It's widely known Cameron's dad was in the PP but also that he was not a British politician. It still stinks but there's no evidence of David Cameron being directly involved.

> David Cameron has finally admitted he benefited from a Panama-based offshore trust set up by his late father.

> Cameron also admitted he did not know whether the £300,000 he inherited from his father had benefited from tax haven status due to part of his estate being based in a unit trust in Jersey.

Maybe he was not directly named in the papers, but he committed as much (or as little) corruption as the Spanish politicians.

Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

#47

Post by hartpuff »

easytiger wrote: post #42
hartpuff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't addressing the veracity or otherwise of the "100% success rate" claim, I was using a different quote from the article that was linked, stating the UK's financial regulator told a whistleblower to not contact them again . Here's another quote from it: Newsnight can reveal that not a single UK- based bank has ever been punished for firing a whistleblower within its ranks - even though these individuals are pro…

> The issue is that the UK has serious corruption and (organized) crime problems, seemingly tolerated (at best) at some of the the highest levels in the UK. And yet you proffer no evidence.

Other than every quote in my two posts?

Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

#48

Post by josephcooney »

felipeerias wrote: post #6

The UK is the second country with the most intermediaries (banks, accountants, lawyers…) listed in the Panama papers. The first one is Hong Kong, a former British colony. "More than half of the companies listed in the leaked Mossack Fonseca documents are registered in the U.K. or its overseas territories [...] If we want to understand modern Britain, we first need to realize that our primary economic function in the…

Except that the U.S. is considered to have a well-enough developed system of on-shore tax havens to not require going to Panama.

Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?

#49

Post by pjc50 »

easytiger wrote: post #41
touristtam wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compared to other nations, Britain's public trustees probably aren't so bad at serving the interests of the public. Dave & Co have probably been the worst offenders in recent recent years for selling public assets and companies they have nationalized to buddies of theirs at massively discounted prices, beginning with the RBS.

> nationalized to buddies of theirs at massively discounted prices, beginning with the RBS. What? I guess you have much evidence.

Sold at a huge loss, certainly: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/rbs-share-sa...
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